Super Tuesday Preview

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We look at Tuesday’s potential for presidential candidates, as voters visit the polls in more than 20 states. Cronkite/Eight Poll Director Bruce Merrill joins us to offer his insight.

Ted Simons:
Tonight on "Horizon" Tsunami Tuesday is one way to put it. A look ahead at the primary elections tomorrow in Arizona and in more than 20 other states. The return of our insider look at issues bubbling up in the state legislature. One-on-one. A look back at the valley's hosting of the super bowl. That's next on "Horizon."
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Ted Simons:
Good evening. I'm Ted Simons. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are locked in a statistical dead heat nationwide going into tomorrow night's super Tuesday Primary according to a new "USA Today" gallop poll. On the republican side, according to the same poll, John McCain appears to have a substantial lead over his nearest rival mitt Romney. Joining me now to talk about the road to Super Tuesday and what we might expect tomorrow, the director of the Cronkite/eight poll, Bruce Merrill. Good to see you. McCain headed for a big night?
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Bruce Merrill:
I think he is. You have to be careful of the national polls. The only polls that count are state by state by state. In other words, that's where you get your delegates. f you look at those important states, the large states, McCain is leading by sometimes double-digit figures in those big states. I think the other thing to keep in mind is that the republicans have a win-or-take-all kind of a system so that whoever wins those states gets all the delegates. I think he'll come up with enough to having this being wrapped up or be so close to wrapping it up that everything else is a formality.
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Ted Simons:
Has John McCain won this thing? Is he gaining ground because of what is he is doing? Or is Mitt Romney just simply losing steam?
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Bruce Merrill:
I think it's mostly what McCain has done but some of the other candidates weren't as strong and have fallen by the wayside. I think it goes back to a couple of really key things. Number one, remember McCain came out very strong at first, raised $25 million, then was broke and looked like his career was frankly over. What he did, I think, shows the kind of character he has. He said, you know what? I made a mistake. And I'm going back to be the real John McCain. He came out and tried to be kind of the insider conservative candidate. It didn't work. He needs to be john McCain. He needs to tell it like it is, take on people. Stand up for the issues that he believes in, and since he's done that, since the middle of last summer, he's gotten stronger and stronger every week. So I think that -- I just think it's -- that he's made a lot better decisions. His campaign is much more focused and pointed in the right direction.
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Ted Simons:
Is he winning over conservatives? Especially here in Arizona? Because a lot of Arizona conservatives have a long history with John McCain, not necessarily the best history. Are they winning him -- is he winning them over? Or are they going to sit this one out?
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Bruce Merrill:
A lot of the right wing social conservatives, I think will till be more interested in someone like Romney or Huckabee, but once it's clear that he's going to be a winner, they're going to come over very quickly, because they only have two choices. One, you've pointed out. They can sit the election out. The other one is to say, we have to be on the side of the winner. A lot, Ted, depends on who the democratic candidate is if it's Hillary Clinton, I think you'll see the conservatives back in with both feet, anyone but Hillary I think once john gets the nomination, I think he'll be able to solidify the vote pretty well.
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Ted Simons:
Huckabee voters, if and when Huckabee goes out, I guess they can take it to the convention to be a broker there to some extent. If this is his last hurrah tomorrow where do they go? Huckabee voters?
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Bruce Merrill:
They'll probably split some with McCain, if Romney is still in, some with Romney. Although the key thing that's interesting with Romney is i think he's not spending the kind of money in some of the key states that a lot of people thought which indicates to me that he's not at all sure that he wants to make the investment if he can't win. And so i think the Huckabee people really along with the Romney people once it's clear that McCain is going to win will jump behind him. And keep in mind, Ted, there's no question in my mind that senator McCain is by far the strongest candidate to run against Obama or Hillary Clinton once the general election comes, because he's demonstrated his ability to pull Democrats and Independents over to the republican side.
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Ted Simons:
If he's the candidate Democrats are most afraid of, who is the candidate that Republicans are most afraid of?
