Jan Brewer Tongue-Tied, Loses Way in Arizona Governor Debate
Tom Diemer
Correspondent
Posted:
09/3/10
Let's see now, where was I? Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's halting, jumbled, grinning (inappropriately) performance in her televised debate with Democrat Terry Goddard almost made a viewer want to look away in embarrassment -- for her.
It was as if Brewer was winging it -- unprepared and lost for words in her opening statement for the first gubernatorial debate Wednesday night against Goddard, the Arizona attorney general. Her remarks at the outset of the event in Phoenix were marked by long pauses, downward looks, little chuckles, banalities and wide smiles. Click play below to watch a Chris Matthews segment on Brewer's remarks:
Some samples: "I have done so much. . . . We have done everything we could possibly do. . . . I just cannot believe that we have changed everything since I have become your governor in the last 600 days. . . . We have did what was right for Arizona. . . . We have pushed back hard against the federal government."
Brewer, in her first term, got national attention when she signed Arizona's tough immigration law and then defended it vigorously against criticism from civil rights advocates, Hispanic activists and President Obama.
After the debate, she wouldn't answer when reporters pressed her to respond to Goddard's charge that Brewer had falsely claimed that Arizona had become, as Goddard put it, "a place of fear, and we have beheadings in the desert." Asked if she would take back the beheading claim, Brewer changed the subject. Asked again, she stood silently for several seconds and then walked away -- saying "Thank you all" -- from the clutch of reporters.
Later, speaking to KTAR radio, Brewer said of her performance, "it certainly was the longest 16 seconds of my life. But I'm human."
It was as if Brewer was winging it -- unprepared and lost for words in her opening statement for the first gubernatorial debate Wednesday night against Goddard, the Arizona attorney general. Her remarks at the outset of the event in Phoenix were marked by long pauses, downward looks, little chuckles, banalities and wide smiles. Click play below to watch a Chris Matthews segment on Brewer's remarks:
Some samples: "I have done so much. . . . We have done everything we could possibly do. . . . I just cannot believe that we have changed everything since I have become your governor in the last 600 days. . . . We have did what was right for Arizona. . . . We have pushed back hard against the federal government."
Brewer, in her first term, got national attention when she signed Arizona's tough immigration law and then defended it vigorously against criticism from civil rights advocates, Hispanic activists and President Obama.
After the debate, she wouldn't answer when reporters pressed her to respond to Goddard's charge that Brewer had falsely claimed that Arizona had become, as Goddard put it, "a place of fear, and we have beheadings in the desert." Asked if she would take back the beheading claim, Brewer changed the subject. Asked again, she stood silently for several seconds and then walked away -- saying "Thank you all" -- from the clutch of reporters.
Later, speaking to KTAR radio, Brewer said of her performance, "it certainly was the longest 16 seconds of my life. But I'm human."