RealFAST LOCAL NEWS

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton raised more money in Arizona in the second quarter than her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination. Still, she trailed Sen. John McCain in his home state, according to Federal Elections Commission data.

Clinton raised $272,048 in the three months that ended June 30, agency data show. Clinton’s campaign filed its second quarter fundraising data on Sunday.

McCain, a Republican, raised $764,535 during the period in Arizona, and Republican Mitt Romney raised $370,278.

Other leading Democrats raised less than half as much as Clinton during the period in Arizona. Bill Richardson raised $118,750, John Edwards raised $107,836 and Barack Obama raised $69,288.

The Associated Press

MORE WOES

Citizen Wire Reports

John McCain’s campaign is losing two veteran Republican strategists in Iowa and will report a seven-figure debt for the second quarter in a row, back-to-back blows to a presidential bid still reeling from a major staff shake-up earlier this week.

Ed Failor Jr. said Thursday that he and Karen Slifka plan to notify McCain by letter of their decisions to leave. Both are GOP operatives with deep ties in Iowa, which holds the first-in-the-nation caucuses, and national politics.

The campaign also will show about $1 million in debts when it reports its second-quarter finances this weekend, according to a Republican familiar with the campaign’s fundraising. The figure is smaller than the $1.8 million in the red that the campaign reported after the first three months of the year. McCain aides would not comment on the campaign’s debt.

Critics said Thursday a conference call McCain held with campaign fundraisers from the Senate cloakroom earlier this week may have technically violated ethics rules.

Late Tuesday afternoon, using a campaign-funded cell phone, he stepped off the Senate floor and spoke with financial backers, urging them to keep up their work.

That could technically mean the call was improper, under federal laws that prohibit raising money within government buildings or Senate ethics regulations that bar lawmakers from using official resources for their campaigns.

By Thursday morning, the phone call appeared in a New York Times story that raised the specter of ethics violations – a particularly touchy allegation for McCain, who has been among the most vocal advocates of campaign finance reform.

A campaign aide said the call didn’t violate any rules or laws because McCain didn’t explicitly ask for campaign contributions and because he used a cell phone, not government resources, to place the call.

Even if the campaign’s interpretation is wrong, there is practically no chance McCain will face any legal or ethical sanctions over the call.

But even so, analysts said the episode underscored the trouble McCain is having on what has turned into a very bumpy road to the White House.

Once the GOP front-runner, McCain’s second presidential candidacy has been foundering on all fronts. His support has dropped in national polls and his top GOP rivals, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, have easily outdistanced him in fundraising. Over the past week, he has accepted the resignations of two top aides in his national campaign, laid off more than half his staff and narrowed his strategy to three states.

Failor ran the Iowa field operation for President Bush’s campaign in 2004, assembling a deep campaign organization that energized social and religious conservatives. Bush narrowly won the state, the first time since 1984 that a Republican had prevailed in Iowa in the general election.

Slifka came to the McCain campaign from her role as a strategist for the Republican National Committee.

In more bad news for McCain, a co-chair of his Florida campaign – state Rep. Bob Allen – was arrested Wednesday after offering to perform oral sex for $20 on an undercover male police officer, authorities said. Allen, 48, was seen coming in and out of a restroom three times at a park in Titusville, Fla., said police Lt. Todd Hutchinson. He then approached an undercover officer and was arrested.

Allen has been charged with solicitation for prostitution, which has a maximum penalty of one year in jail. Brevard County jail officials said Allen posted a $500 bond.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – John McCain is trying to restart his campaign – again.

The Arizona senator accepted the resignations of his two top aides and elevated a third to campaign manager Tuesday in a dramatic effort to save his weakened presidential candidacy.

McCain, considered the front-runner for the GOP nomination as the year began, has watched his popularity tumble and his fundraising dry up as he embraced two of President Bush’s controversial policies – the Iraq troop increase and comprehensive immigration reform.

