Arizona shock wave

(PNI) The regular session of the Legislature was pretty ho-hum. The special session, however, was a humdinger.

Monumental things were done in the special session. A budget was passed and Medicaid expansion enacted.

Monumental things were done dramatically. The special session was called without warning to those not part of Gov. Jan Brewer's Medicaid-expansion cabal. Parliamentary guile was used to seize control of legislative proceedings and completely sideline leadership and the majority caucus.

The budget and Medicaid expansion were voted out in the shortest time allowed by the state Constitution without real debate. Brewer has said that the insurgents were even willing to formally depose leadership if required.

Even more than what was done, how it was done is likely to have political repercussions and reverberations, at least through the Republican primaries in 2014 and probably well beyond. To understand why, you have to understand how tribal American politics is.

People who are politically active tend to cluster around conservative and liberal axes. Since the Reagan realignment, the Republican Party is the vehicle for conservatives and the Democratic Party is the vehicle for liberals.

There are lots of fissures within the parties. On the Republican side, economic libertarians don't see eye to eye with social conservatives on priorities and some issues. Business and cultural populists tussle for influence. On the Democratic side, unions and environmentalists often clash. And there are tensions between what remains of pro-business Democrats and economic populists about how much and how business should be regulated.

But the ethic is that these disputes are settled within the tribe. You don't go conspiring with the other side to diminish the influence of fellow tribal members. That weakens the power of the tribe overall.

When you hear an elected official or candidate say that he is committed to bipartisanship, you are listening to canned babble intended to lure swing voters. The real intention is to increase the power of his tribe to be in a better position to crush the other tribe.

Now, many people think that the tribal nature of American politics is unproductive and silly. And that it produces undemocratic results. If a majority of the Legislature thinks Medicaid should be expanded, it should be expanded. Who cares that the majority consists of mostly Democrats and a few Republicans?

Those people have a point. But they also tend not to be nearly as politically active as those who regard politics as tribal. And for those people, the Republican members of the Medicaid cabal have breached a fundamental tribal ethic.

Something similar happened in 2004. Fifteen Republican House members sided with Democrats to pass a state budget over the objection of House leadership and a majority of the House Republican caucus. Only eight of them returned the following year. And only one of them, current state Sen. Michele Reagan of Scottsdale, is still a politician of any note.

The breach of the tribal ethic this time is much graver. In 2004, there was no special session, no seizing of control of the legislative process, no threat to dispose leadership. Moreover, a majority of Republicans in the state Senate voted to accept the House renegade budget.

Overall, Republican legislators were pretty evenly divided over that budget, 24 in favor and 32 against. On this budget, only 14 Republicans supported it and 39 opposed it. And in 2013, as opposed to 2004, a side casualty was an abortion bill strongly desired by social conservatives, who remain the most powerful force in Republican politics.

Will the political careers of those 14 suffer the same fate as the 2004 rebels? You'd have to say the odds are that they will.

Republican primaries are a place where tribal politics matter. The business community vowed to come to the rescue of any Republican facing a primary challenge because of voting for Medicaid expansion. I'll believe it when I see the money. Regardless, a Republican primary can be won even if the other side spends a lot more.

Moreover, Republican primary challengers will have a potent charge to make: The incumbent voted to implement "Obamacare" in Arizona. Brewer hates this formulation, but it's fair enough for politics. Expanding Medicaid to 133 percent of the poverty level was a key component of Obamacare. And Brewer's Medicaid expansion implements it.

But here's the weird part. The budget that the Medicaid cabal passed is actually a very conservative budget. And, except for Medicaid expansion, it's pretty much the same budget legislative Republicans would have passed if the budget hadn't gotten caught up in the Medicaid-expansion melodrama.

And here's the really weird and ironic part. By voting for the budget as part of the Medicaid coup, legislative Democrats have basically signed on to the Republican approach to managing the state's way through the current rough patch. And in so doing, they've largely given up their chief campaign issue for 2014.

