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NAVARRETTE COLUMN

It’s time to check in on the Latino vote, which just a few months ago seemed up for grabs but now seems firmly in the hands of the Democrats.

Polls show Barack Obama leading John McCain by a 2-1 margin among Latino voters.

That’s no thanks to Obama, who – aside from joining McCain in addressing Latino advocacy groups this summer – hasn’t done much to reach out to the Latino electorate or tap into Latino grass-roots networks that could increase turnout.

If Obama is resonating with this demographic, the credit belongs to brand loyalty and how wedded Latinos feel to one brand in particular: the Democratic Party.

The question is whether Obama can dominate the vote tally among Latinos by a large enough margin that he keeps McCain to less than 35 percent of the Latino vote. That’s the magic number for the GOP.

Political observers note that Republicans who earn at least that percentage have a good chance of winning the White House.

Hessy Fernandez, McCain’s spokesperson for Latino media, recently said his campaign is aiming for 45 percent of the Latino vote. It’s not likely McCain will get that, but he can win the election with less.

Either way, the McCain campaign is going to have to ratchet up its game. Its Latino outreach has been as abysmal as those of the opposition.

Consider what happened at the Democratic and Republican conventions. The candidates’ acceptance speeches made only passing references to America’s largest minority or an issue that many care deeply about: immigration.

In Denver, Obama said he didn’t “know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.”

In St. Paul, McCain declared “everyone has something to contribute and deserves the opportunity to reach their god-given potential from the boy whose descendants arrived on the Mayflower to the Latina daughter of migrant workers.”

That’s all? The candidates will have to come up with more compelling material in these final weeks of the campaign when their attention will be focused on battleground states, a number of which have large Latino populations.

Surveys by Sergio Bendixen, who was Hillary Clinton’s Latino pollster, examined the preferences of Latinos in four of these states and found Obama leading McCain in three of them and tied with him in the fourth.

In Nevada, Obama was up among Latinos 62 percent to 20 percent. In New Mexico, he was leading 56 percent to 23 percent. In Colorado, it was 56 percent to 26 percent. And in Florida, the race was tied at 42 percent.

The problem with Bendixen’s figures is that his polls were taken in early to mid-August, before the party conventions, and before the candidates’ running mates were announced – that is, before Sarah Palin’s arrival on the national scene.

For many voters, that single event changed the race. Some polls show sizable increases for McCain among white women and independents since Palin joined the ticket. Others show more voters have a high opinion of Palin than they do of the three men also running in this race.

McCain’s selection of Palin may be his last hope to turn in a decent showing with a Latino population that has always rallied to his side in his home state of Arizona out of respect for his military service and maverick ways.

The question is whether Latinos will continue that tradition by rallying around another maverick and a Blue Star Mom with a son headed to Iraq – an experience many Latino mothers can relate to.

I haven’t seen any polls on how Latinos feel about Sarah Palin, but I have received plenty of feedback from readers, friends and family members.

With that all-important group of Latina voters, many of whom supported Hillary Clinton and may be open to supporting McCain, their measure of Palin and her character may come down to what they consider her most important job: mother.

In a community where family is everything, some Latinas feel strongly that she shouldn’t be running for national office and instead should be paying more attention to the home front.

Others, who have worked hard to juggle work and family, empathize with her struggle, take pride in her accomplishment, and cheer her on.

Thanks to Palin, McCain has one last shot at winning over Latino voters. He should take full advantage of it.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a columnist and editorial board member of The San Diego Union-Tribune. E-mail: ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com

RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.

The San Diego Union Tribune

The Associated Press

Sen. Barack Obama became the first black presidential candidate from a major party when he accepted the nomination at the 2008 Democratic National Convention on Thursday at Mile High Stadium in Denver.

In his 44-minute speech, he vowed to cut taxes for nearly all working-class families, end the war in Iraq and break America’s dependence on Mideast oil within a decade.

Although he paid tribute to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, he questioned McCain’s judgment in siding with the Bush administration more than 90 percent of the time.

• More convention coverage, 1B, 2B, 3B.

For more coverage of campaigns for local and state offices, go to tucsoncitizen.com/election.

JERRY KAMMER

Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON – Appearing at a Phoenix television studio where a picture of Piestewa Peak served as background, Sen. Jon Kyl sized up the presidential candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama with a blunt put-down.

“He clearly doesn’t have the experience to be commander-in-chief,” Kyl told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer last Sunday on the “Late Edition.”

A few days earlier, discussing the war in Iraq with Blitzer, Kyl hailed Sen. John McCain’s early call for the troop surge that military officials say has helped stem the violence there.

“As a result of John McCain’s personal observations, knowledge of military affairs and courageous position when it was not politically popular to increase our troops, we have succeeded in Iraq and al-Qaida is virtually defeated there,” Kyl said.

Arizona Republican Kyl, who has long labored in McCain’s shadow despite a steady rise within GOP ranks to the position of minority whip, is playing an important role in the McCain campaign for president.

Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesman, said Kyl has become one of the principal surrogates for the one-on-one TV confrontations with representatives of the Obama camp that have become a staple of television coverage of presidential races.

“He’s always an excellent option because he has such a strong understanding of the issues,” Bounds said. “His experience and his longstanding relationship with Sen. McCain are worth a lot.”

As a McCain stand-in, Kyl delivers messages that are coordinated through regular meetings with campaign staff.

“They’ll bring in Doug Holtz-Eakin (economic adviser) one week or Randy Scheuneman (foreign policy adviser) another week” to brief Republican senators, Kyl said.

A central theme is the Obama experience factor. An hour before Kyl appeared on CNN, Rep Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., delivered the message in Spanish during a Sunday morning interview show with Jorge Ramos of the Univision network.