Over the past six months, he’s tried to reinvigorate his campaign at several points, from rolling out the “Straight Talk Express” bus from his 2000 bid to formally announcing his candidacy with a multistate tour.

Now, he’s shaking up his staff for the second time in a week.

“I’m determined to continue to face our challenges head-on and win,” McCain said in a e-mail to supporters, vowing to press on. Aides insisted he would not drop out of the race.

Campaign manager Terry Nelson and chief strategist John Weaver offered McCain their resignations, and the Arizona senator accepted them with “regret and deep gratitude for their dedication, hard work and friendship.” Several other senior aides followed them and stepped down as well.

By midday, the campaign announced that Rick Davis, who managed McCain’s 2000 bid and has served as the current campaign’s chief executive officer, will take over.

The shake-up comes after behind-the-scenes maneuvering among senior advisers for control of the campaign, and as McCain grapples with several problems ranging from his dwindling bank account of some $2 million to slippage in opinion polls. He now faces significant hurdles to winning the Republican nomination that eluded him seven years ago.

“I think we’re doing fine. I’m very happy with the campaign the way it is,” McCain said at the Capitol, even as the departures roiled his staff. He spoke to reporters after delivering a speech in the Senate in which he reiterated his defense of Bush’s troop increase in Iraq.

His backers long have argued that, in the end, GOP primary voters will gravitate toward the 70-year-old’s record of experience, leadership and character when they survey the entire GOP field. The stakes are even higher now given the few options left to revive his candidacy.

“John McCain’s appeal as a stalwart defender of his principles and as an American hero continues to give him a seat at the table regardless of his financial standing,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster who is unaligned in the race. However, he said, “It becomes very difficult to run an effective campaign anywhere without significant resources.”

For that reason and more, other Republicans are all but counting him out.

But one of his top rivals said it was premature to count McCain out. “I’d be the last one to think John McCain is done,” Rudy Giuliani said during a campaign stop in New Hampshire.

McCain’s campaign said Mark Salter, a top aide whom some consider the senator’s alter ego, will continue to advise him and the campaign without pay, an arrangement worked out last week. But two officials said Salter’s adviser role will be limited to McCain’s official Senate duties.

Other senior aides followed Nelson and Weaver in resigning Tuesday, including deputy campaign manager Reed Galen, political director Rob Jesmer and finance director Mary Kate Johnson.

Lackluster fundraising and a high rate of spending left McCain’s campaign with $2 million on hand six months into the year, forcing him to lay off dozens of campaign aides last week across all areas of the organization.

At the time, Nelson and Weaver acknowledged that the campaign incorrectly assumed that it would raise more than $100 million this year, and built an expansive national campaign organization based on that assumption.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – It took John McCain just six months to go from perceived Republican front-runner to all but broke.

The 70-year-old Arizona senator has just $2 million for his second presidential run, having blown through much of the nearly $25 million he raised since the year began.

In a bow to this bleak financial outlook, McCain laid off dozens of staffers Monday in every department in a sweeping reorganization aimed at ensuring that the once-failed White House aspirant is able to compete come the fall and beyond.

“We confronted reality, and we dealt with it in the best way that we could so that we could move forward with this campaign focused on winning our primaries in the early states,” said Terry Nelson, McCain’s campaign manager.

As aides notified affected staffers, McCain embarked on his sixth trip to Iraq, where he will spend the July 4 holiday with U.S. troops. He last visited the war zone in April and was widely criticized for saying he was cautiously optimistic of success even as he toured Baghdad under heavy military guard.

Once seen as the Republican to beat, McCain trails his top rivals in money and polls. His fortunes soured this year as he embraced President Bush’s troop increase for the Iraq war, a conflict a majority of Republicans support, and a bipartisan immigration bill that has divided the GOP. He also has struggled to win over skeptical conservatives who make up the core of the party.

McCain raised just $11.2 million in the second financial quarter of the year, which ended Saturday. That was $2.4 million less than the $13.6 million he brought in during the year’s first three months, when he came in third behind Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.

