President Bush is set to headline a high-dollar campaign event in Phoenix later this month to benefit Republican candidate John McCain.

The political fund-raiser is designed to appeal to deep-pocketed contributors who can donate as much as $37,000 at once. The event actually is a joint production of seven different campaign organizations, which will allow contributors to spread their money around.

The organizations: John McCain 2008, John McCain 2008 General election Compliance Fund, the Republican National Committee, and the state Republican parties for Colorado, Minnesota, New Mexico and Wisconsin.

The first $2,300 from every contribution, according to the organizers, is earmarked for the John McCain 2008 committee, which is the candidate’s official campaign organization.

The next $2,300 is slated for the Compliance Fund, which is a source of revenue that’s intended to help defray certain allowable expenses, including office overhead expenditures and computer and Web site costs.

The balance of each contribution will be split evenly between the RNC and the state parties, which operate independently of McCain’s campaign and benefit Republican candidates at the national and state levels, respectively.

McCain campaign officials did not immediately return a call for comment.Meanwhile, Arizona Democratic Party spokeswoman Emily Bittner said it’s fitting that Bush is lined up as the featured speaker. “This is further evidence that what John McCain really represents is a third Bush term,” she said.

Here’s the details…

WHAT: John McCain fundraiser featuring President Bush

WHEN: 5:30 p.m., May 27

WHERE: Phoenix Convention Center, West Building, 100 N. Third St., Phoenix

INFO: Andrea Tyler Evans at (602) 488-5959 or aveans@mccain08hq.com 

Cindy and John McCain/Photo by Tim Hacker, Tribune

In the past, John McCain’s airport press conferences in Phoenix were loose affairs. No longer. They’re getting bigger and security is getting tighter. 

Previously, following weekend stopovers in Phoenix or at his ranch in Cornville, McCain spent a about a half hour doing a freewheeling Q&A with representatives members of the local media and the traveling national media alike before jetting off for another weekend of campaigning. 

The press conferences were simple enough – reporters simply walked into a large airplane hangar, found a spot among a row or two of folding chairs, and waited for McCain to emerge and take his place behind a podium. 

The actual Q&A session on Monday was unchanged, but the logistics had been given a wholesale security upgrade.  The location had been changed from a wide-open hangar to a more confined conference room. Furthermore, McCain’s public relations team asked reporters to show up earlier than usual and noted that access to the conference room would be restricted a half hour before its scheduled start. 

Long before McCain arrived, a police officer with an explosives-sniffing dog showed up. The officer instructed the dog to sniff every camera bag, every computer bag, every suitcase and every backpack in the room. For good measure, the dog also sniffed curtains, furniture, cabinets and artwork hanging on the wall. 

The dog, which was black and had a long droopy tongue, gave everything a thorough inhaling – no Bill Clinton style non-inhaling for that animal. The dog also stuck its head deep into every bag in the room. The officer apologized for the drool it left behind. 

Then, Secret Service agents ushered all the reporters and even McCain’s staffers out of the room. The agents wanded every person one by one with a portable metal detector before re-admitting them into the room.  The federal agents patted down or visually inspected everything that beeped, plus belt buckles, pocket buldges, waistlines and ankles.

They were friendly, polite and professional, which made the experience less uncomfortable than it might have been otherwise.

The security upgrades are just a sign of the times. If McCain wins the presidency, the security surrounding the most powerful man in the free world will increase even further.

For more on the press conference, which focused on the Republican candidate’s efforts to reach Hispanic voters and his plans regarding energy, check out today’s story in the Tribune. 

Cindy and John McCain/Photo by Tim Hacker, Tribune

John McCain spent a considerable portion of his press conference in Phoenix on Monday discussing his renewed efforts to reach out to Hispanic voters.

It was no coincidence that Monday is Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican holiday that commemorates the Battle of Puebla in 1862 when a small group of Mexican troops overcame overwhelming force during that country’s struggle for independence.

McCain announced the launch of a Spanish-language page on his campaign Web site. It can be accessed at http://espanol.johnmccain.com.

Then, as he did following his Super Tuesday victories on Feb. 5, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee declaired that he wasn’t overly worried about the reaction from the most conservative members of his own party.

“My party is the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. My party is an inclusive party. My party reaches out to every citizen, every American who shares our views and our optimism and our belief in the principals of this great nation,” he said.

“I will seek the vote of every American. I will make sure we go to places where we might not get the majority of the votes. But the job that I have is to re-unite America and to make sure that people know that I will be the president of all the people, whether they vote for me or not,” he said.