Diaz-Balart cited Obama’s falta de experiencia, lack of experience.

“Three years ago he was in the state Legislature,” Diaz-Balart said in an interview that paired him with Obama surrogate Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.

During an interview in his Senate office, Kyl talked of his campaign work and his relationship with McCain.

His seventh-floor office is filled with Indian art: Hopi kachina dolls, Apache and Navajo baskets, a Navajo rug. A photo of Kyl with Vice President Dick Cheney, a close friend, sits in a bookcase, near an award from the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank. His wife, Caryll, smiles from a photo attached to his phone.

Kyl said South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham is the most active senator in the McCain drive for the White House.

“Lindsey is really the bridge between those of us in the Senate who are close to John and the campaign,” he said.

But Kyl, who served in the House of Representatives from 1987 until entering the Senate eight years later, has a long history with McCain, who became a senator in 1987 after two terms in the House.

University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato said that while McCain has become a political celebrity, Kyl “has been virtually unknown outside of Arizona.”

“In that sense, he’s a typical senator because 90 percent of them are not known,” Sabato said.

But within the Senate, Kyl has developed a reputation for a disciplined, methodical approach to his work and for mastery of complex issues from national missile defense to tax policy. Named by Time Magazine in 2006 as one of the 10 best senators, he is an effective behind-the-scenes operator.

“He’s an extremely hard worker and he knows his stuff,” said minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

McConnell said Kyl has been “very effective” as whip, a job that calls on him to keep Republican votes in line with the course set by McConnell.

Kyl exercises his wonkish passion for detail and for setting the record straight not only on the Senate floor and in his TV appearances but also in letters to newspapers.

On May 2, the Washington Post and East Valley Tribune ran letters from Kyl critical of the newspapers’ work.

“I’m a believer in a complete record,” said Kyl, who was on the debate team at the University of Arizona and practiced law in Phoenix before heading to Washington. “If you let things go that are inaccurate, then you are not being true to the writing of the record.”

Kyl is a reliable McCain surrogate on most issues, but there are several issues on which they disagree.

Energy policy, climate change and campaign finance are prominent examples in which McCain has struck a stance away from the conservative orthodoxy that Kyl embraces.

McCain opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which he calls “one of the pristine places in the world.”

Kyl favors development of oil reserves in the refuge.

During an appearance last week in Prescott, Kyl called on voters to “elect people that aren’t going to be beholden to radical environmentalists,” according to a news report.

Such issues define the boundaries of Kyl’s work for the campaign. “They will call me to be a surrogate on something where they know we’re in sync,” he said.

Kyl and McCain are clearly in sync on the issue of appointments to the Supreme Court, which is likely to see several vacancies during the next administration.”This is one of the clearest distinctions between two candidates ever,” Kyl said. He noted that Obama voted against President Bush nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito, whom McCain supported.

Citizen Staff Writer
STANTON COLUMN

Opinion Editor

If McCain is this changeable now, one has to wonder how unpredictable he would be if he ever made it to the White House.

The scariest thing about Sen. John McCain isn’t his hawkish views, his closeness to President Bush or even his spiritual reliance on wacko televangelist Rod Parsley.

The scariest thing is McCain’s charm – and how many votes that may mean come November.

McCain is like the Jack Nicholson of Washington. You just can’t help but like the guy.

On “Saturday Night Live” recently, he reminded viewers with a straight face that he has “the courage, the wisdom, the experience and most importantly, the oldness necessary (to be president).”

(McCain will turn 72 on Aug. 29.)

The important thing about controlling government spending, he says, is being able to look your children in the eye.

“Or in my case, my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren and great-great-great-grandchildren – the youngest of whom are nearing retirement.”

Besides good humor, the Arizona Republican also is known for human decency, an increasingly rare commodity in U.S. politics.

A current Newsweek article recalls McCain’s friendship with U.S. Rep. Mo Udall, a beloved liberal Democrat from Arizona.

For eight years, as Udall lay dying, unable to speak, McCain regularly visited his former mentor.

McCain has a humane approach to illegal immigration, too, pushing for comprehensive reform.

In an age of mounting xenophobic hysteria, he insists: “We are all God’s children.”

His push for comprehensive reform alienated members of his own party, though.

Republicans also were miffed when he pushed through campaign finance reform and when he tried to get a bill passed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

McCain has alienated lukewarm fans on the other side of the aisle as well by hopscotching all over the map on issues.

He opposed use of torture on prisoners, for example. A Navy veteran who was tortured himself during five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, his view was important.

McCain cited waterboarding, specifically, as “a horrible torture technique.”

Then he voted against a ban on waterboarding.

McCain proclaimed himself a “strong supporter of protecting the privacy of Americans.”

Then he voted to extend retroactive immunity to telecommunications firms that had spied on Americans at the government’s behest.

In 2000, McCain said overturning Roe v. Wade would lead to women seeking dangerous, illegal abortions.

Today, he opposes abortion and says Roe v. Wade should be overturned.

Recently, McCain, who regularly touts his support of the military, voted against an improved GI Bill.

He said its provision to pay university tuition for three-year enlistees would hurt troop retention.

(He didn’t address the point that the perk also would greatly enhance recruitment.)

McCain once was admired as a maverick for going his own way, voting his conscience.

Now his approach just seems schizophrenic: A hawk and veteran opposes the GI Bill; a privacy advocate supports spying on civilians; a torture opponent would allow waterboarding.

Even McCain’s insistence that we’re “all God’s children” conflicts with his opposition to gays’ right to marry.