In what would be a major strategic shift, the campaign said it was seriously considering taking public matching funds of about $6 million. But doing so could tie the campaign’s hands by limiting the amount of money it can spend in individual states, particularly if his rivals forgo taxpayer money as expected.

As 2006 ended, McCain had built an expansive national campaign organization that melded top operatives from Bush’s political and fundraising team with his own base of longtime loyalists from his failed 2000 presidential run.

But the money hasn’t come in as expected, and the initial spending soared.

At its peak, Federal Election Commission records show McCain’s payroll covered 150 staffers. From January through March, McCain spent nearly $1.6 million on salaries, the highest among Republican candidates. Romney was second at $1.1 million, and Giuliani spent nearly $900,000.

As the second financial quarter began in April, the campaign cut some consultant contracts and low-to-mid-level jobs, and revamped its finance operation. Despite the changes, McCain’s fundraising continued to lag.

The financial difficulties have fueled speculation that McCain would drop out of the race, but he has dismissed that notion, and his aides insisted on Monday that he was in no way abandoning or suspending his campaign. They argued that McCain’s character, experience and leadership would carry him to the nomination when voters tune into the race.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – John McCain, the self-described “Happy Warrior” of the 2000 presidential race, isn’t acting so happy in his 2008 reprise; he’s gone negative amid numerous challenges.

The Republican struck a positive tone throughout much of his first White House campaign, assailing rival George W. Bush only after the Texas governor engaged in nasty politics in South Carolina.

Eight years later, McCain is mixing it up with rival Mitt Romney with increasing intensity after largely ignoring the former Massachusetts governor’s criticisms. A full six months before voting begins, McCain, once considered the Republican to beat, finds himself struggling to regain momentum.

“McCain’s campaign is acting frustrated as they lost their front-runner status,” said Scott Reed, who ran Bob Dole’s 1996 campaign.

The Arizona senator’s support in early primary state surveys has been static or slipping. This week, polls in Iowa and South Carolina showed him in single digits. He is facing fierce challenges from Romney and Rudy Giuliani, sniping from lesser-knowns in the 10-man field and the wild card of actor-politician Fred Thompson, a likely entry.

McCain also lags in fundraising, with another financial deadline looming, and has trimmed campaign staff. His embrace of a bipartisan immigration bill has furthered angered conservatives – a key GOP primary voting bloc already wary of him. And he’s fighting the perception that he’s yesterday’s candidate.

“McCain is feeling cross pressured, by Romney in particular, and is giving back as good as he gets,” said Rich Bond, a former Republican National Committee chairman.

Romney, to be sure, has been provocative. He and his aides have assailed McCain on everything from gay marriage to tax cuts. As Romney campaigns, he routinely ribs McCain for co-sponsoring campaign finance and immigration measures with liberal icon Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

McCain says he won’t remain silent.

“I will respond if I am attacked for things I’ve done legislatively or things that I’ve proposed such as immigration reform. I think that that’s fair, but I will not have any personal attacks,” he said earlier this week.

Not only has McCain’s campaign started to more forcefully answer Romney, but it also has launched at least two unprovoked hits in recent days.

McCain’s aides unearthed and distributed video clips of Romney’s statements on stem cells and abortion rights to illuminate his equivocations on the topics. One news release was titled: “MITT VS. FACT. SAY. DO. ANYTHING.” It referenced Romney’s “shifting positions” and questioned whether he had principled stances. The implied argument: Romney lacks the core beliefs needed to be president.

Romney’s aides say McCain’s actions smack of desperation and bear the mark of a flailing campaign. McCain’s aides counter that Romney has jabbed at their boss since last year, and they’re simply fighting back.

McCain criticizing his rivals carries risks, especially given his first upbeat campaign. His negativity could turn off voters when his campaign could use a burst of energy.

One recent national poll showed that 30 percent view McCain unfavorably, while only 23 percent view him favorably.