“Americans are crying for us to work together. I notice that Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton are touting their work in a bipartisan fashion. I will match my record for reaching across the aisle and working with the other party with them any day of the week. It’s far more extensive and far more substantive – and I’m proud of that work,” he said.

For more on McCain’s outreach to Hispanics and his plans pump up the campaign with discussion of energy issues, check out my story on the Tribune’s main Web site here.

John Shadegg

U.S. Rep. John Shadegg will be the featured speaker at next Arizona Eggs & Issues Breakfast meeting.

In addition to the usual sorts of political questions during the Q&A session, the Republican will have some explaining to do about his sudden about-face concerning his planned retirement. A few weeks ago, Shadegg unexpectedly said he planned to step down at the end of his current turn, an announcement that caused about a dozen GOP office-seekers to scramble to the nearest microphones to announce their desire to succeed him. At the time, it seemed like a firm decision. Ten days later though, Shadegg changed his mind and said he planned to run again.

At the time, some observers suggested Shadegg  wanted to step aside to prepare a Senate campaign to fill John McCain’s office, figuring McCain planned to step aside from the Senate to concentrate on his presidential campaign. Others suggested that Shadegg had no interest being in the minority party following the GOP’s drumming in 2006. And, well, there were plenty of other theories offered…

It will be interesting to hear Shadegg’s perspective on it.

The breakfast event is set for 7:30 a.m., May 29, at the Hilton Scottsdale Resort & Villas, 6333 N. Scottsdale Road, in Scottsdale. Its being presented by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry. Tickets are $30 for members and $45 for non-members. For information and to RSVP, contact Renee Roebuck at (602) 248-9172 or rroebuck@azchamber.com.

Shadegg represents central and northern Phoenix, plus Paradise Valley, Carefree and Cave Creek.

Jon Kyl

Sen. Jon Kyl penned letters to the editor that appeared in two of the nation’s leading newspapers Friday.

In The Washington Post op-ed pages, he differed with a column headlined, “Iraq War is Everyone Else’s Fault, Feith Explains.” The column suggested that there were no links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

Kyl wrote, “The historical record tells a different story.” The Republican senator from Arizona noted that in 2002, then-CIA director George Tenet described a connection in a letter Sen. Bob Graham, who at the time was the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

He also noted that in 2006, the U.S. Joint Forces Command discussed in a report relationship with Hussein and Osama bin Laden’s second in command.

Kyl wrote, “Critics of the war in Iraq often try to minimize – if not dismiss – the links between Saddam Hussein and terrorists. As they say, facts are stubborn things.”

In the East Valley Tribune’s op-ed pages, Kyl differed with an editorial headlined, “Don’t blithely give feds our DNA.” He differed with the newspaper’s concerns about the creation of a federal DNA database. The Trib argued that a federal DNA sampling and recording system could infringe on civil liberties.

Kyle wrote, “The Tribune has a right to disagree with my position, as it did in a recent editorial regarding a new DNA database, but it is not fair to characterize my effort as ‘blithely’ or lighthearted.

“The new regulations and the bill that led to them are the product of years of review and consideration. Since the bill creating this database was first introduced in 2003, my staff and I spent hundreds of hours consulting with experts in the field, opponents of expanded sampling, and other government agencies to ensure, among other things, that the regulations do not violate anyone’s privacy or result in misuse of data.”

He further argued that if such a database had been in place years ago, it could have helped identify the Chandler Rapist more quickly.

Darrell Ankarlo

Talk radio talker Darrell Ankarlo and Republican U.S. House candidate Laura Knaperek are slated as the featured speakers at the inaugural GOPallooza, a Republican networking event Thursday, May 1.

Ankarlo commands a microphone from 8:30 a.m. to noon weekdays on KTAR-FM 92.3.

Knaperek is one of several Republicans trying to unseat Democrat Rep. Harry Mitchell in Arizona’s 5th Congressional District, which takes in Scottsdale, Tempe, Fountain Hills, Ahwatukee Foothills and west Mesa. While serving in the state Legislature for a decade, Knaperek focused on education reform and children’s issues.

GOPallooza, which is the best-named networking event in recent memory, is set for 6 p.m. at Six Lounge and Restaurant, 7316 E. Stetson Drive, in Scottsdale. The event is hosted by the Republican Professionals club. It’s free and open to the public, though a club executives recommend RSVPs.

“The idea behind GOPallooza is to celebrate the outstanding success of (Republican Club’s) free networking events thus far while setting an exciting new ton for the months ahead,” said club president Charles Jensen in a press release.

The club’s first monthly networking event was in October. For information, contact Jensen at (602) 403-5535 or  charles at republicanprofessions.org. 