If McCain is this changeable now, with no opponents in the Republican primary, one has to wonder how unpredictable he would be if he ever made it to the White House.

All charm aside, that’s very, very scary.

Billie Stanton is a Democrat who supports Barack Obama for president. Reach her at 573-4664 and bstanton@tucsoncitizen.com.

To see the YouTube video of John McCain’s “Saturday Night Live” performance, click on this story at tucson citizen.com /opinion.

Syndicate
NAVARRETTE COLUMN

Say it ain’t so. Barack Obama has worked hard over the past 18 months to persuade Americans that he is the untraditional politician – immune to special interests, loyal to his faith, close to the people, guided by principle.

Part of the pitch was that, as a regular churchgoer, he could tap into values voters and show that – as he said in his speech at the 2004 Democratic convention – those in the blue states also “worship an awesome God.”

And now Obama goes and does something foolish that shows he is a traditional politician after all and may suggest that his religious convictions are not all that firm: He quits Trinity United Church of Christ, the Chicago sanctuary he attended for two decades, where he was married and where his children were baptized.

Not because he was uncomfortable sitting in the pews all those years but because other people were uncomfortable that he sat in the pews all those years.

The last straw was the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest who, while visiting Trinity, mocked Hillary Clinton for feeling entitled to the presidency because she’s white and the wife of a former president.

Obama, in explaining why he had left the church, said the Pfleger controversy had convinced him that, as long as he remained in the congregation, he would have to respond to things that were said from the pulpit – no matter who said them – and that the issue would continue to be a distraction for his campaign.

Many inside-the-Beltway pundits applauded Obama’s footwork. The Sunday shows were abuzz with praise for the fact that Obama realized that it was either his church or his shot at the presidency, and that he chose the latter.

In fact, it is considered a sign of his political maturity. As one conservative pundit asserted, Obama simply could not be elected president if he had remained a member of the congregation.

They may be right. Still, I wonder how that analysis is playing at Trinity, where parishioners – the sort of folks who don’t usually pop up on YouTube blasting the United States or antagonizing whites – had to have felt a deep sense of pride over the last few months that a member of their church might actually be elected president.

And, suddenly, now that this person is one step closer to the presidency, he steps out the door.

That’s a betrayal in my book. Some African-Americans assure me that there may be no hard feelings after all is said and done, and that they understand better than most of us how the game is played and what sort of accommodations have to be made to fit into the mainstream.

I won’t defend a lot of what gets said at Trinity or, for that matter, at any other church around the country. I can’t.

But, to me, what is really indefensible is the fact that so many Americans are so thin-skinned when it comes to even talking about race.

There is also the politics of all this. John McCain is fond of calling Obama naive. That’s far off the mark.

The way I see it, Obama is wrong on a host of issues – from Iraq to No Child Left Behind to NAFTA – but it should now be clear that he has an intuitive understanding of the rough and tumble of politics and what is necessary to win the presidency.

The senator from Illinois has demonstrated that he is quick on his feet and able to adjust to changing circumstances. He possesses a sleight of hand reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s abracadabra style of politics.

From the nomination of Lani Guinier to Clinton’s promise to allow gays to serve openly in the military, it was always the same story with the master politician: “Now you see it, now you don’t.”

Long gone is Obama’s admirable rhetoric about how he could “no more disown” his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and implicitly his now-former church, than he could disown his own grandmother.

Now, Wright has been disowned. The church has been disowned. And Grandma should watch her back.

Barack Obama continues his wild ride through the world of American politics. And his supporters are right to worry about the price of the ticket.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a columnist and editorial board member of The San Diego Union-Tribune. E-mail: ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com

RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.