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Bruce Merrill:
I think Obama, clearly. I think with Hillary's high negative numbers, they can really run a campaign very strongly pushing her far to the left as kind of an extreme social liberal. Anyone but Hillary will be kind of their theme song. But Obama would be very tough for McCain to run against, largely because he doesn't have any baggage. He's very young. He's dynamic. He's the one that could really take advantage of all of the anti-bush, anti-republican sentiment out there.
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Ted Simons:
Now, and those qualities, of course, going into the nominating process as well gaining ground, it seems, a lot on senator Clinton. What are you seeing here in Arizona on the democratic side? What are you seeing nationwide?
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Bruce Merrill:
That's happening here is happening nationwide, I think. She had a sizable lead early. Even in our poll a couple of months ago, she had an 18-point lead, a pretty sizable lead. I think that's closing rather quickly. I think Obama got a lot of momentum coming out of South Carolina winning as big as he did and everything and I just think that what is happening with the senator is he's such a wonderful media candidate, mean this idea of being young and dynamic -- I've had people come up to me and say, i heard him speak and I want to go work for him. So I think he'd be really, really -- a very is very tough candidate.
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Ted Simons:
Is President Clinton helping or hurting Senator Clinton? I think that remains to be seen --
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Bruce Merrill:
I think that remains to be seen. I'm not sure it hurt as some people said although the Clintons must think it hurt because you don't see bill doing that anymore. They really clamped down him. But it did bring attention to the campaign for Hillary Clinton. But i don't think you're going to see very much of that the rest of the way.
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Ted Simons:
The Democrats -- again, it's not winner take all for the Democrats, it's all proportionate. Unless you have a big knock-out win, not a heck of a lot will be decided tomorrow.
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Bruce Merrill:
It won't be decided by any means tomorrow. The democrats do have the proportional representation kind thing. Even in the large states like California, it's razor thin. I mean in almost every state that I've looked at, it's within sampling error. It's that even. That's the key thing. It really depends on turnout on election day. That's one thing, Ted, the pollsters can't really measure.
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Ted Simons:
It's interesting as well it seems as though both sides, you talk about this issue and ad issue but it looks like elect ability now is becoming the big issue.
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Bruce Merrill:
I think it is. I think McCain -- that's one reason he's become stronger. We're at war. Terrorism. He's the only guy out there that could step in and be the commander-in-chief. And he looks like the commander-in-chief. He kind of acts like the commander-in-chief. So I think that that's very important, although i think he's going to have to strengthen his views on the economy and make sure that he communicates to the public what his view is. The economy is fastly replacing Iraq and terrorism as the major issue.
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Ted Simons:
He can no longer do what did he a couple of weeks ago and say, "I'm not all that up on the economy."
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Bruce Merrill:
Remember what happened as George Bush sr.? The economy-stupid? That could be the issue this time.
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Ted Simons:
What do you think tomorrow? You think it's obviously McCain? What do you think on the democratic side?
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Bruce Merrill:
Here in Arizona?
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Ted Simons
Yes.
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Bruce Merrill:
I think Hillary should win. I wouldn't be surprised if Obama did.
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Ted Simons:
Good to see you, Bruce.
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Bruce Merrill:
Thank you.
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Ted Simons:
We return tonight to a regular Monday feature focusing on issues that are of concern to those watching the legislature. Tonight, house republican spokesman Barrett Marson goes head-to-head with John Loredo of Tequida and Gutierrez.
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John Loredo:
We've never seen these types of crowds come out for political events before. Never, never saw anything like this. Lots of crowds. A lot of people coming to the ballot. The war is a huge issue for a lot of young people. It'll drive 'em out stronger than we've seen since the Vietnam war.
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Barrett Marson:
You know, while the democrats are coming here, they're campaigning, the state has been bereft of almost any campaign event for a republican it appears really the republicans conceded this state to John McCain. There's dissatisfaction among some conservatives. Apparently john McCain, pro-life, anti-gay marriage and pro-national security, strong advocate of national security and a great war hero isn't conservative enough. I don't really understand that all the time. It's a couple of bills he's sponsored. Some have become law. Conservatives aren't all that happy with those. It's really taken them and has brought great anger amongst those people although he gets 80's and 90's among several of the groups he's very pro-second amendment and very much pro-life. It's hard to understand why some conservatives are that much against John McCain. But, Mitt Romney isn't able to capitalize on that here, neither is Huckabee or any other candidate. They've pretty much left this state to John McCain.
