I don’t know how U.S. relations with the Dominican Republic have survived the past 10 months. But we finally have a new ambassador to this Caribbean island nation: Robert Fannin of Phoenix.

Sen. Jon Kyl announced Friday that Fannin was confirmed to the post by the U.S. Senate. So this lawyer, longtime lobbyist, Republican fund-raiser and native son of a former U.S. senator finally gets a chance to dip his toes in the warm seas and enjoy the friendly climate of the D.R. at taxpayers’ expense.

President Bush nominated Fannin as ambassador in January at the request of Kyl and Sen. John McCain, a reward for Fannin’s personal loyalty and work on behalf of the Republican Party (a tidbit you won’t find in any of the official news releases). Fannin chaired the state party for nearly four years, including the critical 2004 election that brought Bush a second term.

Fannin won the position largely on his track record of bringing in money for the state party and Republican candidates with top billing. While respected personally, his political skills were criticized because he was unable to prevent the state’s largest party from gradually splintering under the weight of several thorny issues including illegal immigration. Some people claimed his ineffective leadership contributed to the 2002 elections of Janet Napolitano as governor and Terry Goddard as attorney general. But much of that criticism has faded after Napolitano and Goddard won re-election with wide margins in 2006 (when Matt Salmon was party chairman).

Fannin’s career and educational background indicate he should be able to handle one of the State Department’s better assignments without starting an international incident.

I’m getting rather tired of the latest radio ad campaign by the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission. I’m sure you’ve heard this fake “man on the street” promotion that supposed to “educate” the public about  tax funding for state candidates.

“Let’s go talk to a waitress,” the announcer says. “Let’s hear from a lumberjack.” “What does this college student think?” The splits-second answers from the actors pretending to fill these everyday roles all boil down to “Clean Elections is great!”

The ads so poorly imitate true street interviews that the first time I heard one, I wanted to know if the commission’s PR firm really doesn’t recognize lousy acting or if ad was supposed to be sardonic and somewhat campy (It’s so bad, it’s good). I’ve decided it must be the latter, since the last two “interviews” are with a pirate (“Arrrggh” is all he has to say about giving tax dollars to candidates) and a mime. (Yes, she stays silent.)

So maybe the commission and its PR machine deserve a single point for cleverness. But I’m annoyed by the idea that the Clean Elections commission is spending hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to promote itself so shamelessly.

The 1998 initiative that created Arizona’s campaign public financing system says the commission must use up to 10 percent of its annual funding for voter education. The state agency does a few good things with this money, such as printing candidate publicity pamphlets for primary and general elections, and sponsoring debates in all statewide and legislative races.

But the Clean Election commission apparently has far more money available than it can spend on legitimate ways to help residents understand how public campaign funding works and how they might participate. So a large chunk of the “voter education” spending goes into generic, feel-good self-promotion, such as these “man on the street” radio ads.

The commission does this because of past efforts by critics of public campaign finances to undercut or repeal the 1998 law. That would put the commission out of business or render it largely meaningless. So the commission takes advantage of the excess funds on hand to essentially beg Arizonans to “please love us.”

We don’t know if this blatant image polishing has had much effect, since the critics have never managed to bring any of their proposals back to the voters. But only those people who care far more about preserving campaign public funding than frugal spending of tax dollars can justify such exasperating publicity.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by the overlord attitude displayed last week by the Tempe Historic Preservation Commission when its members objected to the proposed development project at the site of Monti’s La Casa Vieja.

Tempe spent decades largely ignoring or tearing down the symbols and foundations of the city’s early roots. Officials and activists have scrambled in recent years to protect what’s still around, but the time and expense involved has prompted them to try and impose their wishes on people and property the city doesn’t own or control.

The administration of Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman has sought to inject a little more respect for private property rights, but the instinct to dictate in glorious detail how others may use, or not use, their own land is deeply ingrained at city hall.

As Tribune writer Garin Groff reported Tuesday, restaurant owner Michael Monti and developer 3W Company want to build glass-and-steel mid-rises that would reach up to 300 feet tall at the southwest corner of Mill Avenue and Rio Salado Parkway. One building would hover over the restaurant, a one-story adobe building that started as the first home of city founder Charles Trumbull Hayden in 1871.Monti has explained his restaurant has lost its customer base and he’ll be out of business soon without big changes to compete with the modern architecture and atmosphere that most other Tempe eateries and hotspots offer. Past remodeling projects have left nothing on the outside that truly reflects the Hayden house. So the proposed development seeks to preserve the real history still on display, inside specific rooms of the restaurant.