The San Diego Union Tribune

Navarrette

The Associated Press

Where Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain stand on a selection of issues as they go head-to-head for the presidency:
ABORTION
McCain: Opposes abortion rights. Has voted for abortion restrictions permissible under Roe v. Wade, and now says he would seek to overturn that guarantee of abortion rights. Would not seek constitutional amendment to ban abortion.
Obama: Favors abortion rights.
CAMPAIGN FINANCE
McCain: The co-author of McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, he plans to run his general campaign with public money and within its spending limits. He has urged Obama to do the same. He turned down federal matching funds for primaries so he could spend more than the limits. Federal Election Commission letter said he needs FEC approval before withdrawing from the primary public financing system, but FEC has not had quorum to act. McCain says he needs no such approval. McCain accepts campaign contributions from lobbyists.
Obama: The presidential campaign’s fundraising champion has brought in nearly $265 million. Has signaled he will raise private money for his general election, despite his proposal last year to accept public financing and its spending limits if the Republican nominee does, too. Obama refuses to accept money from federal lobbyists and has instructed the Democratic National Committee to do the same for its joint victory fund, an account that would benefit the nominee. Obama does accept money from state lobbyists and from family members of federal lobbyists.
CUBA
McCain: Ease restrictions on Cuba once U.S. is “confident that the transition to a free and open democracy is being made.”
Obama: Ease restrictions on family-related travel and on money Cuban-Americans want to send to their families in Cuba. Open to meeting new Cuban leader Raul Castro without preconditions. Ease trade embargo if Havana “begins opening Cuba to meaningful democratic change.”
DEATH PENALTY
McCain: Has supported expansion of the federal death penalty and limits on appeals.
Obama: Supports death penalty for crimes for which the “community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage.” As Illinois lawmaker, wrote bill mandating videotaping of interrogations and confessions in capital cases and sought other changes in system that had produced wrongful convictions.
EDUCATION
McCain: Favors parental choice of schools, including vouchers for private schools when approved by local officials, and right of parents to choose home schooling. More money for community college education.
Obama: Encourage but not require universal pre-kindergarten programs, expand teacher mentoring programs and reward teachers with higher pay not tied to standardized test scores, in $18 billion plan to be paid for in part by delaying elements of moon and Mars missions. Change No Child Left Behind law “so that we’re not just teaching to a test and crowding out programs like art and music.” Tax credit to pay up to $4,000 of college expenses for students who perform 100 hours of community service a year.
GAY MARRIAGE
McCain: Opposes constitutional amendment to ban it. Says same-sex couples should be allowed to enter into legal agreements for insurance and similar benefits.
Obama: Opposes constitutional amendment to ban it. Supports civil unions, says states should decide about marriage.
GLOBAL WARMING
McCain: Broke with President Bush on global warming. Led Senate effort to cap greenhouse gas emissions; favors tougher fuel efficiency. Favors plan that would see greenhouse gas emissions cut by 60 percent by 2050. Supports more nuclear power.
Obama: Ten-year, $150 billion program to produce “climate friendly” energy supplies that he’d pay for with a carbon auction requiring businesses to bid competitively for the right to pollute. Joined McCain in sponsoring earlier legislation that would set mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions. Supports tougher fuel efficiency standards.
GUN CONTROL
McCain: Voted against ban on assault-type weapons but in favor of requiring background checks at gun shows. Voted to shield gun-makers and dealers from civil suits. “I believe the Second Amendment ought to be preserved — which means no gun control.”
Obama: Voted to leave gun-makers and dealers open to suit. Also, as Illinois state lawmaker, supported ban on all forms of semiautomatic weapons and tighter state restrictions generally on firearms.
HEALTH CARE
McCain: $2,500 refundable tax credit for individuals, $5,000 for families, to make health insurance more affordable. No mandate for universal coverage. In gaining the tax credit, workers could not deduct the portion of their workplace health insurance paid by their employers.
Obama: Mandatory coverage for children, no mandate for adults. Aim for universal coverage by requiring employers to share costs of insuring workers and by offering coverage similar to that in plan for federal employees. Says package would cost up to $65 billion a year after unspecified savings from making system more efficient. Raise taxes on wealthier families to pay the cost.
HOUSING
McCain: Open to helping homeowners facing foreclosure if they are “legitimate borrowers” and not speculators.
Obama: Tax credit covering 10 percent of annual mortgage interest payments for “struggling homeowners,” scoring system for consumers to compare mortgages, a fund for mortgage fraud victims, new penalties for mortgage fraud, aid to state and local governments stung by housing crisis, in $20 billion plan geared to “responsible homeowners.”
IMMIGRATION
McCain: Sponsored 2006 bill that would have allowed illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S., work and apply to become legal residents after learning English, paying fines and back taxes and clearing a background check. Now says he would secure the border first. Supports border fence.
Obama: Voted for 2006 bill offering legal status to illegal immigrants subject to conditions, including English proficiency and payment of back taxes and fines. Voted for border fence.
IRAN
McCain: Favors tougher sanctions, opposes direct high-level talks with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Obama: Initially said he would meet Ahmadinejad without preconditions, now says he’s not sure “Ahmadinejad is the right person to meet with right now.” But says direct diplomacy with Iranian leaders would give U.S. more credibility to press for tougher international sanctions.
IRAQ
McCain: Opposes scheduling a troop withdrawal, saying latest strategy is succeeding. Supported decision to go to war, but was early critic of the manner in which administration prosecuted it. Key backer of the troop increase. Willing to have permanent U.S. peacekeeping forces in Iraq.
Obama: Spoke against war at start, opposed troop increase. Now says his plan would complete withdrawal of combat troops by end of 2009, four months sooner than his previous commitment. Before that, had said a timetable for completing withdrawal would be irresponsible without knowing what facts he’d face in office.
SOCIAL SECURITY
McCain: Would consider “almost anything” as part of a compromise to save Social Security, yet rules out higher payroll taxes for now.
Obama: Proposes raising cap with an unspecified “small adjustment” that would subject a portion of higher incomes to Social Security taxes.
STEM CELL RESEARCH
McCain: Supports relaxing federal restrictions on financing of embryonic stem cell research.
Obama: Supports relaxing restrictions on federal financing of embryonic stem cell research.
TAXES
McCain: “No new taxes” if elected. Twice opposed Bush’s tax cuts, at first because he said they were tilted to the wealthiest and again because of the unknown costs of Iraq war. Now says those tax cuts, expiring in 2010, should be permanent. Proposes cutting corporate tax rate to 25 percent. Promises balance budget in first term, says that is unlikely in his first year.
Obama: Raise income taxes on wealthiest and their capital gains and dividends taxes. Raise corporate taxes. $80 billion in tax breaks mainly for poor workers and elderly, including tripling Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credit for larger families. Eliminate tax-filing requirement for older workers making under $50,000. A mortgage-interest credit could be used by lower-income homeowners who do not take the mortgage interest deduction because they do not itemize their taxes.
TRADE
McCain: Free trade advocate.
Obama: Seek to reopen North American Free Trade Agreement to strengthen enforcement of labor and environmental standards. In 2004 Senate campaign, called for “enforcing existing trade agreements,” not amending them.

Citizen Staff Writer
RealFAST ONLINE COMMENTS

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords announced her support for Sen. Barack
Obama moments after the Illinois senator became the Democratic Party’s
presumptive nominee for president.

Giffords, a freshman Democrat, had been an uncommitted superdelegate
who held off on an endorsement until all the votes were cast.

Arizona Democratic Party Chairman Don Bivens also announced his
endorsement of Obama as national news organizations projected Obama
would have the 2,118 delegates needed for nomination at the party’s
convention in August.