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John Loredo:
It appears that he's made a -- he's come the-back kid of the year. He started out strong. Kind of took a dip when the other candidates started jumping in. Thompson was supposed to, you know, make a big hit. He just fizzled out before he even started. And now back to McCain. So it is really interesting to -- you always hear about how he's not conservative enough. But he seems to be doing pretty good all over the country.
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Barrett Marson:
And those core fiscal issues, I mean, there's nobody more stellar on the core fiscal issues than McCain. He votes against budgets. He doesn't take earmarks. Those are, you know, hallmarks of a good conservative and still people aren't happy with him. While everyone else conceded in Arizona, just today, he was in Boston, mitt Romney's home turf, and he was campaigning pretty hard there. So he's challenging mitt Romney. He's trying to show that he'll run a national campaign.
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John Loredo:
He's got a good shot at really taking a huge lead tomorrow in Super Tuesday. So much so that it'll be pretty much impossible for anyone to mount a legitimate comeback after -- if he takes a substantial amount of the vote.
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Barrett Marson:
You know, one thing about tomorrow and we have delegates both, each of the parties has their own delegates. They have, to a certain extent, their own rules. One thing state law says is that the delegates, when they go to the convention, must vote for the candidate that best represents the will of the voters but it doesn't mean that they have to actually vote for the person who won. So if McCain wins tomorrow, it's a great victory, doesn't mean all the delegates have to then go to the convention and support McCain . I believe back in '96 it was, when one person cast a vote for Phil Gramm --
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John Loredo:
Sure.
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Barrett Marson:
And then it's a little -- it's a little different that way.
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John Loredo:
I think on the democratic side, you have a race that could very well run into March and if that happens -- I would imagine that sometime after tomorrow, you'll start seeing John Edwards come out and endorse. You'll see bill Richardson come out and endorse. I think the reality of a convention of which the nominees actually pick their -- it's just not something people really want to have happen. I think you'll probably see a lot of endorsements come through and hopefully swing it one way or the other.
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Barrett Marson:
You know the -- um, one of the bigger surprises to me in the whole presidential election is the amount of money that Ron Paul has received. In the last quarter, he received $20 million. I don't know who these people are that are giving to Ron Paul, but I wish they'd come to Arizona and help us solve our budget crisis, because clearly they have money to spend any which way they want. And Arizona could really use that money right now. We're about $1 billion in the hole just for the current fiscal year. Maybe about $1.7 billion, if we don't do much this year for the next fiscal year. Sure. And, you know, unfortunately, there's not a grand desire from the executive or from the democrats to fix the problem. There's a desire to delay the problem.
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John Loredo:
But I think -- I mean, the governor already has her budget proposal out there. I mean, she's already got a plan to fix the budget crisis and the republicans -- i mean it appears -- you've got kind of blowups in the committees. You've got Russell Pearce is going to unveil his master plan that will fall flat on the ground and behind scenes, the leaders are doing something else.
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Barrett Marson:
That's all inside. What you're really seeing from the governor's budget is beg, borrow and steal. I get tired of hearing it's like buying a home. No one in Arizona buys a home every single year. School construction is something we'll do for the foreseeable future. As long as people come to Arizona, we'll be borrowing for schools. At some point, it'll cost more to pay the debt service on these schools than it will to actually build the schools. That's the problem.
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John Loredo:
Right now is the perfect time to revenue bond. This is the time when you should be revenue bonding, because the rates are so very low. I mean, they've not been this low in decades so right now is the time -- and one more thing, if you simply do what Russell Pierce wants to do and do a moratorium on school construction, that's not addressing the problem that really is putting it off until next time. If you revenue bonded and you build those schools, you're pumping money into the economy, those schools have to get built by somebody. Throws jobs, contractors, subcontractors. Now is the perfect time to borrow at low rates and put money into the economy to kick start it.
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Barrett Marson: T
he problem is, for most Democrats that desire to bond never ends, even when the state was flushed with cash. The governor still proposed bonding to spend that money in other areas.