Historic commission members blasted the project design last week. They want Monti and 3W to essentially keep the restaurant’s exterior as it is now and limited any new buildings to the parking lots and other grounds behind the adobe structure. Of course, that would substantially reduce the amount of development that can take place, since other issues prevent new buildings from rising any taller than 300 feet (and apparently even that’s too high for Phoenix officials concerned about a possible impact on Sky Harbor International Airport).The Tribune Editorial Board recently said the remnants of the Hayden house within Monti’s are so unique to Tempe’s history that it would make sense to disrupt development patterns and preserve the restaurant in manner similar to how it looks today. But the only proper way for Tempe to do that is for the city to buy out Monti and 3W at market rates, giving them a fair return on the investments they already have made.

If Tempe can’t afford, or is unwilling, to take ownership of the restaurant, then it should step aside and let Monti and 3W respond to the marketplace. Using the city’s police powers (or bureacratic red tape) to impose a vision that historic preservation is the best use of this property is a clear violation of personal freedom. The city would steal the time, sweat and money Monti and 3W already have invested toward the future of this private property. Such action would discourage other developers from taking the necessary investment risks to keep Tempe’s economy moving.

And forcing Michael Monti out of business can only hurt any attempt to preserve the restaurant building. Another property owner might have far less interest in Tempe history, and can simply raze the property to make way for a more economically viable use.

The historical commission can, and should, realize nothing of this historic landmark will last if
Tempe imposes inflexible standards that make it impossible for Monti’s to adapt to free-market forces.

Update: Tribune writer Hayley Ringle is reporting  that a Maricopa County Superior Court judge has agreed to allow the county supervisors to close the three Pappas schools at end of the school year. County Superintendent of Public Instruction Sandra Dowling plans to appeal that decision.

The Tribune Editorial Board received a few sharp comments in response to our Saturday editorial supporting a difficult decision by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to seek the closure of the three Pappas schools for homeless children in Phoenix and Tempe.

Perhaps the most stinging criticism came from reader Sue Adams:

“For the next three months, I challenge the entire editorial staff and all members of their respective families to live in the street, one car per family with only the possessions the can be loaded in that single vehicle. No cell phones, no video games, computers of any kind, no expensive ’survival gear,’ no credit cards, no debt cards, no gas cards, no ’store gift cards.’ And you can not be paid by the newspaper for this experiment – you’re all just out on the streets on your own.

Try letting your children sleep in your car for a few days, awaking without a nice bathroom to brush their teeth or take a shower before they go to school. No clean clothes and, by the end of the second week, little to no food. Let’s see how they do volumes of homework under street lights. Let’s see how their friends treat them when they’re wearing the same clothes on Friday that they wore on Monday. Let’s just see what they learn in a month. Let’s just see how their grades look at the end of the next report card period.” 

I appreciate Adams’ passion for the least fortunate among us. But I have to point out that any family living out of a vehicle for weeks at a time is teetering on the very edge of child neglect. Every public official that comes in contact with such families should be pushing to get them into a more stable housing situation, not essentially enabling the family to stay in the car by ameliorating the worst effects for the children (such as showers at school every single day.) This certainly shouldn’t be the justification for keeping the Pappas schools in operation when the funding isn’t available to support them.

Tim Johnson, a 5th grade teacher, at the Tempe Pappas Elementary School, raised questions about the comparison of Pappas students to other homeless students in Arizona:

Sen. Barack Obama has been a Democratic presidential candidate for months now. But he’s officially kicking off his Arizona campaign this week. On Monday, he announced the opening of offices in Phoenix and Tucson, the assignment of two people from his national campaign to Arizona, and the hiring of the state Democratic Party’s former political director. On Friday morning, he will appear at his first formal campaign rally in this state on Hayden Lawn at Arizona State University’s Tempe campus.

These moves come not a moment too soon. A new political poll from ASU’s Cronkite journalism school and KAET-TV (PBS) shows Obama getting crushed by Sen. Hillary Clinton among
Arizona voters who already are leaning heavily toward a candidate. We are talking 70 percent for
Clinton and only 18 percent for Obama.

Such numbers would drive most candidates to simply write off Arizona and focus elsewhere. But the same poll shows a huge number of Democrat voters (66 percent) don’t favor a candidate. Obama’s fund raising hasn’t been as strong as Clinton’s. But he has enough money to make play for Arizona’s large undecided pool and, if nothing else, force Clinton to work a little harder as well.

Meanwhile on the Republican side, Sen. John McCain has been enjoying a small resurgence, at least in the early primary states, since his campaign reached rock-bottom this summer. But his single-minded focus on a Iowa-New Hampshire-South Carolina-Michigan strategy means he could wind up losing his home state.

The ASU poll shows Mitt Romney has crept up right behind McCain among committed Republican voters, with 25 percent supporting Romney and 29 percent supporting McCain. That’s within the poll’s margin of error, and pollster Bruce Merrill always has said that means the two candidates are essentially tied.

The pool of undecided Republican candidates was even larger than the Democrats, with 81 percent saying they have no favorite. That’s more bad news for McCain, as Arizona Republicans know him well and a large number might be hoping someone else will prove to be a better choice as their party’s nominee for president.

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