John McCain will launch the next phase of his presidential campaign with a cross-country tour starting Monday. The tour will mark his first work as the Republican nominee, rather than as a candidate for the Republican nomination.

The five-day biographical road show is being billed as his “Service to America Tour.” It features speeches in Mississippi, Virginia, Maryland, Florida and
Arizona.

The Arizona portion will be a speech from the steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse in
Prescott. It’s reminiscent of how McCain launched his first Senate campaign to succeed Barry Goldwater. The event is set for 10 a.m., Saturday, April 5.

John McCain

A surge of interest in the Democratic presidential candidates will present problems for Republican John McCain across the West, according to Democratic Party leaders from Arizona and other states who spoke in a teleconference Thursday.

They pointed to numbers that indicate Democrats have been turning out for their presidential primary elections in record numbers across the region, where the political landscape is changing. In Arizona for instance, 369,000 Democrats voted on Feb. 5, which marked a 130,000-voter increase from the previous record amount.

If all of that’s true, the big blue upheaval hasn’t exactly shown up in most polls across the eight-state Mountain West region.

Deep thinkers with the polling company Rasmussen Reports classify Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana “Safe Republican” states, at least for the presidential race. They catalogue Nevada and Colorado as “Toss Up” states, and New Mexico as a “Leans Democratic” state. For those keeping score at home, that’s five reds, two purples and one blue.

The Democrats in the teleconference offer a different assessment. They said Republican voters feel betrayed by McCain.

Arizona Democratic Party executive director Maria Weeg noted that McCain failed to win the GOP primaries in Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah and Colorado. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney placed first in each of those. McCain finished second in Colorado and Utah, third in Montana, and fourth in Wyoming.

“McCain’s losses around the West speak volumes. I mean, they’re really resounding. If you look at what happened in the Mountain West, McCain only won one state – and it was his home state,” Weeg said.

McCain won Arizona’s GOP presidential preference election on Feb. 5 with 48 percent of the vote. He was followed by Romney at 34 percent and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 9 percent.

The U.S. senator from Arizona never opened a campaign headquarters in his home and hardly campaigned in Arizona, spending the bulk of his time before the Super Tuesday elections in other states, including New York and California, both of which he won.

The presidential primaries haven’t been conducted yet in the remaining Mountain West states. Idaho’s primaries are May 27 and New Mexico’s are June 3. Here’s a guess that McCain will win both GOP races.

The Democratic leaders did not respond to a question about whether they felt the state-by-state losses of their eventual presidential candidate foretold similar difficulties for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in those states. For example, Clinton beat Obama in Arizona. So if Obama ends up as the Democratic nominee, which seems likely, does his second-place finish in the state’s primary in February suggest that he doesn’t have a chance in the general election in November?

Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, faulted the Democrats’ assessment of McCain’s chances in the West.

“By ignoring every recent poll showing Sen. McCain’s strength among independents, the (Democratic National Committee) is proving that their Western strategy is as far removed from reality as their candidates’ liberal policies are removed from the values of the region’s voters,” he said in a statement.

“John McCain’s Western roots and proven record on taxes, Second Amendment rights, and protecting our national security stand in stark contrast to the flawed vision of Obama and Clinton,” Lindsay said. 

McCain’s biggest problem is within his own party, Weeg said. Republicans simply don’t trust him.

“He’s not the Straight Talk Express that he might have been when he ran for Senate the first time. He’s now what we’re referring to as the Double-Talk Express. He’s changed his stance on almost everything to pander to the most extreme portions of his party,” she said.

The Democrats said McCain has been cozy with lobbyists and AWOL from his Senate job, plus he’s weak on the economy and wrong on the war in Iraq. According to their assessment, that’s enough to tip the election toward the eventual Democratic nominee in Arizona.

“I see Arizona as winnable for a number of reasons. The first and foremost is that I don’t think McCain is that popular here. He may once have been – I don’t know – but certainly 48 percent of the vote from his own primary voters does not bode well for him,” Weeg said.

McCain’s handling of immigration has demonstrated his failure to lead, she said.

McCain and other Republican senators, notably Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, joined with Democrats to forge a compromise border security and immigration reform bill that failed to advance last year. Some Democrats said the bill was too strict in regulating immigration into the country, while some Republicans charged that it was too forgiving in allowing millions of illegal immigrants already living in the country to obtain citizenship.

Since the bill failed, McCain has changed his stance on the issues, going from an all-at-once approach to a two-step approach. He said he believes lawmakers should deal with the border first; and deal with immigration reform second.