Giffords represents the 8th Congressional District, which was
carried by New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, who won Arizona on Feb. 5.

BLAKE MORLOCK

bmorlock@tucsoncitizen.com

Citizen Staff Writer

The Associated Press

PHOENIX – John McCain’s complex relationship with President Bush can be summed up with a simple saying: can’t live with him, can’t live without him.

The president’s own popularity is bottom-of-the-barrel low. Even allies privately fret that he’s an albatross for the Republican looking to succeed him. Voters are crying out for change amid a prolonged Iraq war and a weakened economy.

But Bush also is beloved among GOP loyalists. He’s a proven campaigner who can raise serious money. Those are huge assets as Arizona Sen. McCain works to rally the Republican base and fill his coffers while facing the Democrats’ unrivaled enthusiasm and record-breaking fundraising.

The president and his would-be successor were appearing together Tuesday for the first time in nearly three months at an event that epitomized both elements of their tricky alliance – they were holding a fundraiser with GOP faithful at a private home, without the media to document it.

By the McCain campaign’s own planning, the only time Bush and McCain would be captured on camera would be after the event – and too late to make most evening newscasts – on the Phoenix airport tarmac in the shadow of Air Force One, just before the president departs. McCain’s fundraisers typically are closed to the press. The White House deferred to the campaign. No statements were expected.

Democratic opponent Barack Obama, an Illinois senator poised to become the Democratic nominee, got in a jab in advance.

“No cameras. No reporters. And we all know why. Senator McCain doesn’t want to be seen, hat-in-hand, with the president whose failed policies he promises to continue for another four years,” Obama chided while campaigning in Nevada. “But the question for the American people is: Do we want to continue George Bush’s policies?”

For months now, Democrats have portrayed McCain as an extension of Bush. They have argued that McCain offers the same policies, despite his willingness to break with the Republican Party on a range of issues. They ran ads showing footage of Bush and McCain embracing each other in 2004, including one that said: “If all he offers is more of the same, is John McCain the right choice for America’s future?”

On Tuesday, the liberal group MoveOn.org unveiled a commercial linking images of Bush and McCain over the theme song of the Patty Duke Show, a 1960s sitcom about identical teenage cousins who “laugh alike, they walk alike, at times they even talk alike.” (The plot line, however, was about how different the two girls were.) The ad placement is a mere $80,000 and is scheduled to run nationally only on CNN and locally in Phoenix.

Bush and McCain last appeared together publicly the day after the Arizona senator sewed up the nomination in early March.

The president welcomed the GOP’s new standard-bearer to the White House at a brief Rose Garden news conference. It was a somewhat awkward scene. McCain fidgeted and said repeatedly that he’d welcome campaigning with Bush “in keeping with the president’s heavy schedule.” Bush, for his part, seemed eager to hand off the reins, saying the McCain would be making the hard decisions and “I’m going to be in Crawford with my feet up.”

Mindful of the risks Bush brings, McCain has been aggressive about separating himself from the president. He has been laying out his own vision for the future with speeches on a slew of high-profile issues such as the U.S. posture in the world, climate change and the response to Hurricane Katrina.

During one such address Tuesday in Denver, McCain sought to contrast what he portrayed as a bipartisan vision on nuclear nonproliferation with that of Bush, who critics contend has engaged in partisan go-it-alone cowboy diplomacy that has strained U.S. relations across the globe.

In a way, even the White House is aiding in McCain’s effort to chart his own course.

“President Bush isn’t on the ticket,” Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday in what has become a familiar refrain for characterizing Bush’s campaigning on behalf of McCain. “At the end of the day, any candidate who’s running for office has to stand on their own two feet. They have to chart a course for themselves. Every election is about change.”

Still, a prideful White House has delicately tried to deal with McCain’s not-so-subtle efforts to distance himself. When the president isn’t by McCain’s side, the White House offers lots of reasons: Bush is busy abroad, he’s the commander in chief.

McCain has struggled to break from Bush on two key issues – the Iraq war and the economy. Both men support continued military involvement in Iraq, and they both seemingly back the same free-market economic principles. That has given Democrats plenty to talk about.

To be sure, Bush seems aware that he could be a drag on McCain. In March, the president said: “If my showing up and endorsing him helps him – or if I’m against him and it helps him – either way, I want him to win.”

In 2000, the two squared off in a bruising battle for the GOP nomination. Bush won but the scars for McCain lingered for a while, and, to this day, GOP operatives can be divided into Bush and McCain loyalists.

In 2004, McCain embraced Bush, figuratively and literally, and campaigned on his behalf even as he railed against the president’s Iraq policy and called for more troops.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

MESA – President Bush, sounding upbeat as consumer confidence swooned, said Tuesday in Arizona that the government’s effort to stimulate the economy is starting to kick in.

“It’s going to make a positive contribution to economic growth,” Bush said, referring to a package of rebate checks for families and tax breaks for business.

The most tangible part of the deal – checks in people’s mailboxes – began arriving this month.

Bush’s reassurance came as a new report put consumer confidence at its lowest level in almost 16 years. Soaring gas prices and gloomy job prospects were largely to blame.

A separate index released Tuesday showed U.S. housing prices dropped at the sharpest rate in two decades during the first quarter of 2008.

The slump in housing and a related credit crunch, which resulted in multibillion-dollar losses at large financial institutions, depressed the economy and raised worries about a possible recession.

The president chose a backdrop of the Silverado Cable Co., a 70-employee business that makes electrical wiring for airplanes and other industrial uses. He trumpeted new tax breaks that encourage companies such as Silverado to invest in new equipment.

