Bush Seeks to Slow McCain on Home Turf

In this fastest-growing city in one of the fastest-growing states in the country, you can literally watch the desert disappear before your eyes.

Stand at the Home Depot in the middle of town, and you can see bulldozers in every direction plowing scrub into subdivision. New homes are more common than cacti. Ask folks how long they’ve lived here, they look at their watches.

The explosive growth here and elsewhere in Arizona--more than a million people in a decade--has created a new generation of voters with no special loyalty to John McCain, the state’s senior senator who has represented the state in Washington for 17 years.

That population boom, along with aggressive advertising by rival Republican George W. Bush and a record of local political problems, has left McCain’s home state support unexpectedly weak as the primary approaches on Tuesday.

“It’s not a question of winning, it’s a question of winning big,” said Kevin DeMenna, an Arizona political consultant unaffiliated with either candidate. “He needs to hit a home run in Arizona. Right now, it doesn’t look like it will be more than a single or a double.”

Strategy Simple if a Bit Absurd

According to the latest poll, McCain is ahead of Bush by about 18 percentage points in Arizona--less than half the average 44-point lead for a presidential contender campaigning on his native turf during the last three election cycles.

Bush supporters have seized on that weaker-than-expected showing, hoping to spin the results of Arizona’s primary into a firebreak that slows, if not stops, the hometown favorite’s surging national momentum.

The strategy is relatively simple: Why should the rest of the country back McCain if the voters who know him best don’t give him the strongest possible endorsement? And while the results may seem an exercise in the absurd--Bush could lose by 40 points but claim a victory--Bush supporters say anything less than a resounding victory should raise questions about McCain’s electability.

“This man is our senior senator,” said state Sen. Scott Bundgaard, part of a small cadre of top local officials, including the governor, supporting Bush in McCain’s own territory. “He should do well here. He needs to win by 2 to 1, at least.”

McCain’s struggle in Arizona also reflects the difficulty he has had with core Republican voters in other presidential contests. McCain’s victory in New Hampshire and his support in polls in South Carolina and Michigan have depended on the independents and Democrats who are able to vote in those states’ open primaries. Arizona, however, is the first major presidential primary that is limited only to Republican voters.

McCain supporters, of course, scoff at the political expectations game in the upcoming primary. They note that he won his 1998 Senate race in Arizona with nearly 70% of the vote--against a weak Democratic opponent, to be sure, but hardly an indication of flaccid local support.

McCain backers attribute any weakness in recent poll numbers to the power of the Bush machine, which has been running television ads and delivering mass mailings for months in the state, while McCain has done comparatively little.

“If we win by 5 points, we still win,” said Wes Gullett, a longtime aide and deputy national campaign manager.

The story of McCain’s popularity in Arizona is complicated, bound up in the state’s schizophrenic political history.

In the past, voters have backed one of the country’s most renowned conservatives, Sen. Barry Goldwater, and one of its most famous liberals, Rep. Morris K. Udall. In more recent years, they have elected both a Republican and a Democrat as governor.

And while the state has a reputation for ornery, free-thinking voters, registered independents make up less than 15% of the vote here, compared to 37% in places like New Hampshire. In fact, the state is evenly split among Democrats and Republicans, with Republicans holding a slight lead.

A Wide Mix of Political Attitudes

Further confusing the landscape is the state’s geopolitics: From the moonscapes of the Sonoran desert that shelter rugged individualists to the trendy New Age enclaves of Sedona and Tucson, political attitudes vary greatly.

More than 60% of likely voters live in the long valley surrounding conservative Phoenix. Another 15% or so inhabit the area around more liberal, artsy Tucson. The rest, so-called Pinto Democrats, inhabit smaller towns and the state’s vast rural spaces, tending to register as Democrats but vote as Republicans.

Another reason for McCain’s comparatively low level of support may be related to his reluctance to engage in pork-barrel politics, combined with a maverick streak that finds him frequently pursuing doomed legislation like campaign finance reform.

Both traits mean that many locals think McCain should have done more for Arizona. Recent polls and more than two dozen interviews suggest that while Arizonans certainly support McCain, they remain unfamiliar with his achievements as a legislator or a politician.

Typical is Michael Thomas, a 52-year-old mortgage banker who has lived in Arizona for a year in a subdivision so new his neighbors’ homes are still under construction.

“No, not really,” he said when asked if he knew of any of McCain’s efforts for Arizona. “It’s not like I’m in love with McCain. He just seems more presidential.”

Backers Struggle to List Accomplishments

Indeed, even top officials supporting McCain have a hard time reeling off his accomplishments in the state. When asked, state Rep. Jeff Groscost, speaker of the Arizona house and co-chair of McCain’s campaign, struggled for a moment, then suggested that Arizonans appreciate McCain’s foreign affairs expertise.

Arizona Secretary of State Betsey Bayless, another McCain supporter, offered to think about the question, then called a reporter back 10 minutes later to name a series of constituent services McCain provided on environmental and growth issues.

McCain’s campaign staff point to a series of bills, from Indian gaming to wilderness preservation to health care, that McCain has pushed through the U.S. Senate. But voters’ perceptions that McCain hasn’t done much means many Arizonans don’t feel strong loyalty to him, pollsters said.

“Sen. McCain doesn’t have the support in Arizona that Teddy Kennedy does in Massachusetts,” said Dick Bennett, president of American Research Group, a polling company.

McCain’s Volatility Legendary in Arizona

Some of what McCain has done in Arizona, however, has hurt his popularity, at least among Republican insiders. Stories of his temper and his staff’s temper are legendary.

While McCain still has a high favorable rating among voters--86% compared to Bush’s 51%--the political arena in Arizona is small and memories run long. Lingering hurt feelings and questions about McCain’s volatility help explain why a handful of top public officials have come out to support of Bush, experts said.

“You don’t find Republicans in Arizona that are lukewarm toward McCain,” said Bruce Merrill, a pollster and political science professor at Arizona State University. “They either hate his guts or they like him and think he’s the greatest hero in history of the world.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Profile: Arizona

Population: 4.7 million (1998 est.)

Population by race and ethnicity:

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REGISTERED VOTERS: 2,264,301 (1998)

Democrat: 912,613 (40%)

Republican: 1,013,533 (45%)

Unaffiliated and minor parties: 338,145 (15%)

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1996 PRESIDENTIAL VOTE

Bill Clinton (D): 653,288 (47%)

Bob Dole (R): 622,073 (44%)

Ross Perot (I): 112,074 (8%)

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1992 PRESIDENTIAL VOTE

George Bush (R): 572,086 (38%)

Bill Clinton (D: 543,050 (37%)

Ross Perot (I): 353,741 (24%)

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Latino population is 18.6%. Latinos may be of any race, so their totals may overlap with white or black racial categories. Numbers do not add up to 100% due to rounding.

Source: Almanac of American Politics, 2000