Weeg said immigration will be a huge issue for Arizona voters in November.

“We work with people who come across the border. We play with them. We are next to them. We are their neighbors. So this is really an issue in Arizona,” she said. “And McCain, who once sponsored legislation to come up with some practical solutions to this increasing problem, has given in to the extremists in his party in order to garner this nomination. He’s not coming up with any real solutions at all.”

The Democrats talk about conducting a 50-state campaign. The real measure of their sincerity will be to see if Obama or Clinton runs a bona fided campaign in the 48th state.

Jon Kyl

Jon Kyl is scheduled to discuss economic issues during a swing through the southern portion of the state Thursday.

The Republican senator is set to deliver the keynote address at a Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Tucson Convention Center, 260 S. Church Ave., in Tucson, starting at 12:30 p.m.

Then the assistant minority leader will speak at the Green Valley Chamber of Commerce at the Canoa Hills Recreation Center, 3660 S. Camino del Sol, in Green Valley, starting at 2 p.m.

Phil Gordon

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon bristled Monday at the way Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio sent deputies on saturation patrols in an east Phoenix neighborhood during the Easter weekend.

Arpaio sent sheriff’s deputies to the area of East Thomas Road and North 32^nd Street after business owners contacted him to complain about day laborers loitering and committing petty crimes. Sheriff’s deputies patrolled the area, issued traffic citations and arrested illegal immigrants they came across.Gordon said he hopes Arpaio will notify Phoenix Police officials before conducting similar operations in the future.

“The sheriff has concurrent jurisdiction – we certainly acknowledge that – but for whatever reason, the communication in advance and the coordination in advance has not occurred and I’m very concerned about the safety of his officers and our officers,” Gordon said before a press conference on a different topic at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office action also could be turning the Hispanic community against law enforcement in general, Gordon said.

 “We need everyone to testify against violent criminals – murderers, drug dealers, burglars. And the reports that I’m getting from many Police Departments is that a good segment of the Hispanic community is afraid to go out and testify,” Gordon said.

Happy donkeys

The total number of voters statewide dipped since the presidential preference election on Feb. 5, however the number of registered Democrats increased.

Overall, the number of voters dropped by less than 1 percentage point from 2.71 million voters to 2.69 million voters March 1, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

“The decrease in the voter registration totals really reflect continuing voter roll clean-up efforts by county recorders,” Secretary of State Jan Brewer said in a statement.

The party-by-party details tell a different story though.

The number of Republicans fell less than 1 percentage point from 1.04 million voters to 1.03 million.

The number of Democrats increased just more than 1 percentage point from 905,000 voters to 916,000.

The number of Libertarians dwindled by 4 percentage points from 17,700 voters to 16,900.

And the number of independents dropped by 3 percentage points from 748,000 voters to 725,000.

Those types of numbers underscore why Democrats insist Arizona is becoming increasingly competitive.

In pure numbers, Republicans still outnumber Democrats by 121,000 voters. However, the Dems gained 11,200 voters during the last reporting period, while the GOP lost 5,500 voters. That means the Democrats narrowed the gap by 16,700 voters in a single reporting period.

It’s like an SAT question: If a donkey and an elephant facing the same direction start 121 miles apart and the donkey trots 11.2 mph forwards and elephant lumbers 5.5 mph backwards, how long will it take for the donkey to overtake the elephant?

Of course past results don’t guarantee future performance, but if those trends to continue unchanged, the Democratic Party will become the majority party in Arizona in about spring 2010, which would be just in time for a Janet Napolitano-John Shadegg U.S. Senate race.

And in the meantime, state Democratic Party officials contend that independents break about 2-1 toward Democratic candidates.

Another interesting point is the number of independents decreased. Until late last year, the number of new independent voters joining the state’s voter roles was greater rate than number of new Democrats and Republicans combined. Even last year though, Democrats were registering more new voters than Republicans.

The next couple of voter registration reports, which will reflect the parties’ efforts to register new voters before the fall primary and general elections, should provide greater insight into whether the current numbers are just quirky blips of statistics, or early indications of a dramatic shift in Arizona politics. 

At Tuesday’s event to mark the passage of the Arizona Water Settlements Act, Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Ned Norris Jr. distributed gifts to Sen. Jon Kyl and other key players in the landmark water-rights agreement. 

Norris distributed woven baskets that featured turtle designs. Turtles, he explained, are symbols of strength for tribal members. Turtles were appropriate for the occasion because they reflected the strength of those involved in reaching the agreement to endure 30-plus years of discussion to arrive at the settlement. 