“The key to John McCain’s appeal is that he’s always been a different type of politician,” said Dan Schnur, a McCain aide in 2000 who is unaligned in 2008. “While it’s unfair to hold McCain to a higher standard than other candidates, (going negative) does make it more difficult for him to stake out his own turf and separate himself from the rest of the field.”

The flip side: doing nothing to counter Romney’s criticism or stunt his recent uptick in support in early primary states could have disastrous effects on McCain’s pursuit of the nomination – and his strategy to be the last Republican standing.

“McCain took a life’s lesson away from what George Bush did to him in South Carolina, and that is: when you’re going to get hit, and especially when you’re going to get hit unfairly, you’ve got to hit back,” Bond said.

A serious contender today, McCain is in a markedly different spot than he was in 2000.

Then, he was an underdog looking for traction against the establishment candidate. McCain honed a straight-talking image and largely refrained from mud slinging. He could; Bush ignored him. He didn’t compete in Iowa but he soared in New Hampshire with a stunning 18-percentage-point win over Bush. Only then, in South Carolina, did the Bush campaign play dirty.

McCain was the target of whispers by Bush allies that he was mentally unbalanced and that he had fathered an illegitimate black child. Bush took on McCain, and McCain lashed back, only to return to his even-keeled campaign. In the end, he lost the nomination, and says he regrets his flash of negativity.

“I think I made a mistake in South Carolina. I got angry. People don’t like angry candidates,” McCain told reporters in March on his campaign bus in Iowa. “I should have been more mature.”

Just three months later, McCain and Romney are angrily sparring.

• GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney raises $1 million during a visit to Arizona on Wednesday, Page 16A

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

PHOENIX – Complaints against Arizona’s “clean elections” system, which provides public finances to underfunded candidates who campaign against richer opponents, were dismissed Thursday by a federal appeals court panel in San Francisco.

A three-judge panel with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the complaints were moot since the plaintiffs have no role in an active campaign.

The Arizona Citizens Clean Election Act, adopted by voters in 1998, gives candidates who opt into the program public money to campaign.

Candidates for state treasurer, for example, were given a base of $71,000 in the general election and up to three times that to match the spending of candidates who refuse to participate, attorneys said. Publicly financed candidates receive and can spend no more than three times the base, while candidates who don’t participate can spend as much as they want.

A legal challenge filed in January 2004 questioned the constitutionality of the election regulation.

Three months ago, the appeals court panel heard arguments from attorneys for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a Tucson-based physician advocacy group, state Treasurer Dean Martin and two Republican candidates. They said the Clean Election Act stifles the free speech of candidates who choose to run a privately funded campaign.

Arizona attorneys defended the law, and U.S. District Judge Earl H. Carroll of Phoenix ruled in 2005 that the provisions challenged by the lawsuit were constitutional.

Martin said he’ll likely appeal Thursday’s ruling to a larger panel of the 9th Circuit or to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has made another change in his struggling campaign, dismissing his New Hampshire campaign manager on Friday.

Jim Martin had run the Arizona Republican’s campaign in the state and was part of McCain’s 2000 victory in the state. But the campaign decided to replace him with Jim Barnett, who had been a top political operative.

McCain’s New Hampshire Communications Director Jill Hazelbaker said the departure came Friday.

“While we appreciate his hard work, Jim Barnett will assume the day-to-day responsibilities going forward,” she said. “Barnett is a talented political professional with extensive campaign experience, and he will work closely with Mike Dennehy to build out our ground operation to ensure that we win the primary.”

Barnett had served as the chairman of the Vermont Republican Party and joined the McCain campaign as the regional political director.

“We need someone who knows what it takes on every level of a campaign and understand a get-out-the-vote process. Jim Barnett is that person,” said Dennehy, a McCain consultant who stepped down earlier this week as national political director and returned to help New Hampshire’s office. “I’m going to work very closely with Jim on the historical knowledge of the state.”

The campaign says the move underscores the importance of the state to McCain, who won here over party favorite and then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in 2000.