John McCain

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain would beat either of his Democratic opponents by fair margins in his home state, according to a statewide survey released Tuesday, April 29.

In a hypothetical head-to-head race against Sen. Barack Obama, the results were: McCain 47 percent, Obama 38 percent, and undecided 15 percent, according the poll conducted by Arizona State University/KAET-TV (Channel 8). That gives the home-state candidate a 9 percentage point edge.

In a head-to-head contest with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the results were: McCain 53 percent, Clinton 37 percent, and undecided 10 percent. That gives McCain an even more comfortable advantage of 16 percentage points.

The survey-takers probed further and identified the top reasons the respondents sided with their candidate. A sizable portion of the electorate apparently plans to vote against a particular candidate, rather than vote for a candidate.

For example, in the McCain-Obama race, the top three reasons voters said they were supporting McCain were: 1) They don’t like Obama, which turned up 22 percent of the time; 2) They always vote for the Republican candidate, at 20 percent; and, 3) McCain’s experience, 15 percent.

In the same McCain-Obama match-up, the top reasons respondents cited for favoring Obama were: 1) They always vote for the Democratic, which was important for 37 percent; 2) Obama’s message for hope and change, 16 percent; and, 3) They don’t like McCain, 14 percent.

In a McCain-Clinton race, the top reasons for supporting McCain were: 1) They don’t like Clinton, 45 percent; 2) They vote Republican, 18 percent; and, 3) They don’t like Bill Clinton and don’t want another Clinton in the White House, 8 percent.

Also in a McCain-Clinton race, the top reasons respondents told pollsters they selected Clinton were: 1) They vote Democrat, 31 percent; 2) Clinton will change President Bush’s policies and supporting working people, 15 percent; and tied for, 3) Clinton’s against the war in Iraq, and they like her stands on the issues, at 10 percent each.

Poll director Bruce Merrill said there are two reasons Obama did better than Clinton in the head-on-head contests with McCain.

“First, those who identify themselves as political independents divide their vote almost equally between Obama and McCain. Many independents are strongly opposed to the war in Iraq and they tend to oppose (McCain) on that issue,” Merrill said in a prepared statement.

“The second reason Obama does better than Clinton is that Arizonans simply have a strong dislike for Hillary Clinton, even though her husband won the state when he ran for reelection,” he said.

Well, some Arizonans have a strong dislike for her. Clinton beat Obama in Arizona’s Democratic presidential preference election 50.4 percent to 42.4 on Feb. 5, so she has her in-state support group as well.

Interestingly, age, gender and race appear to be only minor considerations for most voters, according to the survey. Or, perhaps, few people admit to pollsters that those factors are important to them.

Either way, among Obama supporters, just 4 percent said they supported him because he’s younger than McCain; while among Clinton supporters, the age issue didn’t register at all. Among McCain supporters, 3 percent said they supported him because he’s older than Obama. McCain supporters didn’t mention age when he was matched up against Clinton.

Regarding gender, 5 percent of Clinton’s followers cited her gender as their top reason to support her; while among McCain supporters, 2 percent cited Clinton’s gender as a reason to vote against her.

Race didn’t show up as a factor in any of the potential match-ups. The independent survey of 577 registered voters statewide was conducted between April 24 and 47. It has a margin of error of 4.0 percentage points, according to the pollsters.  

Elaine Chao

U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao will serve as the keynote speaker for Arizona’s Manufacturer of the Year Awards luncheon next month.

The event showcases “Arizona’s manufacturing community and the contributions its members make to the state both economically and socially,” according to the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The luncheon is set for 11:30 a.m., May 20, at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort, 7200 N. Scottsdale Road, in Scottsdale. Tickets are $150 for members and $175 for non-members. Information is available at (480) 634-3898.

Two of the Republican candidates seeking Democrat Harry Mitchell’s seat in the U.S. House are running largely self-funded campaigns.

Former Maricopa County treasurer David Schweikert has raised $681,000, but Schweikert himself contributed $272,000 of that total, according to figures compiled by The Center for Responsive Politics.

Meanwhile, former lobbyist Jim Ogsbury has raised $427,000, but he has chipped in $250,000 of that total.

OK. Now flash back to 2006 when Democratic challenger and shopping mall developer Jim Pederson self-funded most of his unsuccessful campaign against Republican Jon Kyl for the U.S. Senate. The Democrats like to explain that Pederson’s self-funded campaign proved that he couldn’t be bought. Republicans countered that it showed that he couldn’t muster any support.