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John Loredo:
And the republicans came was not brilliant idea of lease purchasing mobile homes to teach kids in and that was a ridiculous idea. So you either build permanent schools for the kids to go or put it off. That's the Republican plan. To turn your book it and ignore it.
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Barrett Marson:
Part of the problem with the democrat plan is -- or the governor's plan, beg, borrow steal. It's pretty much, smile, you're on Janet-cam. She wants to put 100 cameras on the -- on our state highways. Do you know how many drivers have to get tickets to reach the $90 million revenue number? That's 4 million drivers. That's one ticket for the -- for every single licensed driver. If you don't get a ticket, someone else has to get two.
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John Loredo:
Only if they break the law. I mean, there's an easy solution here. Don't break the law.
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>> Don't break the law.
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>> Don't break the law.
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Barrett Marson:
You know what the problem is that if they don't break the law, the state can't reach the budget. The state can't be relying on speed cameras to balance our budget. That's the problem.
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John Loredo:
That's exactly why we should revenue bond for school construction at the lowest rate in modern history.
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Barrett Marson:
But the governor wants to do --
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>> He has to do both to balance the budget.
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John Loredo:
If you're clearing looking at the photo camera issue as a budget issue, then we can go back-and-forth but the reality is a study came out last week or the week before about the cameras on the loop. They have directly led to lower speeding, lower speeding, less accidents and more lives saved in that loop. So from a public safety standpoint, it's pretty hard to argue against, because it is affected.
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Barrett Marson:
John, I will gladly give you that point that they bring speeds down but we shouldn't be using them as a way to balance the state budget and that's the problem.
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John Loredo:
Why is -- which is why we should revenue bonds.
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Ted Simons:
For the next super bowl in Arizona, it'll be 2012. That's the speculation now as the valley recovers from a hugely successful super bowl xlii in Glendale. Joining me to talk about that and some of the high points of last week's experience, the chairman of the Arizona Super Bowl host committee, Michael Kennedy. Good to see you again. Do you have your breath in? Are you all settled?
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Michael Kennedy:
I don't know about settled in. I have my breath.
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Ted Simons:
By all accounts, it's a hard surge. Sounds like everything went pretty well.
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Michael Kennedy:
As the precincts have been reporting today -- I've been holding my breath waiting for something to surface but nothing serious has percolated. I think by every measuring stick, things went really, really, really well.
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Ted Simons:
Compare and contrast the last super bowl which was a success to this one which really seemed like a success.
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Michael Kennedy:
Well, obviously different venue. The stadium makes a huge difference. And the area available around the stadium too. But, you know, the economic impact in 1996 was just over 300 million dollars. The experience numbers in 1996 long stood as a record for attendance at the NFL experience. I'm going to be really interested to see what happened over this past weekend at the NFL experience, but i don't think there's any doubt that it's a larger enterprise. It is a huge enterprise. And kind of the discussion point of the last couple of days is maybe over 12 years, we'd forgotten how big the super bowl is and that there are other events in the valley and maybe we began to equate those to the super bowl, but not really. Once the super bowl's back, you're really reminded of its enormity.
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Ted Simons:
As far as security concerns, things like counterfeiting, those sorts problems, what have you heard? And anything standing out?
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Michael Kennedy:
No, that's -- that was part of our planning. And there was -- we had teams out to confiscate materials. That's pretty much anticipated by the NFL. They handled that -- local lawyers -- actually lawyers at Gallagher and Kennedy. That's part of the planning and being prepared to respond to that.
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Ted Simons:
So whatever incidents there were, nothing out of the ordinary as far as the NFL is concerned?
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Michael Kennedy:
No. Not at all. In fact, maybe even a little less than they'd experienced at some other venues.
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Ted Simons:
From what you've heard so far and again, it's early, but from what you've heard, how'd the NFL respond?
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Michael Kennedy:
The, um, i just know what they've told us. The commissioner, Commissioner Goodell, A-plus, downed say to me in the last couple of weeks saying my staff is saying everything is in order and in place. I asked if he had concerns. He said, no. Nothing to help with. I think we dazzled the staff. I think that things like spike that they hadn't seen before at other venues, the way we reached out into the community. 23,000 youth attended football clinics. 8,000 volunteers in part attracted by spike. I think that they feel very comfortable that they have now an experienced partner that they're going to look to have some future super bowls here in Arizona.