The shake-up comes in the wake of Dennehy’s resignation to relocate his family to New Hampshire. His young son suffers from Down’s Syndrome and the family thought the schools in Concord would be a better fit.

Earlier this year, McCain restructured his campaign fundraising organization after a lackluster first quarter. The campaign says the moves reflect the fluid nature of all campaigns.

MIKE MADDEN

Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON – Rep. Rick Renzi paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes to settle charges that his businesses improperly funded his first campaign for office, according to documents released by federal regulators Tuesday.

The Arizona Republican already faces a federal corruption probe – as well as a growing political crisis – over allegations he tried to use legislation for land swaps in Arizona to help a former business partner.

But Tuesday’s disclosure by the Federal Election Commission threatens to revive the older scandal over whether Renzi broke campaign finance laws when he was first elected in 2002, adding to doubts about his political future.

The FEC alleged three years ago that Renzi loaned his 2002 campaign corporate money. The documents released Tuesday show regulators dropped that charge after Renzi presented them with proof he had paid more than $320,000 in federal and state back taxes on income he had not previously reported. That indicated that personal funds, not his businesses, were the source of the loan.

The new documents also show Renzi’s campaign agreed to pay the FEC $25,000 in January because he misreported campaign contributions and expenses in 2002.

In response to questions about the FEC release, Renzi’s office issued a written statement Tuesday.

“I take responsibility for the inaccuracy of our first FEC report,” Renzi said. “In an effort to clear it up, we hired a new CPA, and all our reports are now correct and complete.”

In both the corruption probe and the FEC case, Renzi’s political problems stem from questions about how his business investments have intersected with – or possibly interfered with – his conduct as a lawmaker.

Pursuing evidence in the corruption investigation, FBI agents raided Renzi’s businesses April 19. That same day, House records show an aide to Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington, the top Republican on the House ethics committee, pulled copies of Renzi’s financial disclosure statements for 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, possibly indicating the panel has opened an investigation into the matter.

Ethics committee rules prohibit aides or members from commenting on whether the panel is conducting an investigation.

The FEC case began when an audit three years ago found Renzi had loaned his 2002 campaign $369,000 from his businesses, violating a federal ban on corporate political contributions. Renzi disputed that, saying the money was from his personal funds.

The documents released Tuesday show he got the FEC to drop those charges by filing amended tax documents for 2002. Those new returns indicated his businesses paid him and his wife, Roberta, $598,444 that year that he had never before disclosed, the FEC said. He paid back taxes on that income of $285,421 to the IRS and $38,409 to the Arizona Department of Revenue when he filed the new returns.

The Renzis own several businesses based in Sonoita, including an insurance company and a vineyard company that also owns some real estate.

An accountant who reviewed Renzi’s original 2002 tax returns called them “abysmal,” “confused” and “complex” in an e-mail to Renzi, which he turned over to the FEC.

In September, Renzi had called complaints stemming from the FEC audit “desperate and erroneous allegations” launched by “liberal operatives.” By the time he put that statement out, though, he had already filed the new tax returns and paid the back taxes.

By THOMAS BEAUMONT

The Des Moines Register

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa – Republican John McCain says he’s the same presidential candidate he was seven years ago.

“I’m still the same candidate I was – little bit older, but still the same candidate,” McCain said in Des Moines Friday during his three-day Iowa campaign swing.

But the candidate who in his 2000 campaign badgered George W. Bush, pronounced government spending the top White House priority and skipped the Iowa caucuses has rethought all three positions.

Capping a swing through Iowa Friday where his 2008 campaign is in full gear, McCain embraced President Bush’s tax, immigration and Iraq war plans, and called the war on terrorism the country’s defining issue.

Some Iowa Republicans are attracted to McCain for positions that he wasn’t talking as much about in 2000, such as foreign policy.

“Some of the things he’s passionate about are important to our nation,” said undecided Cedar Falls Republican Mary Keys. “I believe it’s really important – his stand on national security. That’s very important to me.”