“The Tohono O’odham people are a giving people and we like to acknowledge accomplishments by giving gifts. We don’t look at it as bribery, so please don’t look at it like that,” Norris quipped during the event at the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa on the Gila River Indian Community reservation. 

There was a fair amount of gift-giving all around.

Gila River Gov. William Rhodes distributed framed student-drawn pictures of pottery on behalf of his tribe. U.S. Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Carl Artman gave framed copies of documents that enacted the agreement displayed side-by-side with congratulatory letters signed by U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. 

For more on the event, check out my story in Wednesday’s Tribune.

Jon Kyl, UA ’64, ’66

Jon Kyl, the lone U.S. senator with a weekly sports talk radio show, offered his insight into the NCAA basketball tournament on Tuesday.

“I was sad for ASU, but as a UA Wildcat, I was glad UA got in,” said Kyl, who earned two degrees at the University of Arizona. He notched a bachelor’s degree in government and history in 1964, and a law degree in 1966.

“Now, they’ve got something to prove: Are they as good as the tournament organizers think they are? And, I sure hope they can prove that they are. On a good day, there’s no question they are. I still don’t know what it is that sometimes causes them to do great and sometimes not-so-great,” he said.

Kyl’s in good company in that regard. UA interim head coach Kevin O’Neill clearly hasn’t been able to figure that out either.

Kyl also joined the debate about the tournament selection committee inviting UA, but not ASU to enjoy March Madness. He said, “I’m hoping as much for ASU as for UA that UA does well, because if they don’t, ASU is going to say, ‘Dog gone! Why couldn’t it have been us?’ But if they do, maybe the Sun Devils will say, ‘Well OK, maybe they were the team to get in this year.’”

Yeah, um, precisely. That’s what I’m telling my ASU friends, too. I’m hoping that the Wildcats clean up for your benefit. Really. And best of luck in that other tournament.

Kyl can be heard analyzing NASCAR race action on KMLE-FM 108 most Mondays at 6:30 a.m. This Monday will be an off week, though. NASCAR isn’t racing on Easter Sunday.

Barbara McConnell Barrett

President Bush nominated Paradise Valley attorney and education advocate Barbara McConnell Barrett to be U.S. ambassador to Finland on Thursday. She currently serves as chief executive of Triple Creek Ranch, a luxury resort in Montana. Barrett is a renascence woman whose varied career has delved deeply into the realms of business, politics and education.

U.S. Rep. Harry Mitchell has gotten a fair amount of publicity for giving away his congressional pay raise. Well, OK, I personally have given him a fair amount of pub for the gesture.

The Democrat introduced legislation last year intended to block an automatic pay raise that members of Congress get every year. Alas, his House colleagues refused to hear the bill, so Mitchell and every other member of the House got a $4,100 pay bump. Mitchell donated his pay increase to 10 local charities in $410 bundles, and co-sponsored new legislation with Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, to block next year’s pay increase.

The former Tempe mayor has argued that it’s unsightly for members of Congress to accept pay increases when taxpayers face difficult economic times. Rank-and-file members of the Senate and House currently are paid $169,300 annually. The Senate president pro tempore and the Senate and House majority and minority leaders get $188,100 each, while the speaker of the House is paid $217,400. 
 

Overlooked in all that though, has been the give-backs by potential future GOP challenger and current Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman.

Hallman, a Republican, briefly considered running against Mitchell for Congress this year, but then opted to seek a second term as mayor. Hallman cited his school-aged children and unfinished business at the city for seeking re-election in Tempe. Presumably, both of those matters will be somewhat mitigated in four years. His kids will be older and if he’s successful as mayor, the city will be improved.

Hallman has turned down automatic pay raises every year he’s been mayor. He came in during the 2004-05 fiscal year when the job paid $45,653 annually. Automatic pay increases have pushed it to $53,620, but Hallman still takes $45,653.

Hallman’s thinking was that the mayor and members of the City Council were the only employees in the city who received automatic cost of living increases, while every other employee in the city receive pay based on market conditions. Hallman said that was unfair, and turned down the pay increases.

Hallman also refuses to accept a city car, which otherwise has been provided to Tempe’s mayor since Mitchell’s tenure. Furthermore, he declines to accept mileage re-imbursements, declined a designated reserved parking space at City Hall, and pays for his own meals and banquet tickets while attending city-related events.

So, if Mitchell remains in office in 2012 and plans to seek yet another term, and if Hallman decides to run for Congress in 2012, all of that could come into pay – er, play.