And Bush brought up a familiar call, prodding Congress to extend his first-term tax cuts, due to expire in 2010. The Democratic-led Congress has shown little interest.

“We have times of economic uncertainty right now,” Bush said after taking a quick tour of the company’s plant. “And what creates more uncertainty for owners of businesses like these is whether or not their taxes are going to go up. And Congress ought to just declare once and for all we’re going to make the tax cuts we passed permanent.”

The event was a quick stop in between two fundraisers, including a private event for U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate.

Bush is on a three-day swing through five states, and McCain is the main beneficiary. The president is having three fundraisers for the senator, all closed to news outlets.

Citizen Staff Writer

BLAKE MORLOCK

bmorlock@tucsoncitizen.com

Gene Chewning knows he’s seen as the biannual Republican sacrifice in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District, but says he’s not worried about it.

He’s running in a district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1, and independents outnumber Republicans.

Incumbent Democrat Raúl Grijalva has won each of his three terms by more than 20 percentage points.

“That’s why everyone is going to be surprised when I win,” Chewning said.

Chewning, 57, is a career pastor in the Assembly of God church, and he said he sees Hispanics in his South Side church struggle economically.

“I see people in my church losing their jobs to illegal workers,” he said, and he promises to vote to ratchet up border enforcement.

The Vietnam veteran, whose son is a disabled veteran from the war in Iraq, said he would want troops to come home from Iraq but “only in victory.”

Economically, Chewning has populist leanings in opposing free trade and the North American Free Trade Agreement, but he does want to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.

Most of all, Chewning says, he wants a change in how the southwestern Arizona district is represented by self-described liberals such as Grijalva.

“I got tired of complaining and decided to do something about it,” he said.

Chewning is a native Tucsonan and has spent years as a missionary in Southeast Asia.

He’s married with two children and is the pastor at Living Word Assembly of God Church, 3602 S. 12th Ave.

In 2006, he lost a bid for the state House of Representatives.

Age: 57

Party: Republican

Education: 1983 graduate of Trinity Bible College, N.D.

Career: Missionary and pastor

Military: U.S. Navy, 1969-73

Family: Married with two children

Issue: Protecting America and values

GENE CHEWNING

Gannett News Service
RAASCH COLUMN

CHUCK RAASCH

The fight for the Democratic presidential nomination is likely to go the distance through the June 3 primaries because neither candidate has been able to poach on the other’s demographic base.

In what political scientist G. Terry Madonna describes as a “hardening of the demographic arteries,” Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have lurched from contest to contest within a tight margin of error since Obama won Iowa and Clinton rebounded by capturing New Hampshire.

With Tuesday’s primaries in Indiana and North Carolina standing as the next big contests, these demographic markers point to a relatively decisive win for Obama in North Carolina and a tossup to a slight Clinton advantage in Indiana.

Clinton, the senator from New York, has marshaled a traditional Democratic coalition of older white women and blue-collar workers to win in key Rust Belt primaries of Ohio and Pennsylvania over the past seven weeks.

Since the South Carolina primary in late January, Illinois Sen. Obama has won an overwhelming percentage of black voters, upper-income liberals and first-time voters.

The numbers are almost identical from state to state. Clinton won 66 percent of white women in Pennsylvania, 67 percent in Ohio on March 3.

She won 54 percent of people earning less than $50,000 in Pennsylvania, 56 percent in Ohio. She benefited heavily because women made up nearly 6 in 10 Democratic primary voters in both states.

Obama won 89 percent of black voters in Pennsylvania, 87 percent in Ohio. He won 61 percent of voters under the age of 29 in both states.

“You go from campaign to campaign and nobody is winning in the other person’s home demographic,” said Madonna, a political scientist at Franklin & Marshall College. “You would think that something would give, but it hasn’t.”

Here’s why demographics, rather than polls, may be a more accurate marker for the next two primaries.

Indiana is demographically close to Pennsylvania, which Clinton won by 9 percentage points.

North Carolina is more of a first cousin to South Carolina than a close sibling, and some experts on Southern politics say the Tar Heel state more and more resembles Virginia in its politics and population. Obama decisively won both the South Carolina and Virginia primaries.

North Carolina’s population is 21.4 percent black; South Carolina’s is 29.4 percent. South Carolina’s population is slightly older and more blue collar, but North Carolina has a higher percentage of college graduates and those making more than $50,000 a year.

Older and blue-collar voters have favored Clinton, while more educated and wealthier voters have gone for Obama.

Indiana is similar to Pennsylvania, “in terms of how the states split up with rural voters, aging voters, manufacturing,” said Ed Feigenbaum, publisher of Indiana Legislative Insight, a political newsletter.

Some think the historic elements of the primary campaign have helped harden the demographic camps. Clinton is the first serious female contender for a party nomination, and Obama is the first black candidate to achieve front-runner status so late in a nomination fight.

“Both of these are history-making campaigns and as a consequence of that, neither one was going to collapse,” said Craig Varoga, who advised former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack’s short-lived Democratic bid.

Chuck Raasch is political editor for Gannett News Service. E-mail: craasch@gns.gannett.com.

Citizen Staff Writer
FROM OUR BLOGS

One of my favorite scenes in movie history is from “Jaws.” It’s when Robert Shaw describes the shark feeding frenzy after the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in World War II. “And, you know, the thing about a shark . . . he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be living . . . until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white.”

Arrrgh.

This is what Barack Obama is dealing with now with the media and it’s what Jeremiah Wright doesn’t get. I watched his full speech to the NAACP recently and it was truly amazing. The guy is clearly a genius and his presentation was seamless and unimpeachable, and that’s saying something because he incorporated about 144 moving parts. Watching Wright made it is easy to understand why Obama sat in the pew all these years. Wright is a big mind and a great orator and his tongue has a sharp edge.