McCain’s standard speech still recounts his record as a Navy pilot shot down in Vietnam and five years in a North Vietnamese prison. But now he ties it to his argument that he is best able to confront the terrorist threat the United States faces.

“I’ve seen the face of evil and I know the challenge we face, which is overwhelming and transcendent, which is this radical Islamic extremism,” McCain told about 500 Republican activists at a forum in Cedar Falls.

McCain this week tried to project in Iowa the maverick image that marked his campaign in 2000, when he rode around New Hampshire in a bus nicknamed “Straight Talk Express.”

The bus hit the highway in Iowa for the first time this week, carrying a candidate who is not only older than when it first embarked, but tied closely to President Bush. McCain has enlisted the support of top Bush campaign aides, including his national campaign manager Terry Nelson.

McCain, who once opposed ethanol, now says he supports the corn-based fuel-additive as a means to reduce U.S. dependency on imported petroleum.

He has incorporated into his Iowa stump speech a standard joke that he drinks a glass of ethanol every day, although he maintains his opposition to the federal subsidy for ethanol.

McCain acknowledged in a Des Moines Register interview that he is trying to conjure the spirit of his 2000 campaign, albeit under very different national and international circumstances.

“A lot of the focus of the 2000 campaign was understandably about the economy. We were a nation at peace,” McCain said. “So that part has changed, but what hasn’t changed is any of my principles, any of my positions, with the exception of ethanol, nor my mode of operation.”

Some Republican leaders in Iowa, where the caucuses are scheduled to launch the 2008 nominating process, say the differences between McCain’s 2000 and 2008 campaigns are a turnoff.

Dickinson County GOP vice chairman Mike Koenecke said they make him trust McCain less.

“I have some distrust of McCain. He’s always presenting himself as a maverick, and now he’s trying to move to the right,” said Koenecke. “I personally don’t have a lot of support for him. He’s not been a party unifier but a party divider.”

McCain said, should he be elected, his willingness to collaborate with Democrats, as he has done in the Senate on judicial nominations, would be an asset in dealing with a Congress he described as chronically locked in partisan bitterness. His first act, he said Friday, will be to reach out to Democrats.

“Shouldn’t we as Republicans and Democrats for the good of the nation sit down and stop this constant fighting in the Congress of the United States?” he told the group in Cedar Falls, prompting an eruption of applause.

As enthusiastic as the immediate response was to McCain’s call for unity, doubt lingered in the audience.

“How in your mind do you go about doing that without losing your own principles?” a woman asked McCain. “I get really nervous.”

‘Straight talker’ regrets ‘tar baby’ remark

The Associated Press

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa – Republican presidential candidate John McCain used the term “tar baby,” which is sometimes associated with racist connotations, during a campaign stop in northern Iowa Friday and immediately expressed regret.

The Arizona senator was answering a question during a Cedar Falls forum in front of 500 Black Hawk County Republicans when he used the same words that drew criticism last year when uttered by GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and White House spokesman Tony Snow.

“For me to stand here before all these people and say I’m going to declare divorces invalid because someone feels they weren’t treated fairly in court, we are getting into a tar baby of enormous proportions,” McCain said, explaining his position on the federal government’s role parental rights in custody cases.

McCain, who prides himself on his style of “straight talk,” told reporters afterward he instantly regretted using the term.

“I don’t think I should have used that word and I was wrong to do so,” he said.

The Associated Press

Federal Elections Commission officials agreed with staff members and Thursday voted 4-0, with no comment, to allow former U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe to use campaign funds to cover legal expenses.

Just before the Arizona Republican’s retirement last year, questions arose about his role in the scandal surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley’s salacious communications with former House pages.

Federal law enforcement officials also opened a preliminary inquiry into a Kolbe rafting trip with two former pages.

According to his last campaign finance report, filed in October, Kolbe had $143,586 in his campaign account.