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Ted Simons:
Let's talk about future super bowls in Arizona. What's the plan here as far as getting all this hoo-haa back in town?
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Michael Kennedy:
We need to do it. We've been make nothing secret in the fact we want to be in the super bowl business. We've made that clear to the NFL staff and to the owners. A bid for 2012 is due April 1. Our approach as a host committee has been in the last month or so we couldn't afford to be distracted by planning for submission of a bid. No decision has been made. I expect that will be -- a decision will be made within the next week or 10 days as to whether or not to gear up and submit a bid. It would seem to me it's likely we would do that, but there are a number of different factors including the fact that New Orleans has apparently decided that they want to enter the competition for 2012. But I'm very, very optimistic for 2012-2013. This isn't - I don't think we're headed towards a formal rotation and i think this past week, we've solidified our relationships such that they will be returning.
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Ted Simons:
Why not a formal rotation? Seems like Arizona does it well. San Diego, Miami all do it pretty well. New Orleans does it really well. Does Indianapolis and Detroit need to be in the rotation?
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Michael Kennedy:
There's one reason Indianapolis and Detroit are in that rotation in that there will be other cold weather cities in the rotation and that is that the lure of a super bowl is used by clubs to generate a response, public response, private support for new stadium. It's one of the rewards. It's not written down anywhere, as I understand it, at least I've never seen it written, but you could look back and look back at the NFL and see with a new stadium typically will come a super bowl. We have to consider New York which is coming on line with a stadium. Actually I think San Diego probably so the outs right now. They're maybe occupying the seat we had between 1996 and building a new stadium. I think they've gotten the message the NFL won't be back until they have a new stadium.
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Ted Simons:
Interesting. If there were one thing you could change throughout the week, throughout the entire process up until right now, what would it be?
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Michael Kennedy:
I think to remain competitive, we are going to have to come up with more public funding to host the event. The cost for hosting the event is about $17 million. The primary responsibility for that this time around rested with the private sector, About 13 of the 17 million dollars. The price of this is a very coveted right, the ability to host the super bowl. The price is going to continue to escalate. And I think that Texas has in place a mechanism to generate public funding. If we're going to stay competitive, we're going to have to do that to where if we need $20 million, say $12 million or $13 million comes out of the public sector -- that's not to say that the private sector wouldn't participate but maybe invert that ratio.
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Ted Simons:
To tell someone who got tired of the football in some areas of the town, how do you convince them the super bowl is really a good thing?
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Michael Kennedy:
We have to look at the numbers. First, I think we'll have half a billion dollars in economic impact. That's a heck of a return on investment of $17 million. There's going to be -- there were 1 billion viewers. We already know that preliminary returns are that it's the most watched super bowl of all time that we had here and pretty interesting, Ted, in 2003 as we were bidding for super bowl xlii, it wasn't on anyone's mind that we would need the Super Bowl to kind of jump start our Arizona economy. So it's -- you want to stay in the mix so you have these opportunities and you're poised to partner with the NFL when a super bowl is available.
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Ted Simons:
Well, it seems from a distance that all things were fantastic.The game itself was fantastic. And I can't believe you're still standing after this past week. You must be a very, very happy but somewhat exhausted man.
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Michael Kennedy:
We had a great staff. Bob Sullivan and his staff made things happen. I couldn't be more proud of our community and the way Arizona responded.
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Ted Simons:
Mike, thank you very much and congratulations.
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Michael Kennedy:
Thank you, Ted.
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Ted Simons:
Arizona held its preference as part of Super Tuesday on a special one-hour "Horizon" political analysts join me to talk about the contest and the numbers. That's Tuesday on "Horizon." That's it for now. I'm Ted Simons. Thank you so much for joining us. You have a great evening.

Bruce Merrill:Director, Cronkite-Eight Poll;Barrett Marson:House Republican Spokesman ;John Loredo:Tequida and Gutierrez;

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