But at this point, in all things Wright and Obama, the press doesn’t care. And it wouldn’t have cared if it were Hillary or McCain (who’ll find out soon enough). The press just wants to draw blood. So it will pick apart anything and everything to find something bad about Obama.

Every national politician in the past 30 years has complained about this, so he’s not being treated unfairly. I still think the press is making too little out the race card but . . .

It’s not about right or wrong, whether Obama should be held accountable for his preacher’s remarks or how he phrased his own. The press doesn’t deal in justice. It deals in karma. Obama rode above the choppy seas that almost drowned Clinton and now, he’s going to be battered for a while about whatever is available. John McCain may be getting away with murder for now but the press will find him at some point and make his life hell for a while. It won’t be about something big. It will be about something small.

Right now the press is in one of those moods in which it has lifeless eyes. How do you beat it? Get out of the news cycle, stop worrying about stories and change the narrative. The narrative now wonders about the very nature of Barack Obama. He’s got to pick a moment and reveal himself, stop being snippy and show his character. Then the narrative is how Obama did that and what it means to America.

Candidates should not think of the national media as the filter through which information is passed. The media is, in fact, the taskmaster that presents the challenges and judges how leaders perform. Is that what the Founders had in mind? Nope. It’s just how it goes.

BLAKE MORLOCK

• For more blogs, go to www.tucsoncitizen.com/blogs.

The Associated Press
CAMPAIGN 2008: PENNSYLVANIA DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY

The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA – Hillary Rodham Clinton ground out a gritty victory in the Pennsylvania primary Tuesday night, defeating Barack Obama and staving off elimination in their historic race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“Some counted me out and said to drop out,” the former first lady told supporters cheering her triumph in a state where she was outspent by more than 2-to-1. “But the American people don’t quit. And they deserve a president who doesn’t quit, either.”

Her victory, while comfortable, set up another critical test in two weeks time in Indiana. North Carolina votes the same day, and Obama already is the clear favorite in that Southern state with a large black population.

“Now it’s up to you, Indiana,” Obama said at a rally of his own in Evansville after Pennsylvania denied him a victory that might have made the nomination his.

Clinton was winning 55 percent of the vote to 45 percent for her rival with 94 percent counted in Pennsylvania.

A preliminary tabulation showed her gaining at least 52 convention delegates to 46 for Obama, with 60 still to be awarded.

That left Obama with 1,694.5 delegates, and Clinton with 1,561.5, according to the AP tally. It will take 2,025 delegates to secure the Democratic nomination.

Clinton scored her victory by winning the votes of blue-collar workers, women and white men while Obama was favored by blacks, the affluent and voters who recently switched to the Democratic Party, according to surveys conducted by The Associated Press and TV networks.

VOTER TURNOUT HIGH

PHILADELPHIA – Election officials projected turnout among Pennsylvania’s 8.3 million registered voters at 40 percent to 50 percent for the presidential primary, double that of the state’s primary four years ago.

Secretary of State Pedro Cortes said Tuesday that for the 2004 primary 21 percent of Democrats, Republicans, independents and other registered voters turned out.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press
ANALYSIS

NEDRA PICKLER

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Hillary Clinton should savor the moment. Soon enough, she must face the reality of time and money running out on her once-invincible campaign.

Her win Tuesday in the important swing state of Pennsylvania was hard-fought and decisive. Barack Obama’s well-funded effort to shut her down did not come close to an upset.

But despite her victory, the dynamics of the race are the same as they’ve been for more than two months. Obama remains the front-runner, and that gets more important the closer the campaign comes to the end of the primary season.

“He’s content to essentially run out the clock with his narrow lead, while she needs something dramatic to happen,” said California-based Democratic consultant Dan Newman. “A one-run advantage in the first inning isn’t a big deal, but a one-run lead in the ninth looms large.”

Clinton faces a dwindling number of contests, and she’s at a steep financial disadvantage.

Obama already is spending twice as much on ads airing in North Carolina and Indiana, the two states that come up next, with primaries on May 6. He’s even advertising in Oregon, a state that he should win, where voting by mail begins in the first week of May.

Obama can afford to shower every contest with campaign dollars from the $42 million he had at the beginning of April, while Clinton is in debt. She’ll have to either persuade donors to give her more money to sustain her long-shot bid or float herself another multimillion- dollar loan.

Then she’ll face the uphill battle of convincing the party’s elected officials and leaders – the superdelegates – to reject the front-runner Obama in favor of her.

“She has to convince superdelegates that her survival as a candidate doesn’t come at the cost of jeopardizing the long-term survival of the party in the fall and in the future,” said Democratic consultant Jenny Backus. “And that is a tough argument to make.”

Underscoring the race’s excitement, more than 1 in 10 voters Tuesday had registered with the state Democratic Party since the beginning of the year. And about 6 in 10 of them were voting for Obama.

Some voters had a hard time making up their minds. About a quarter of the day’s voters reported having decided within the past week, and about 6 in 10 of them backed Clinton.

She found reason for optimism in the victory that came even though Obama outspent her 3-to-1 in the state.

“He broke every spending record in this state trying to knock us out of this race,” Clinton told her cheering supporters. “Well, the people of Pennsylvania had other ideas tonight.”

Clinton also went into Pennsylvania with a big advantage: The demographics matched her strengths and she started with a steep lead in the polls. She won’t have that kind of advantage in the coming contests.