The coup eclipsed the nearly universal consensus that exists among legislative Republicans about fiscal policy. They saved over a billion dollars from the temporary sales tax. The plan is to largely hold the line on spending, use that surplus to paper over structural deficits over the next three years and hope revenue picks up enough to make ends meet before the surplus runs out.

The 2014 budget that passed with mostly Democratic votes implements that strategy. Democrats have been complaining for years about how Republicans have recklessly cut state spending. The budget for which they supplied the majority of the votes still funds the Department of Education $340million below its pre-recession peak; Department of Economic Security (which houses most of the state's social-welfare programs) $68million less than its peak; and the universities $357million below.

The budget Democrats voted for has not a dime for all-day kindergarten, next to nothing for school capital, and continues the waiting list for child-care subsidies.

So, how are the Democrats going to complain about Republican spending cuts when the state is spending precisely the amount for every program of state government Democrats voted to approve?

All these tribal dislocations and future turbulence could have been avoided. Republicans could have been left free to craft a budget implementing their fiscal strategy, and Democrats could have retained their political argument that it didn't spend enough.

Independent of the budget, Brewer could have forced a vote on Medicaid expansion, on which there was a natural bipartisan coalition. That could have been considerably less of a violation of tribal ethics.

But drama we had. And political turmoil we will now endure.

Reach Robb at robert.robb@ arizonarepublic.com.

Copyright 2013 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Democrats Bet on Shift in Hispanic Numbers to Win Arizona Race

Mr. Carmona, 62, is an untested candidate of vast experiences with a made-for-Hollywood biography. He was a high school dropout, born into poverty in New York City to Puerto Rican parents who struggled with alcoholism and drug abuse. He served in Vietnam, earning Bronze Stars, Purple Hearts and other combat decorations, and attended medical school before his eventual rise to surgeon general under President George W. Bush.

He is running for public office for the first time, challenging a six-term congressman, Jeff Flake, 49, a Republican. Both are vying for the seat held by another Republican, Senator Jon Kyl, who is retiring. Though there is little reliable polling in the contest, both camps acknowledged that the race is closer than they expected in such a heavily Republican state.

Beyond the balance of power in the Senate — enough states are in play that Republicans could regain the majority — the race carries enormous significance for Arizona, whose shifts in demographics threaten to upend its role as a Republican stronghold.

Mr. Carmona was handpicked by President Obama to run for the Senate because of his résumé and his ethnicity, which could help galvanize the state’s Latino voters. The Democratic Party then cleared the field for him, sparing him primary attacks but depriving him of the chance to test his skills before the big fight.

Mr. Flake, in the meantime, waged a feisty primary contest against Wil Cardon, a wealthy businessman who spent a small fortune on his campaign but lost by a considerable margin. Unlike Mr. Carmona, who often refers to himself as a “street kid,” Mr. Flake was raised on a ranch in Snowflake, a northern Arizona town named in part for his great-great-grandfather, the Mormon pioneer William J. Flake.

Mr. Flake says he is “for limited government, economic freedom, individual responsibility and free trade,” tenets that have earned him staunch support from the Tea Party movement. He has also embraced issues of particular significance to rural voters, like environmental rules that he says have curbed the operation of coal plants, leaving many people unemployed and “devastating small-town economies.”

From his campaign headquarters in Phoenix on Tuesday, where he was surrounded by young volunteers polling voters on the phone, Mr. Flake said, “I’m fighting to have some rational policy,” singling out the Forest Service and the Environmental Protection Agency as agencies that “need to be reined in.”

Outside groups have been pouring money and resources into the state as the race has tightened. On Wednesday, FreedomWorks for America, a “super PAC” linked to the Tea Party, opened an office in Mesa. The operation at the heart of Mr. Flake’s base in suburban Phoenix will organize volunteers to solicit votes, said its executive director, Russell Walker, who flew in from Washington.

On Tuesday, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee bought $526,000 in airtime on behalf of Mr. Carmona, its first direct expenditure in the contest. (The committee had previously given $500,000 to the state’s Democratic Party to help pay for the campaign’s field offices, among other things.) The National Republican Senatorial Committee has donated $500,000 worth of ads to the Flake effort.

