Artists, Voters Fair wrongly portrayed by Times columnist
Published October 15, 2004
Re: Parties preach to choir, Oct. 8:
The media has for a long while been under attack. And this article may explain one of the reasons why. Rather than fitting the story to the facts, Susan Thurston chose to fit the facts to the story. And the story she wanted to tell us is "how polarized people get when it comes to politics." She continued, "truth is, (the Artists and Voters Fair) was pretty much enemy territory, given that the organizers, Juan and Yvonne Capin and David Audet, made no secret of their support for Sen. John Kerry."
True. The three of us are active supporters of Kerry. What Ms. Thurston failed to say is that this year, my wife, Yvonne, and I made a money contribution to a local Republican candidate. And four years ago we actively worked to elect a Republican. Now I fear that my Republican friend might not want to associate with me, it may appear as fraternizing with the "enemy."
The article continues, "How much more effective the fair would have been if representatives from both major parties had participated." They did. We had candidates, not only from the Democratic Party, but also from the Libertarian, Socialist and, yes, from the Republican Party, as well as non-partisan and write-in candidates.
It was the Republican Party that was missing. And, as for their claim that they "would have come if invited," I can only assume that this is nothing more than a self-serving lie. They were invited; more than once.
Ms. Thurston states "speaking to the choir is the easy and safe approach. But it's not good enough and probably won't win the election."
Maybe Ms. Thurston is right. But our purpose was a much broader one. Getting people involved in the political process was one of our goals. For example, one of Betty Castor's representatives told me how pleased he was because they had signed up many volunteers to help in her campaign. That goal, getting voters involved, was accomplished.
But worse than the snub by the Republican Party was the snub the Artists and Voters Fair received from our local institutions. The Supervisor of Elections has money allocated for voter registration. Nonetheless, Creative Active People offered this event to them at no cost to the taxpayers. And then, the day before the event, we received an e-mail saying that, in spite of our prior agreement, their participation would be limited. We can only say we were deeply disappointed.
Likewise, the local media was notified well in advance. What the two major local newspapers chose to feature in their weekend sections was an exhibit of Barbie Dolls, while the Artists and Voters Fair received a polite mention.
We are not complaining. We are simply stating the facts as we see them. The Artists and Voters Fair was, from our perspective, a great success. We achieved most of our goals. We sponsored the Artists and Voters project with money, and an army of artists gave hundreds of hours. The question is: Are the institutions here willing to embrace it?
-- Juan Capin
[Last modified October 14, 2004, 13:59:20]