- The Associated Press

The Associated Press

A draft report from the Federal Elections Commission indicates that it’s OK for former U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., to use campaign funds for legal expenses incurred when the House ethics committee and the Justice Department were investigating his connection to a scandal involving House pages.

The committee looked into how Kolbe handled a complaint made to him about former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley. Federal law enforcement officials also opened a preliminary inquiry into a 1996 Grand Canyon rafting trip Kolbe and others took with two former pages.

- The Associated Press

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

PHOENIX – With national Democrats increasingly optimistic about their most competitive races, the party has turned its attention to Jim Pederson’s bid for the U.S. Senate, sending him $1 million just days before Tuesday’s general election.

Meanwhile, Arizona Republicans have raised questions about Pederson’s fundraising. On Friday the GOP filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department, saying that Pederson laundered $258,000 in contributions to circumvent campaign finance laws.

The spurt of activity comes as Pederson and incumbent Republican Sen. Jon Kyl crisscross the state, hoping to give their campaigns a final push in a race that experts now consider extremely tight.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senate campaign organization, claimed strong early voting for Pederson and said it was “harbinger of a wave” that would benefit Democrats.

But while experts in Arizona believe the race is close, Schumer might be overstating it.

“What’s happened in the last 30 days is, the Democrats got smart enough to try the election as a referendum on Bush,” Arizona State University pollster Bruce Merrill said. “My guess is, Kyl is slightly ahead (in the race), but it really boils down to who is more effective at getting their people to the polls on Election Day.”

The money from national Democrats comes with a late nod of respect from party leaders. Despite trailing in every statewide poll, Pederson, a wealthy shopping mall developer, has pumped more than $10 million of his own money into the campaign.

Now the polls have tightened, and Democrats hope the money will put Pederson over the top.

Democrats are spending the money on television commercials for Pederson.

Northern Arizona University political scientist Fred Solop said Democrats would not be spending the money if they didn’t think it would be effective.

But Merrill said the airwaves have been saturated for weeks with TV ads from both campaigns.

“How many ads can you see?” Merrill said. “Putting a million dollars into ads at this point would be just throwing the money away.”

If Pederson is going to beat Kyl, Merrill said, he needs to devote every last penny to hiring people to call the party faithful and encourage them to vote.

“It’s not a good time to be a Republican incumbent,” he said. “People are angry and frustrated. But in Arizona, turnout on Election Day tends to benefit Republicans.”

Phil Singer, a spokesman for the Democratic Senate committee, said the party believes it made the right decision.

“This is about winning races,” Singer said. “We think Jim Pederson is in a position to beat Jon Kyl because people want a change.”

The national Republican party countered with an ad Friday that claimed Pederson is an irresponsible businessman who refused to pay back creditors after filing for bankruptcy.

The state GOP also filed the complaint with the Justice Department and the FEC, claiming that Pederson and the Democratic Party crafted their campaign contributions in a scheme that kept Kyl from raising more cash.

State GOP leaders said Friday that Democrats hid $258,000 in contributions by sending the money first to the North Carolina Democratic Party. North Carolina Democrats then returned the money to Arizona for its U.S. Senate race, a race that is limited by federal campaign finance laws.

The $258,000 is a tiny fraction of the money Pederson has raised for his campaign. But Kyl spokesman Andy Chasin said it was just enough to delay triggering the “millionaire’s amendment,” a campaign finance law provision that would allow the Republican to collect more from individual donors.

“Our (contribution) limits would have gone up about nine days earlier,” Chasin said.

Pederson spokesman Mark Bergman denied that Democrats were doing anything underhanded.

“The Kyl campaign is obviously panicking,” Bergman said. “This campaign is just trying to grab anyone while they’re drowning.”

Citizen Staff Writer

By BLAKE MORLOCK

bmorlock@tucsoncitizen.com

Carol Bernal left Hereford, south of Sierra Vista, at 12:30 p.m. Thursday to drive to Tucson and see the guy she says “will always be my president” – Bill Clinton.

