Phoenix is in the running for the 2010 GOP convention
The Republican National Committee said Monday that its short list for the 2012 convention includes Phoenix, Tampa and Salt Lake City.
Phoenix-area political and tourism leaders have been trying to attract either the GOP or Democratic national conventions downtown that summer. They are promoting the Metro light rail system as well as the region’s hotels and resorts and downtown venues including US Airways Center and the Phoenix Convention Center. Arizona is the home state of U.S. Sen. John McCain, who lost his 2008 presidential bid but won the state.
The potential fits in well with PHXated’s contention that the Democrats view Arizona as a key swing state in 2010. McCain did win the state in 2008, but with but 54 percent of the vote, a somewhat anemic showing for a favorite son and a moderate.
3:49 PM
The Giffords race
The Republic analyzes:
“Giffords will have to use all of her considerable campaign-trail talents to defend her votes for the stimulus package and the health-care and energy bills in a district that has a track record supporting ‘middle of the road’ candidates,” wrote analyst David Wasserman for the “Cook Political Report.”
Giffords, whose 8th Congressional District encompasses parts of Tucson and communities in Arizona’s southeastern corner, voted with the president 90 percent of the time last year, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan publication Congressional Quarterly.
Although Democratic Reps. Harry Mitchell and Ann Kirkpatrick also are considered vulnerable, they are less closely identified with Obama at a time when his priorities have been losing support in public-opinion polls and at the ballot box.
The paper notes at the end of the story that she has $1.6 million on hand.
4:20 PM
More on the Marquee-Hoodlums ticket-fee war
The Republic and the New Times are catching up on the stand Tempe’s Hoodlums record store has taken against Lucky Man Productions, which operates the Marquee rock club. The store, which collected a reasonable $1 for each ticket it sold for Marquee shows, balked when Lucky Man tried to add on an additional $3.
The store’s blistering original statement post here. PHXated’s December story on it here.
The Republic story is here, with a consistent statement from Hoodlum’s co-owner Steve Wiley:
Wiley […] stresses he’s not on an anti-Marquee crusade.
“It’s not a personal thing,” he says. “We’ve had a great relationship with those guys at the Marquee for many years. I’m not against service fees. We charge a one-dollar service fee for carrying the tickets at our store, and everyone is fine with that. But if the Marquee or whoever needs to charge $28 in order to make ends meet, then I’m a businessperson, I don’t have a problem with that. Just make it $28 dollars. But don’t put $25 on the tickets and the Web site and then expect me to collect an extra $3 for you.”
New Times blog post on the issue by Martin Cizmar is here. Besides being late and misinformed, it’s about a tenth as good as the Republic story, which is a little embarrassing.
PHXated’s previous posts on the outlandish ticket fees charged by the Marquee are here.
8:00 PM
A George Kuchar documentary's Phoenix premiere ...
… is screening at ASU West on Saturday. Kuchar has been an underground filmmaker for nearly 40 years from his perch at the SF Art Institute; It Came From Kuchar is a profile of the director and his twin brother, a sometime collaborator, by director Jennifer Kroot.
Here’s a bit of Variety’s review of it:
“It Came From Kuchar” gleefully piles on everything anyone could want in a docu on the fabulous Kuchar brothers, whose deliriously campy zero-budget mellers — with titles like “Hold Me While I’m Naked” or “Sins of the Fleshapoids” — enlivened many otherwise somber evenings of ‘60s underground cinema. Critics and aficionados seek to distill the essence of the twins’ work, while clips from the films in question unspool in a fever dream of compelling non sequiturs. Meanwhile, George and Mike Kuchar themselves hold forth unstoppably. A must-see for filmmakers of all persuasions …
(A “meller” is a melodrama in Varietyspeak.)
No Festival Required, the local independent film group, has Kuchar himself on hand after, to screen some of his work and answer questions.
And it’s free!
The “George Kuchar Film Symposium” is on Saturday February 6, 2010, at 5 p.m. in the Kiva Lecture Room of the Sands Building at ASU West.
ASU West is south of Thunderbird and west of 43rd Ave. A campus map is here. The Sands building is in the middle of the campus.
Details from NFR here.
4:49 AM