Mr. Carmona, a longtime independent, is running as a Democrat. That is not because the party is “a perfect fit,” he said, but because “I was forced to pick a position, and when I looked at where the Republicans were, especially in this state — immigration, women’s issues — I chose the Democratic Party.”

He has nonetheless tried to stitch together what he has taken to calling “a coalition of reasonable people” to carry him to victory. He has focused on constituencies long believed to be Republican stalwarts, like veterans, who make up roughly 15 percent of eligible voters in the state, and seniors, many of whom dislike the Medicare plan proposed by Representative Paul D. Ryan, the Republican vice-presidential nominee. Mr. Carmona has also appealed to women who are unhappy about the state’s attempts to curb reproductive rights.

All along, though, Mr. Carmona has courted Latino voters. He released his second Spanish-language commercial on Tuesday, which introduces him as “uno de nosotros” — one of us — while highlighting Mr. Flake’s vote against the Dream Act, which would have given certain immigrants brought to the country illegally as children a path to legalization.

Mr. Flake has begun to make his case to Latinos as well. He has started running his first Spanish-language ad on television and radio, trying to tap into whatever anti-Obama sentiment there is in that community by referring to Mr. Carmona as “el hombre de Obama” — Obama’s man.

A combination of factors, including the state’s legislative push to curb illegal immigration and the presence of a Hispanic candidate like Mr. Carmona in the race, — have been galvanizing among advocacy groups in Arizona, triggering the largest Latino voter registration efforts in memory.

Still, Tara Blanc, a lecturer at the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University who has studied Latino voting patterns in the state, said Latinos tended to be poorer, younger and less educated than the rest of the population. Those factors generally contribute to low turnouts, she said, so “whether they’ll go to the polls is anybody’s guess.”

Their transformative power lies, most likely, in the future. By 2030, Latinos are expected to make up 25 percent of all registered voters in Arizona, up from 15 percent in 2010, according to an analysis by the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State.

Chip Scutari, who runs a bipartisan political consulting firm in Phoenix, said a Latino on the ballot could be “the tipping point for the Latino vote.” But, he added, the state has “a lot of conservative, pro-life Latinos,” who are more likely to vote Republican.

“To say the Latino vote will automatically go to Democrats,” Mr. Scutari said, “is oversimplifying the situation.”

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Push is on for open primary in Arizona

Political moderates for years have bemoaned Arizona's partisan primary system.

Voter participation is typically light, they complain, giving outsize influence to diehard party activists who often are either more conservative or more liberal than most rank-and-file party members and independents. And Democratic or Republican voters in districts dominated by the other party frequently have little or no choice once the general election arrives.

Many centrists blame the status quo for the state's increasingly divisive political climate.

This year, Arizona voters may get the opportunity to overhaul the process. An initiative drive aims to place on the statewide ballot a proposition that would establish a new kind of open primary in which the top two vote-getters would face off in the general election.

All voters, including independents, could participate in the new "top two" primary, meaning the candidates would have to appeal to an array of voters beyond their ideological base in order to succeed. It would apply to all elections in the state except for nonpartisan municipal elections and the state's presidential-preference election.

"You're no longer voting for a nominee of the Democratic Party or a nominee of the Republican Party, you're winnowing down the number of candidates down to two," said David Berman, a senior research fellow at Arizona State University's Morrison Institute for Public Policy who has studied the issue.

"So, it's not a partisan primary anymore. It's a system by which you screen candidates down to the top two."

The pros and cons of the "top two" primary idea, which is in use in Louisiana and Washington and will go into effect in California this year, will be debated today during a panel discussion organized by the O'Connor House. The organization, named after retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's former home, advocates for centrist and nonpartisan policy solutions and civil discourse.

The event is scheduled for 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Burton Barr Public Library, 1221 N. Central Ave., Phoenix. The event is free, but seats must be reserved through oconnorhouse.org.

Panelists set to appear at the O'Connor House forum include:

Grady Gammage Jr., a longtime Valley land-use attorney who helped write the Arizona primary initiative.