Of the states left, the biggest prize is North Carolina, where both sides predicted Obama will win. Clinton dispatched one of her top state organizers, California and Texas veteran Ace Smith, to North Carolina in an effort to get every vote she can. Smith told reporters last week that getting the percentage spread within single digits would be a victory for Clinton. Obama’s also expected to win Oregon and South Dakota.

So where can she look for victory? West Virginia and Kentucky are likely Clinton wins, but they offer fewer than 100 delegates combined. She also has a chance in Guam, Puerto Rico, Montana and Indiana. But none of them is likely to give her a big enough margin to put her over Obama.

To win, she needs to convince voters that Obama is not electable in November even though he’s ahead in the delegate race.

She needs a big influx of cash.

She needs a stunning change of fortune.

Gannett News Service
RAASCH COLUMN

CHUCK RAASCH

HAVERFORD, Pa. – Samuel Leath had a burning question for Hillary Clinton.

What, the 19-year-old Haverford College student asked, should he tell people when he campaigns for her in this upscale Philadelphia suburb?

“Just knock on the door and say, ‘You know, she’s really nice,’ ” Clinton responded to laughter and applause at a rally here. “Or you can say, ‘She’s not as bad as you think.’ ”

On a beautiful spring day, it was a cheerier scene than the bitter televised debate between Clinton and her rival, Barack Obama, the night before.

Then, Clinton had maintained that one of her qualifications for the nation’s highest office was that she was by far the most vetted and battle-tested candidate because her enemies had rifled through her “baggage” for years.

Obama was on the defensive over relationships with controversial figures and for statements he’d made about “bitter” small-town Pennsylvanians who “cling” to guns, religion and anti-immigration fervor in tough economic times.

While Clinton and Obama slug it out heading into Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary, they may be posing a much larger question than who will win.

And that is: Have the Democrats hurt themselves beyond repair in a state that could be pivotal in the November election against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain?

Some think that’s already happened in the six-week preamble to Pennsylvania. During the longest pause in elections and caucuses in the Democrats’ nomination fight so far, the campaign has gone decisively negative.

New York Sen. Clinton has questioned Obama’s fitness to be commander in chief, run ads attacking him for his “bitter” comments and reeled from her admissions she’d overstated the dangers she faced on a 1996 visit to Bosnia. More than half of respondents in a new Gallup Poll don’t think she’s honest or trustworthy.

Obama’s “bitter” gaffe blunted his momentum – he had pulled significantly closer in polls here until last week – and prompted McCain to imply the Illinois senator was an elitist who looked down upon hardworking, small-town Pennsylvanians.

“This is a problem the Democrats have faced ever since it became clear they would fight a long time for this nomination,” said Andrew Polsky, a presidential scholar at Hunter College in New York.

The question over the impact of Pennsylvania’s primary is exacerbated by the reality that even if Clinton wins here – she is slightly ahead in most polls – she is likely to gain only a handful of delegates on Obama among the 158 at stake.

Overall, he leads her by roughly 140 delegates, and is less than 400 short of the number necessary to win the party’s nomination.

Bottom line: Pennsylvania will do little to end the fighting.

James Lee, president of Susquehanna Polling and Research, said that no matter who wins the Democratic nomination, Sen. McCain of Arizona has benefited in Pennsylvania by staying out of the Democrats’ way. But overall, Lee believes Obama will leave Pennsylvania worse off in a potential match against McCain.

Just as the “bitter” controversy was unfolding, Lee was polling state legislative races in what he called “the heart of Reagan Democrat country – Altoona, east of Pittsburgh, right in the heart of” Pennsylvania’s blue-collar Democrat base.

It’s an area derisively referred to as “Pennsytucky” in the liberal enclaves of Philadelphia, but it is the heart of any presidential contest in the Keystone State.

Lee said Clinton led 55 percent to 21 percent in his survey in this area and that Obama’s support “has flat lined there. And that is where he was starting to show some gains.”

Unless Obama wins decisively enough here Tuesday to cause Clinton to back off, the nomination is almost certainly in the collective hands of about 250 superdelegates – elected officials and party leaders – who have yet to commit to either candidate.

If Clinton wins here Tuesday, it will be because she has cobbled together a similar coalition that helped her win last month in Ohio, a strategy that homes in on the economic concerns of moderate and conservative Democrats outside of Philadelphia and Harrisburg.

Obama has been trying to cut into Clinton’s margins in these areas by staging rallies in blue-collar cities such as Erie, where he campaigned Friday, and outspending her by about 2-to-1 on television. His messages focus on economics, family and faith. He’s counting on piling up big margins in Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs.

But some think this coalition is a prescription for trouble versus McCain in the November general election in the Keystone State.

Lee said his polling in some of the state’s more blue-collar congressional districts shows McCain and Clinton in a virtual dead heat, but McCain retains double-digit leads over Obama in those same districts.

“They are OK with Hillary, but as soon as it is an Obama-McCain matchup, they are back to McCain,” Lee said. “It shows the viability McCain has with these older, hard-line Democrats. They are veterans who identify with John McCain’s background. Pennsylvania is much better positioned for McCain if Obama is the nominee than if Clinton is.”

Chuck Raasch is political editor for Gannett News Service. E-mail: craasch@gns.gannett.com. For Raasch’s Furthermore blog, see this story at www.tucsoncitizen.com/ opinion.

Continued from 1B

VOTERS’ TOP ISSUES

The Associated Press-Yahoo News survey of 1,844 U.S. adults April 2-14 has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.

Percentage of respondents answering “extremely important” to the question, “How important to you is each of the following issues ?”

Economy 67%

Gas prices 59%

Health care 57%

Social Security 50%

Iraq 48%

Political corruption 48%

Terrorism 46%

Taxes 46%

Housing prices 44%

Immigration 37%