However, there’s one big difference between the two: We enjoy being fooled by a magician. But when a politician tries to trick us we’re offended.
Sal DiCiccio is the David Copperfield of Phoenix politics … bold, brash and willing to bullshit people without blinking. DiCiccio is the maestro of misdirection and the master of misinformation.
DiCiccio’s latest strategy to defeat Mayor Stanton’s transportation tax not only stretches the truth, it rewrites reality. He’s telling voters they have a critical decision to make at the polls August 25th. Sal says: “This is about teachers or trains.” He continues by saying that just $1 billion of the $31 billion proposed tax would pay for 18,500 teachers. Sal wants us to believe our choice is between hiring more teachers or funding more trains as part of the proposal to extend the light rail system 42 more miles.
But there’s a big problem with that argument, because the City of Phoenix doesn’t fund education.
Sal isn’t stupid. He knows the city doesn’t provide funding for schools or teachers. He does, however, know how to fire up his voter base -- those who react to phony issues and silly sound bites. So while he may be invigorating the uninformed, he’s insulting the intelligence of the majority of voters who know better.
The Difference Between Day and Night
Because Sal’s sleight of hand skills are slipping, he’s also falling back on the oldest political trick in the book: Fearmongering!
DiCiccio has started cautioning us that Phoenix could turn into another Detroit. All that warning proves is that DiCiccio doesn’t know diddly squat about the demise of Detroit.
For decades Detroit was one of the country’s major manufacturing hubs. The core of the Motor City’s manufacturing was the automobile industry. When the economy hit a tailspin and people’s driving habits changed because of skyrocketing gasoline prices, competition from foreign car companies that manufactured cars with better gas mileage increased. Consequently, people who lived within the city limits either fled to the suburbs or migrated to other parts of the country to escape Detroit’s collapsing economy.
As a result, Detroit’s population sank like a stone … as did the city’s revenues to keep it running.
It would be difficult to find two cities with less in common than Detroit, Michigan and Phoenix, Arizona. But that hasn’t stopped Sal from trying to spook people about an impending financial implosion of Phoenix, no matter how farfetched his admonition.
Only yesterday DiCiccio pleaded with constituents: “Let’s not take the City of Phoenix down the same tracks as Detroit.” Original Post:Phoenix Views