Alan Maguire, an Arizona political consultant who opposes the proposal.

Steve Peace, who led California's similar initiative campaign to passage.

Richard Winger, San Francisco-based publisher of Ballot Access News and a fierce critic of "top two" primaries.

Berman, of the Morrison Institute, said his research on "top two" primaries was somewhat constrained by the fact the system has been in operation for only two election cycles in Washington, although he said initial evidence is somewhat promising in terms of encouraging moderation.

His 2011 paper on the subject notes that Louisiana's process, which, unlike Arizona's proposal, allows top vote-getters to win outright in the primary if they garner more than 50 percent of the vote, "has not been regarded as having had much of an impact on party competition or voter participation," and its influence on moderation is unclear.

"There isn't a lot of history to find out exactly what's going to happen, but my impression is that there is a slight effect toward moderation just in the general tone because you have people who have to appeal to a broader electorate rather than just the party faithful," Berman said.

If Arizona voters pass this year's initiative, they will be trading traditional party primaries for a system similar to, but not exactly like, city elections. Candidates could still identify themselves on the ballot by their party or as an independent.

It's possible, and in some Arizona congressional and legislative districts even probable, that the top two vote-getters in the primary would belong to the same party.

Unlike in city elections, the top vote-getter would not be able to avoid the runoff by clearing more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary. A general-election match-up is guaranteed.

In the case of Arizona House of Representatives elections, where two seats are up for grabs in each legislative district, the top four contenders would head to the general election.

More than just shaking up the election process, the 2012 initiative "is about trying to change the outcomes so that we end up with a more reasoned debate and more people are included in the process," said former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson, who is helping spearhead the proposed ballot measure.

Today's partisan primaries require "ideological purity" and stoke hostility toward the other side, making bipartisan cooperation on major issues less likely, he said.

"Twenty years ago, it was normal for people to cross the aisle and work with other people and look for common ground. People felt like they had a responsibility to people in both parties," said Johnson, who was the 1998 Democratic gubernatorial nominee but is now registered as an independent. "Today, politics is a team sport. It's not about the state. It's not about the country. It's about: What team are you on, the blue team or the red team?"

However, Winger doubts the new system would have a substantial impact on the partisan rancor in the Arizona Legislature. The Democrats and the Republicans will concentrate on making sure their preferred candidates move forward, he said.

Winger also predicted it will be all but impossible for a third-party or independent candidate to break through and advance in a three-way primary race that includes two major-party candidates.

"We've seen how this system works in Louisiana for 38 years and in Washington state for four years," Winger told The Arizona Republic. "It just ends up with Democrats and Republicans being the only people who can run in the general election."

Berman didn't dispute that but noted Libertarians and other third-party candidates don't have much of a track record of attracting votes anyway.

"I don't think it'll hurt the major parties," Berman said. "It'll hurt the minor parties."

Jaime Molera, a Republican consultant and a former Arizona superintendent of public instruction, said the "top two" primary initiative is another bad idea from the same sort of government reformers who brought the state publicly funded campaigns, an Independent Redistricting Commission and the existing semi-open primary system in which independents can choose either the Democratic or Republican ballot. So far, none of those "fixes" has done much to make Arizona politics more moderate, he said.

The real problem, Molera said, is low voter turnout, and "I'm not sure there's any kind of a magic bullet that would fix that."

"Ultimately, people have to decide for themselves if they want to participate in a democracy," he said.

The Open Government Committee championing the "top-two" primary system has until July 5 to submit 259,213 valid petition signatures to secure a spot on the ballot for the initiative. If voters pass the measure, the "top two" primary would go into effect during the 2014 election cycle.

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Arizona Immigration Bill Heads for Supreme Court

Russell Pearce, a Republican who is the former president of the Arizona Senate, ventured into hostile terrain in a hearing called by Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on immigration. Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, also a Republican, turned down Mr. Schumer’s invitation to advocate for the law at the hearing.