Clinton headlined a rally of about 10,000 people who turned out last night to see him stump for Democrat Jim Pederson, who is seeking to oust incumbent Republican Sen. Jon Kyl.

Bernal, an Arkansas native, waited five hours in front of the DeMeester Outdoor Performance Center at Reid Park to hear the 42nd president.

“He’s probably the most intelligent president we ever had,” she said of Clinton, who turned in a rousing performance.

He delivered a half-hour medley that was part tent show revival, part academic instruction, a jigger of homespun politicking and, in the end, a plea to get people who have never voted for a Democrat to do so Tuesday.

Others said they showed up to be in the presence of one of the most gifted political orators in a generation.

“The guy just oozes human magnetism,” said Joel Shooster, a University of Arizona student.

The goal of the speech was to drive voter turnout. For Pederson to win Arizona, he will have to do very well in the Democratic stronghold of Pima County.

No one will know if it worked until election night, but Pima County Republican Party Chairwoman Judi White said she isn’t worried.

“The question is, will it increase the Democrats’ turnout on Election Day? The answer is, I doubt it,” White said.

Carlos Rodriguez, 58, went to the rally to support the Phoenix businessman-turned-political novice.

Rodriguez is active in the Service Employees International Union and wears his Pederson badge proudly.

“He’s supporting us and helping us make our union stronger,” Rodriguez said.

But much of the crowd was there to see Clinton. Even Pederson was a little star-struck.

“To be able to share a stage with him and listen to his words and listen to his insight – it’s really a treat,” he said.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – President Bush, campaigner in chief for a party in peril, set out on a rescue mission for embattled candidates in the unlikeliest of places Thursday as Republicans struggled to minimize their losses in next week’s elections.

Democrats expressed growing optimism that their long season out of power might soon end. Sen. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senate campaign organization, claimed strong early voting in a long-shot race in Arizona and said it was “harbinger of a wave” that would benefit his party.

Five days before the election, Democratic strategists said none of their incumbents in either chamber of Congress was trailing – and Republicans did not disagree.

Republicans disputed Schumer’s claim about Arizona, but even so, the GOP side of the political ledger was far less positive. Strategists already have written off the re-election prospects of incumbent Sens. Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania and Mike DeWine in Ohio, as well as six or more seats in GOP hands in the House. Dozens more Republican lawmakers – power brokers and backbenchers, conservatives and moderates – struggled to survive in a campaign shadowed by the war in Iraq and scandal at home.

“We’ve been through this before,” Bush said in Billings, Mont., projecting confidence as he embarked on his save-the-majority tour. “We will win the Senate and we will win the House.”

His itinerary showed it would be a struggle. The pre-election flight plan for Air Force One consisted of areas of the country where Republicans have unexpectedly run into trouble – House seats in Colorado, rural Nevada and Kansas, and gubernatorial races in Arkansas, Iowa and Nevada, as well as Sen. Conrad Burns’ bid for a fourth term in Montana.

Western Nebraska, too, was ticketed for a presidential visit, Bush’s presence deemed needed to save a House seat that Democrats last held 50 years ago.

Democrats must pick up 15 seats to gain control of the House. Their magic number is six in the Senate.

Democrats said they were winning because of the public’s growing dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq.

Polls show more Americans – now a clear majority – see the war as a mistake and far fewer support how the president has handled the conflict.

Citizen Staff Report

Former President Clinton will be in Tucson today to stump for Democrat Jim Pederson, who is challenging incumbent U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl in Tuesday’s election.

Clinton will headline a 6:30 p.m. rally at Reid Park’s DeMeester Outdoor Performance Center. Pederson’s campaign says tickets are required and available free at Pederson’s Web site.

U.S. Sen. John McCain will campaign for Kyl and other Republican candidates from 12:15 to 1:45 p.m. Monday at Hangar 4 at the Pima Air & Space Museum, 6000 E. Valencia Road.

- Citizen Staff Report