Mormons Archives - Rogue Columnist

Go Goddard?

Terry Goddard is a good man. He was a popular and effective Phoenix mayor, and after failing to achieve the governor's office in the '90s came back to become the best attorney general in the state's history. Among his top achievements has been going after the wire transfer companies that are enabling the smuggling of people, drugs and guns. He's also knocked off some of the rough edges he was said to possess as mayor and, I would assume, collected lots of political IOUs. For all these reasons, I wonder if he should run for governor.

A Rasmussen poll showed Democrat Goddard only 9 points ahead of Gov. Jan Brewer and in virtually tied with Treasurer Dean Martin, his likely Republican opponents. Another survey indicated Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio as a huge favorite of Republican voters and, according to the Info Center, leading Goddard by 12 percentage points. It's unclear whether the Badged Ego will run.

This seems like madness, or, if the polls are accurate, the pulse of a madhouse. The Republicans have wrecked Arizona through their policies and set it on a collision course with a very nasty future. The party's cruel, spiteful behavior is epitomized by Arpaio and detailed in the brutal budget cuts of the Kookocracy Legislature. Brewer and Martin are empty suits. Arpaio probably won't run because the exposure of a statewide race might finally cause the mask to slip and leave him exposed as the calculating bully he is. Yet why would any of these clowns even be in contention against Goddard, a man of genuine accomplishments and a centrist one would hope represents the best of my home state and the hope for its future?

Jon Talton November 30, 200914

Phoenix Phoenix 101: History

Phoenix 101: Mesa

The Southern Pacific depot in downtown Mesa, circa 1963, when six passenger trains a day still served the station.

I got a rare treat in the mid-'60s for a poor kid from the 'hood: Getting to see Willie Mays play in a game of the Giants vs. the Dodgers. It was spring training and we drove to the little ballpark in Mesa. The game was great. Unfortunately, we were in the family 1959 Ford Galaxie, a source of never ending trouble and built, as my mother never tired of saying, during Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's tenure as Ford president. That night the only gear that would work was reverse — and we drove all the way home to Phoenix going backwards.

It's low-hanging fruit to grab this memory as a metaphor for what has happened to Arizona's third most populous city. A city so populous, indeed, that it is larger than St. Louis, Cincinnati, Minneapolis or Pittsburgh — and has nothing to show for it. No major university (an iffy branch of ASU miles from downtown doesn't count); no major corporate headquarters; no great museums; no magical neighborhoods. City Hall looks like a low-end office building. Even the area around the Arizona Temple, Mesa's one majestic asset, has been allowed to crater. The miles of enchanting citrus groves have almost all been bulldozed (and when I asked in 2006 if there was any preservation effort for the remainder, a top city official looked at me blankly).

It's a sad, and in many way surprising outcome. But operating by Arizona's rule of "when in a hole, keep digging," Mesa shows every sign of continuing the practices that got it in what is a morass even by Phoenix standards. The Cubs are playing the city for fools, threatening to leave, shopping spring training sites around the area, including some on the rez. Mesa's response could be to plan an intimate ballpark downtown on the light-rail line. It would enhance critical mass for a walkable urban space that Mesa lacks. It would be much more pleasant that the newer spring-training parks with their endless parking lagoons amid dehumanizing sprawl. It would help prepare Mesa to prosper in the higher-cost energy future.

Not surprisingly, Mesa is scouting two sites in the middle of nowhere, but on the all mighty freeway. When in a hole, keep digging.

Jon Talton October 12, 20099

Phoenix Phoenix 101: History Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

Phoenix 101: Conservatives

Sen. Barry Goldwater, center, and Rep. John J. Rhodes, right, after the fateful showdown with President Nixon in 1974 when they told him he must resign.

Conservatism wasn't always synonymous with the Kookocracy. The political label has carried different meanings at different times through the state's history.

The Kooks down at the Capitol today would be anathema to the lions of the dawn of modern Arizona conservatism: John J. Rhodes, Paul Fannin and, especially, Barry Goldwater.

What later passed for Arizona conservatives could say, "Barry changed," when the senator criticized the religious right or the ban on gays in the military with his characteristic circumspection. No, he didn't. I had conversations with Rhodes late in his life — the House leader who, along with Goldwater and Republican Sen. Hugh Scott, told Richard Nixon he must resign the presidency. Rhodes was aghast at what the state Republicans had become.

Arizona conservative lions telling a disgraced president of their party it was time to go. Can you imagine John McCain or Jeff Flake showing such independence or integrity?

Jon Talton July 6, 20098

Phoenix Phoenix 101: History

Phoenix 101: The Mormons

The Arizona Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mesa.

Growing up in Arizona, I found the Mormons neither strange nor mysterious, much less threatening. They were part of the wonderful mosaic of a state still tasting of the frontier, before it had been overrun by immigrants from the Midwest and miles of lookalike crapola subdivisions.

We had a Book of Mormon in our library, more a testament to my mother's insatiable curiosity than any desire to convert. My great-grandparents were among the first non-LDS farmers to settle near Mesa, and Grandmother reveled in telling the story about how the Saints pestered them to convert and "seal" their marriage in the temple, much to the horror of these former Presbyterian missionaries. But it was a story told gently and with affection for all.

The Mormons were revered among the great Arizona pioneers. They were known for their generosity, including to "gentiles," something our family experienced. Mormons were hard-working, reliable, self-reliant, patrons of education and the arts. Mesa in those days was a beautiful small city, a monument to the energy and far-sightedness of its LDS founders. We would regularly drive down neat and prosperous Main Street to see the beautiful Arizona Temple. The Mormon kids with whom I went to high school were among the most talented in one of the country's top high-school fine arts program.

The Mormons were also powerful. That was clear even at an early age.

Jon Talton June 23, 200915