Mr. Pearce and Ms. Brewer are in Washington to attend a Supreme Court hearing on Wednesday in which the justices will consider whether four provisions of the law that have been challenged by the Obama administration are unconstitutional because they encroach on legal terrain reserved for the federal government.

Mr. Pearce, known for his blunt language, said the law, SB 1070, would protect the state’s citizens from “the invasion of illegal aliens we face today,” which he called “one of the greatest threats to our nation.” He said Arizona had acted because “the federal government has decided not to enforce the law,” and he accused the administration of “encouraging further lawbreaking” with its lawsuit.

The Senate hearing served primarily to highlight the political jockeying surrounding the Supreme Court’s deliberations, as Democrats and Republicans try to gauge the possible impact of a ruling by the justices on Latinos, a pivotal group of voters in the presidential contest.

As it appears increasingly possible that the court will uphold at least some of the disputed provisions, Mr. Schumer called the hearing as a showcase for the Democrats’ opposition to the law, which has been intensely unpopular among Latinos nationwide. He announced that if the Supreme Court upheld part or all of Arizona’s statute in its ruling, which is expected in June, he would introduce a bill to expressly prevent states from enacting their own immigration enforcement laws.

Senate staff members said that proposal would have little chance of passage, but it could serve as a rallying point for Democrats to appeal to Latino voters during the summer as the presidential race is fully under way.

None of the Republicans on the subcommittee attended the hearing.

“It is no more than election-year theater,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the senior Republican on the subcommittee. He said that none of the witnesses was an expert on the arcane legal issues that the Supreme Court is considering about the law.

The Arizona law requires state law enforcement officials to determine the immigration status of people they stop or arrest if officials have reason to believe they might be illegal immigrants. The law also makes it a crime under state law for immigrants to fail to register under a federal law and for illegal immigrants to work or to try to find work. It also allows the police to make arrests without warrants if they have probable cause to believe that suspects are deportable under federal law.

Lower courts have blocked the provisions. The administration has argued to the Supreme Court that the law conflicts with federal policies and priorities. Arizona counters that the law complements federal efforts to control immigration and is a routine example of state enforcement of federal laws.

Mr. Pearce, a fierce opponent of illegal immigration, wrote the statute, which passed in 2010. Caught in the uproar the law provoked among some voters, especially Latinos, he lost his Senate seat in a recall election last November.

Persistent questioning from Mr. Schumer put Mr. Pearce on the defensive at times, as the senator bore down on sections of the bill he said could lead the Arizona police to engage in racial profiling. The senator pointed to a training manual showing that the police were instructed to consider how a person was dressed and whether his vehicle was “heavily loaded” in developing a “reasonable suspicion” that he was an illegal immigrant.

The bitterness that the bill has provoked was on display. Dennis DeConcini, who was a Democratic United States senator from Arizona from 1977 to 1995, issued an apology to Latinos for the “harm” of the law. “I am embarrassed for my state,” he said.

Around the country, immigrant advocate organizations were gearing up for protests and vigils. Immigrant groups in Los Angeles held a small rally on Tuesday in front of a federal court building downtown.

In a letter released Tuesday afternoon, religious leaders from a number of faiths called on President Obama to “reassert your authority” to stop states from enacting a patchwork of immigration laws, by working with Congress to pass a broad federal overhaul of the immigration system. Among those signing were Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; and the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

Adam Liptak contributed reporting.

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Democrats, Obama actively target Arizona in 2012 elections - AZCentral.com

by Alexander Burns - Feb. 26, 2012 02:06 PM
POLITICO.com

PHOENIX, Ariz. -- President Barack Obama and his party have a modest plan for contesting Arizona in 2012: speeding up time.

Not literally, of course, but Democrats are actively targeting the state this cycle with a push they hope will eventually convert Arizona to permanent swing-state status and test the GOP's appeal up and down the ballot.

The idea is to accelerate a transition in Arizona that's already taken hold throughout the West, as the rapidly growing ranks of Hispanic and independent voters have turned once-conservative-leaning states such as Colorado and Nevada firmly purple.

