Rose has worked hard to earn a reputation as a straight-talking, political-bomb-lobbing public-relations go-to guy -- especially in times of crisis.
But he might be the one with the crisis now.
The Arizona Guardian Web site's Winged One recently had a straight-talking piece of its own describing the Valley's "wilting Rose" recently losing his "business partners, employees and possibly his place in Arizona politics."
Painful. But Rose has no doubt developed thickest of skins playing politics the way he has over the years. He's certainly not gonna run home crying to his mommy over the Guardian's analysis.
"If you throw punches, you better be able to take them," Rose said, adding that he vehemently, but respectfully disagree with the Guardian. He said members of his firm dishe out plenty, but in the end, are "passionate, creative advocates" for their clients. He said he doesn't apologize for that at all.
Read the Winged One's column at the end of this blog.
It's not like Rose is finished with politicians.
As the Winged One pointed out, there's still John Huppenthal.
And with Grant Woods announcing that he isn't running for mayor of Phoenix, Rose can focus on working with Phoenix Councilman Claude Mattox, who is chomping at the bit to be Phoenix's next mayor.
While it's a non-partisan mayoral race, Rose best speaks Republican. Does that mean he is going to try to transform Mattox, a guitar-playing rocker who voted for a $97 million CityNorth subsidy, from a RINO into an elephant?
Hmm. If Rose can pull that off, he should win a Nobel prize in genetics.
| www.arizonaguardian.com |
From the Winged One*
"... A Wilting Rose: The Winged One can only assume that Scottsdale's most notorious political public relations guy, Jason Rose, wasn't content to just lose campaigns this year.
Apparently, he's losing business partners, employees and possibly his place in Arizona politics.
Rose has suffered a string of political defeats this year and recently his longtime sidekick and business partner Stacy Pearson bailed out of Republican-leaning Rose & Allyn and is now working for a Democrat (she's flacking for Secretary of State candidate Chris Deschene). Pearson says it was time to move on and called it an amicable split. Sure, the Winged One's heard it all before. She probably also wanted to spend more time with the family. Right?
As with most things in politics, there's probably more there than what meets the eye. But Pearson wasn't the only worker to jump ship. Jim Sharp left earlier this year and has since returned to his roots as a radio host. Insiders might recall Sharp was the star of Roses' tepid faux news show "The Burgundy" in which Sharp talked smack about local politicos while doing a less than stellar impersonation of Ron Burgundy, a fictional character in the movie Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
But heck, everyone knows people come and go in the rough and tumble world of political PR.
So a couple of personnel losses shouldn't be much to worry about. But Rose's record on campaigns this year has the Winged One a little concerned. It's just terrible.
Here's a quick recap. Rose quits in the middle of J.D. Hayworth's dog of a campaign for U.S. Senate because the former sportscaster wasn't paying enough. Republican congressional candidate Paul Gosar booted Rose off the campaign team before moving on to win his primary in Arizona's 1st Congressional District. And Rose watched as his role on Vernon Parker's unsuccessful campaign for Congress diminish to the point where he was almost invisible. Then, of course, Rose took a big hit in the state attorney general's race when one of his political blue-chip players Andy Thomas lost to Tom Horne, a former Democrat who was issued a lifetime ban from trading stocks by the SEC.
Just when things were looking really bad, Sheriff Joe Arpaio gets hit with a major bombshell this week by one of his top commander calling for an investigation into some of the department's top brass. Both Thomas and Arpaio have been good business for Rose over the years as he's parlayed his connections with them into other paying political gigs.
But without them, whom does he have? Well, there is John Huppenthal who appears to be in line to become the next state super of public instruction. But besides that, he won't have much. And has the Winged One's wondering if Rose is starting to become irrelevant."
[*This version of the Winged One's take on Rose was published on Friday. The Guardian plans to publish an updated column, complete with Rose's comments, in the next couple days.]