This year, the opposite is happening – the Republican challengers are self-funding their campaigns. So does that mean Democrats believe Schweikert and Ogsbury are men of such integrity that they can’t be bought? Do Republicans accept the notion that Schweikert and Ogsbury simply can’t find any support?

Don’t bank on it.

In related matters, Mitchell has raised $1.4 million, but hasn’t spent a dime of his own money on the campaign. Republican Laura Knaperek, a former state representative, raised $100,000 without any self-funding. And fellow Republican Mark Anderson, a current state representative, raised $55,000, all from outside sources.

They’re vying for Arizona’s 5th Congressional District, which takes in Scottsdale, Tempe, Fountain Hills, Ahwatukee Foothills and a slice of west Mesa.

The latest national campaign finance reports underscore one of the benefits of incumbency – access to money.

In seven of the eight U.S. House races across the state, the incumbents, regardless of their parties, are far ahead of their challengers in collecting campaign contributions.

In the eighth race, Republican incumbent Rick Renzi is not running for re-election. He’s scheduled to spend the campaign season in court fighting public corruption charges instead.

Consider what’s happening in the 5^th Congressional District race.

First-term Democrat Harry Mitchell has bagged more than twice as much money as any of his Republican opponents. Mitchell had collected nearly $1.4 million and had more than $1.1 million cash on hand on at the end of the first quarter on March 31, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And he doesn’t even a primary opponent to be concerned about.

Former Maricopa County treasurer David Schweikert was tops among the GOP field in the 1st District. He had collected $681,000 and had $514,000 cash on hand.

Former lobbyist Jim Ogsbury was next with $427,000 in receipts and $353,000 in cash.

Meanwhile, former state Rep. Laura Knaperek had raised $100,000 and had $44,000 in reserve.

State Rep. Mark Anderson had raised $55,000 and curiously had $70,000 cash on hand, according to both the Center for Responsive Politics and the Federal Election Commission. Anderson told me Friday that those figures are somewhat in error. Actually, he had raised $93,000 and had $70,000 in reserve at the end of the quarter. The $55,000 figure was just the dough he had raised during the first quarter, he said.

The top three industry sectors pumping up Mitchell’s campaign were lawyers and lobbyists with $139,000 in combined contributions; finance, insurance and real estate with $130,000 in total collections; and labor at $122,500.

The 5^th District takes in Scottsdale, Tempe, Fountain Hills, Ahwatukee Foothills and west Mesa.

Over in the 6^th District, four-term Republican incumbent Jeff Flake is running practically unopposed. He has raised $891,000 and had $975,000 cash on hand, thanks to spill-over from his previous campaign. His top three industry sectors were finance, insurance and real estate at $149,000 combined; miscellaneous businesses at $110,000; and construction interests at $54,000.

His Democratic opponent, author Richard Grayson hasn’t filed campaign finance reports.

The 6th District takes in parts of Mesa and Chandler, plus all of Gilbert, Queen Creek, and Apache Junction.

Meanwhile, in the 3^rd District, seven-term Republican incumbent John Shadegg had collected more than $1.2 million and had $938,000 in reserve.

Democrat challenger and attorney Bob Lord had raised $833,000 and had $632,000 in cash.

And independent e-magazine publisher Annie Loyd was way back with $34,000 in collections and $7,000 in reserve.

Shadegg’s top industry sectors for contributions were finance, insurance and real estate at $136,000 combined; miscellaneous businesses at $121,000; and lawyers and lobbyists at $77,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Interestingly, two of Shadegg’s top three industry sectors also were among Mitchell’s top three. Shadegg’s a Republican; Mitchell’s a Democrat. Go figure.

Shadegg’s 3rd District covers central and northern Phoenix, plus Paradise Valley, Carefree and Cave Creek.

While over in the wide-open 1^st District, which is Renzi’s district, former state Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick led the Democratic field with $661,000 in collections and $465,0000 in cash.

Next was new candidate and former U.S. House aide Jiff Riley, with $221,000 in collections and $216,000 in cash.

He was followed by former TV reporter Mary Kim Titla with $169,000 in receipts and $48,000 in cash.

Then came attorney Howard Shanker with $138,000 collected and $34,000 in reserve.

On the GOP side, Arizona Mining Association president and former talk radio host Sydney Hay led with $268,000 in collections and $222,000 in cash.

New GOP challenger and Internet businessman Preston Korn entered the fray with $19,000 raised and $10,000 in reserve.

The 1^st District is the 10^th largest district in the country. The district take in vast areas of northern, central and eastern Arizona, including the far East Valley. It stretches from the Utah state line to Casa Grande. The cost of road-side signs alone will be staggering.