Strategists in both parties say it's uncertain whether Arizona is changing quickly enough to make it a genuine battleground in 2012 -- or anytime soon. The task of competing here looks especially daunting for a president who has clashed repeatedly with local Republicans, and whose Justice Department has sued the state over its restrictive immigration law. Most Republicans think their opponents are chasing a mirage in the desert.

But if they can fire up Latino voters, bring new registrants into the political process and take advantages of state-level miscalculations by the GOP, Democrats are hopeful that they can at least win back some of the territory they lost in the 2010 conservative landslide.

"All the elements are in place for Arizona to be a competitive state. Demographically, historically, all the pieces are lining up," said Andrei Cherny, a former state Democratic Party chairman now running for Congress. "You need to have an appeal that reaches past party lines and motivates and excites independents. I think that can be done, even on a presidential level."

Democratic state Rep. Ruben Gallego predicted that in a presidential year, Latino voters who sat out the 2010 campaign and who gave native-son presidential candidate John McCain a respectable showing in 2008, would come out in force for Obama.

"Time is moving this way, but what's also happening is the Latino community is becoming more active," he said. "The Republican brand is very damaged among the Latino community in Arizona."

Longtime Republican presidential strategist Charlie Black said he doubted Democrats would be viable in Arizona in 2012. Over a longer political timeline, he explained, the political prognosis is different.

"With the growth of the Latino vote and if Republicans don't get back to being more competitive in the Hispanic community, yeah, Arizona will be a competitive state up and down the ballot," said Black, a top adviser to McCain's 2008 bid. "But people in the West, including Arizona, have a sort of libertarian orientation. They don't much like the federal government and they don't like 'Obamacare,' telling religious voters what to do."

The state's conservative history has been alive and well in recent cycles: Arizona has routinely gone for Republican presidential candidates, handing GOP nominees 50 percent-plus totals in every election since 1996. Republicans control the governor's office, both chambers of the Legislature, both Senate seats and a majority of the congressional delegation.

And yet, the Obama campaign and other national Democrats have insistently signaled that they aim to compete here. The president's team outlined one possible route to reelection that involves strengthening the party's performance here and throughout the West -- potentially offsetting Democratic losses in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Obama has already opened offices in Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff, and plans to open a fourth in Glendale soon, according to a campaign official. As of Wednesday, Obama for America's Arizona staff and volunteers had more than 237 phone banks and 439 voter registration events, the official said.

Democrats have geared up for this year's Senate race, with Obama helping recruit former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona -- a George W. Bush appointee - for the open-seat contest to replace GOP Sen. Jon Kyl. Encouraged by newly drawn congressional maps, the party is hoping to recapture several of the House seats it won in the 2006 anti-Bush landslide and then lost in 2010.

Mahen Gunaratna, the Obama campaign's spokesman for Arizona and New Mexico, said the president's team is "confident we can be competitive in Arizona," emphasizing the potential impact of the Latino vote in a race against "a Republican field whose leading candidates oppose the DREAM Act, even calling it a 'handout,' as well as opposing a path to citizenship for immigrants."

Even Democratic strategists who are upbeat about the party's Arizona prospects suggest that they may fare better down-ballot -- in state and congressional races -- than in the presidential election, with an incumbent tied to a weak economy.

Jill Hanauer -- president of Project New America, the group formerly known as Project New West -- said it's part of the "Western tradition" to engage in split-ticket voting and support maverick members of both parties, such as McCain and Janet Napolitano, Arizona's former Democratic governor.

"I think voters in Arizona are going to be very intentional and do a lot of sorting," she said. "I think Arizona, both short term and long term, is really primed to be what Colorado is now, which is a solidly purple state that favors moderate, mainstream Democrats over Republicans."

On top of long-term trends that ought to make the state more hospitable to Democrats, Arizona has been buffeted since 2008 by a series of political crises and controversies that inject a major dose of uncertainty into the mix for both parties.

The national uproar over Arizona's immigration law -- known as S.B. 1070 -- was the first in a cascading sequence of local political crises, including a federal investigation of firebrand conservative Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a recall election that ousted state Senate President Russell Pearce and, most prominently, the January 2011 shooting of Democratic then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

What has remained constant throughout is much of the state's resentment against the federal government for its immigration lawsuit -- it's now headed for a ruling in the Supreme Court after portions were blocked by lower tribunals -- and the steady growth of the Latino population.

There's no question that population growth looks like a boon to Democrats. Between 2000 and 2010, Latinos went from 25.3 percent of Arizona residents to 29.6 percent, with that percentage markedly higher among younger Arizonans. A Democratic official said that over 111,000 people with Hispanic last names have registered to vote since 2008, and that 80,000 Hispanic voters who participated in 2008 took a pass on the 2010 campaign -- giving the party room to expand this year.

Republicans remain intensely skeptical -- verging on scornful -- of Democratic claims that this demographic shift will be enough to put Arizona in play this year or in the immediate future. To them, the prospect of Arizona-as-swing state looks about as plausible as the short-lived George W. Bush-era fantasy of turning California red.

Republican National Committee political director Rick Wiley issued a memo late last year essentially dismissing the Obama campaign's Arizona chatter as a flight of fancy and said this week he still doesn't "see a scenario" where a president with middling approval numbers can mount a real fight for the state.

"With the gains we had in '10, this is an entirely red state right now," Wiley said. "I think you're looking at a decade, at least, before they can get close in some of these congressional districts."

Though there's some evidence that Republicans are paying a price for their policies on immigration and other divisive policy debates, there's little indication so far that the alternative voters want is a Democrat. When they booted Pearce, the polarizing author of S.B. 1070, they voted in another Republican -- now-state Sen. Jerry Lewis.

And while state and national Democrats have scored points off flamboyant conservatives like Pearce and Arpaio, the party's 2012 ticket is likely to be headed by two more inoffensive candidates: Mitt Romney and Rep. Jeff Flake, who is running for Senate.

That doesn't mean that the GOP isn't taking some steps to prepare for a Democratic push here -- even if it's one viewed as doomed from the start.

At the Republican National Committee's winter meeting in New Orleans, Wiley said the Arizona GOP was asked to take part in an exercise that other 2012 battleground states participated in last year, sizing up their state as a potential target and taking "a long, hard look at why [Obama] can't win."

"I just wanted to put the Arizona party on notice," Wiley explained, calling it a matter of "diligence."

The amount of preparation necessary for the state GOP will depend on how much actual money and national attention Democrats end up devoting to the state -- X factors that are unknowable this far out in the cycle. While Obama visited Arizona only last month, his time and resources will be scarcer by the fall.

"If the Obama people choose to run a serious campaign in the state, we'll have to run a serious campaign," said Black. "But let me put it this way: they will run about 4 or 5 points behind their national median in Arizona. So it won't be a state they'll need to get."

What's more, the president's presence may or may not be an asset to candidates running down-ballot and seeking to appeal to Arizona's independent streak.

That makes for something of a balancing act for candidates like Carmona, who's offering himself to voters in the Senate race as a "centrist and moderate" challenging a state GOP that's perceived as "too radical."

"The average person is just looking for somebody -- more or less any person -- who will do something rather than blaming the other side," he said. "The thing I hear most is, they just want some leadership. 'Somebody solve the damn problem.'"

As for whether that anti-politician mantle would leave room for, say, campaigning with Obama, Carmona was non-committal.

"I haven't even thought about that, to tell you the truth. I know Arizona is one of 50 for him and Arizona is my Number One focus," he said. "I'm certainly happy to have the conversation, but my focus is on my campaign and the issues that I think are important to Arizona."

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Arizona recall vote energizes Democrats (AP)

By JERI CLAUSING and PAUL DAVENPORT, Associated Press Jeri Clausing And Paul Davenport, Associated Press – Sun Nov 13, 8:54 am ET

PHOENIX – Last week's recall election defeat of the Republican legislator who wrote Arizona's tough anti-immigration law and the seating of Democratic mayors in Phoenix and Tucson have given Democrats renewed hope for picking up the state in next year's Senate and presidential elections.

Combined, the outcomes underscored the diversity of voters in what many view as a conservative state even though voters here are split nearly in thirds among Republicans, independents and Democrats.

The Democratic Party argued that Tuesday's recall of state Senate President Russell Pearce was evidence of a broader shift to the left that will reverberate in 2012.

"For the first time in 20 years, we will have Democratic mayors of Tucson and Phoenix," state Democratic Party Chairman Andrei Cherny wrote in an email to supporters. "And for the first time in American history, a state legislative leader - the most powerful politician in Arizona - was recalled from office. These are victories for all Arizonans - ones that six months ago would have seemed all but impossible."

"A year from now, when we are looking back on Election Day 2012, we will point to last night as where things turned around for our party and state," he added.

Republicans dismissed Tuesday's results as coming from an "abnormal election" funded by out-of-state interests upset by Arizona's 2010 enactment of the groundbreaking immigration enforcement law known as SB1070.

"They thought this proved a point. It didn't," said Arizona GOP chairman Tom Morrissey. "It will all be undone in the next election. It was a power grab by the left. They won a battle, they have not won the war by any means."

But the rhetoric, new polls and the emphasis being put on Arizona by the Democrats and President Barack Obama's campaign indicates that the state — which on the surface appears solidly red with its two longtime Republican U.S. Senators, a GOP near-sweep of statewide offices and one of the country's most conservative legislatures — is heading into the 2012 elections solidly purple.

In the 2008 presidential race, Arizona was a given for home-state candidate John McCain, the Republican nominee.

And while Republican Gov. Jan Brewer was an easy winner in 2010, Democrat Janet Napolitano twice ran gubernatorial races in the last decade.

"I think that some on the East Coast don't put us there," said Cherny. "But every indication is we are there. The Obama campaign has said Arizona is at the top of the places they are looking at to compete very hard."

In 2012, Obama spokeswoman Ofelia Casillas said, the state will play a "critical role" and has been among the battleground states where its grassroots movement, Organizing for America, has been active. The campaign has also recently hired a Mexican-American regional field director and a Mexican-American fellow who is focused on reaching out to the Latino community.

Those efforts may find fertile ground in a state where Hispanics make up nearly 30 percent of the population.

A recent Rocky Mountain Poll from October showed Obama either about even or apparently ahead of three Republican presidential contenders: Herman Cain, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.

The same survey also found that only 38 percent of the state's voters call themselves conservative. Thirty-four percent consider themselves moderate while 28 percent call themselves liberal.

"The impression of Arizona as a majority conservative state is more a reflection of gerrymandering and the historically superior strength of conservative forces in getting their voters to the polls," the Behavior Research Center said of the ideological splits.

Indeed, neither party holds a majority of the state's voters. Republicans hold a slight lead with roughly 36 percent of registered voters while roughly 33 percent are independent and 31 percent are Democrats.

The Behavior Research Center pollsters said the recall of Pearce, whom they called "the most powerful conservative voice in state government," may be a "harbinger of what can happen when voters in the center organize to get out their vote and make their election preferences felt."

Organization and appealing to mainstream voters more interested in solving problems than championing extreme politics and hot-button issues like immigration are the focus of the Arizona Democratic party, Cherny said.

In that vein, their hopes in the state's 2012 race for U.S. Senate may have been bolstered last week when Richard Carmona officially entered the race for the seat now held by retiring Republican Jon Kyl. The former surgeon general under President George W. Bush was aggressively recruited by Democratic leaders who hope he will appeal to the state's moderate and independent voters.

Carmona describes himself as a fierce independent and notes that Republicans in the past had also recruited him to run for office. He'll face lesser-known Don Bivens, an attorney and former state party chairman, in the primary, while U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake and businessman Will Cardon will battle for the Republican nomination.

Morrissey, the state Republican chairman, said Tuesday's vote only provides his party's activists with an incentive to work harder. And there's reason for optimism, he said.

"In the wake of all this we still face the same problems: immigration, jobs, education, the economy. It all happens to be tied together," Morrissey said.

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Clausing reported from Albuquerque, N.M.

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