Democratic National Committee: Arizona
- Arizona, the Battleground State
Things are looking tight in Arizona, John McCain's home state. Arizona Republic reports:
Sen. John McCain's once-comfortable lead in Arizona has all but evaporated, according to a new poll that has the underdog Republican presidential candidate struggling in his own backyard.
With less than a week until Election Day, McCain is leading his Democratic rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, by 2 points, 46 to 44, down from a 7-point lead a month ago and a double-digit lead this summer, according to a poll from Arizona State University.
Factor in the 3-percentage point margin of error, and a race that was once a nearly sure thing for McCain is now a toss-up, pollsters say.
- McCain Pushed Regulators on Land Swap
McClatchy reports that John McCain pushed regulators to support a land swap deal despite a pledge to never again intervene with regulators after his brush with corruption in the Savings & Loan scandal. The deal would have benefited owners of the Spur Cross Ranch, including a company ran by a former associate of Charles Keating, the S&L head at the center of the scandal.
Years after he resurrected his political fortunes from the Keating Five savings and loan investigation, John McCain promoted an Arizona land swap that would've benefited a former mentor and partner of the scandal's central figure.
The owners of the Spur Cross Ranch, a dramatic 2,154-acre tract of Sonoran desert just north of Phoenix, in the late 1990s sought to sell it to a developer who planned to build a premier golf course surrounded by 390 luxury homes.
Nearby residents and environmentalists, however, wanted to preserve the area's unusual cacti, stone formations and hundreds of Hopi Indian tribal artifacts.
After opposition surfaced, the developer sought McCain's help in forging a land swap with the U.S. Forest Service — a deal that also would benefit the owners of the ranch, including a company controlled by billionaire Carl H. Lindner Jr., an associate of S&L chief Charles H. Keating.
McCain and an aide pushed for the exchange in more than a half dozen sometimes-testy letters and phone calls up and down the Forest Service's hierarchy, according to former agency officials and correspondence. McCain's office even circulated draft legislation that would have overridden the agency's objection to surrendering national forest land. Ultimately, the deal fell apart.
McCain's behind-the-scenes maneuvering on Spur Cross contrasts with his image as a congressional ethics champion and his pledge — made after the Keating scandal in 1991 sullied his reputation — never to intervene with regulators again.
John McCain's broken promise on intervention with regulators should not come as any surprise. McCain's lawyer during the scandal, John Dowd, claimed that McCain didn't do anything wrong in the Keating Five -- reversing nearly 20 years of self-recriminations and repentance.
Just more evidence that John McCain is more of the same last eight years.
- McCain Repeating Keating Mistakes
A former regulator from the Savings & Loan scandal twenty-years ago says John McCain is repeating the same mistakes that embroiled him in the Keating Five scandal.
Huffington Post:
William Black -- a deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation during the "Keating Five" scandal that nearly ended McCain's political career -- says the Arizona Republican's chief errors at the time were underestimating the importance of regulation and relying too heavily on slanted advice from captains of industry.
"In the S&L crisis, he took his advice from the worst [kind of] criminal. Charles Keating is the person he went to for his policy advice," Black said. "Now, he certainly is getting advice from Phil Gramm, Carly Fiorina, Rick Davis -- the whole group of economic and top political advisers are lobbyist types. He just doesn't seem to get it, ever, that the advice is going to favor their clients. Even if they just stop being lobbyists, you can't just turn that off instantly. It's their mind state that develops. ... The biggest lesson is that, when you deregulate and de-supervise, you create an environment where control fraud emerges. You hyper-inflate bubbles; you get criminalization." [emphasis added]
- Gov. