Shootout in of All Places--Arizona

Bob Dole may have declared California the state where he’ll make his campaign stand, but it’s also high noon for the Republican presidential nominee across the border in Arizona.

Normally, Democratic presidential candidates would treat Arizona as the forbidding political desert it has been for them since 1948. That was the last time state voters backed a Democratic White House bid, helping Harry S. Truman defeat Thomas E. Dewey.

But today, President Clinton is scheduled to ride into Phoenix, the epicenter of the state’s booming growth, for his third trip here this year.

Such swagger has caused Dole to consider a final Arizona appearance on the eve of Tuesday’s election (after having been here last Friday).

By all indications, Dole is in trouble here. A respected statewide poll conducted last week by Arizona State University showed “most likely” voters picking Clinton over Dole by 45% to 41%--a statistical dead heat.

Given Clinton’s large lead in the polls nationwide, the showdown in Arizona has less to do with the state’s eight electoral votes than its symbolism. “The real question isn’t whether Clinton will win,” said Bruce Merrill, director of the ASU poll, “but why Dole is doing so poorly in a state he should win handily.”

That puzzle is whipping up dust devils of political punditry, with state Republicans soul searching while Democrats sound as if they can barely suppress “Yee-haws!”

Clinton national deputy campaign manager Ann Lewis calls Arizona “an example of states newly hospitable to the Democratic Party. It is for us a frontier state. . . . We see it as an opportunity and a challenge.”

Sam Coppersmith, state Democratic Party chairman, sums up Clinton’s strong prospects by saying simply: “The state has changed.”

Signs of that emerged four years ago. Although Arizona backed then-President Bush over Clinton in 1992, it did so narrowly, 38% to 37%. And independent Ross Perot claimed 24% of the vote.

This year, Perot is less of a factor, polling only in the single digits. Meanwhile, some Republicans track the current political peculiarities to the arrival of another rich outsider--publishing magnate Steve Forbes, who scored an upset victory in February’s GOP primary here.

“It really hurt Dole to have Forbes spend $4 million on negative advertising,” said Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.

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But GOP State Party Chairwoman Doddy London discounts that explanation. “Bob Dole was not, in the beginning, very attentive,” she said. “He is now.”

GOP National Committeeman Mike Hellon of Tucson sees Dole’s standings diminished by defections from two core groups--senior citizens and Republican women.

Like Republican strategists nationwide, he attributes the slip among seniors largely to what party operatives term “Mediscare”: the effort by Democrats to convince voters that Dole would gut the nation’s Medicare system and other entitlements.

As for the other lapse in loyalty, Hellon thinks the party turned off Arizona’s independent and Republican women with its harsh rhetoric on the abortion issue and tough talk on shrinking government. “They’re a little fearful on that score. They think government has a role.”

Republicans complain that Clinton, meanwhile, has aggressively “co-opted” other conservative campaign issues, such as welfare reform. Most also concede that the president has out-campaigned Dole, period.

Last month, for instance, Clinton rhapsodized about nature from the rim of the Arizona’s beloved Grand Canyon. For good measure, he then beat Dole to the draw on a campaign no-brainer, visiting conservative icon Barry Goldwater at the hospital where he was recovering from a stroke.

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Even while giving a nod to Clinton’s political prowess, most GOP leaders say they doubt the polls.

“When I ran for reelection the last time in ‘94, I was 12 points down at this point,” Gov. Fife Symington said this week as he and McCain barnstormed the state for the party. “I surged and won by about 8 points. This isn’t unusual.”

But the numbers do have Republicans circling their wagons. At the party’s Phoenix headquarters on Monday night, about 20 volunteers pasted 87,000 addresses of rural Democrats and independents to fliers attacking Clinton’s drug policy. Other recent Dole literature has targeted women and senior citizens, for a total of 1.3 million mailings in the campaign’s final three weeks.

Pollster Merrill says the race is so close it could boil down to such Arizona esoterica as the number of absentee ballots filed or whether the state’s Native American population votes in greater numbers than usual.

“The key thing, and the hardest to predict, is turnout,” he says. He adds that if pushed, he would guess there will be a “very low” turnout, which likely would give Dole a very narrow victory.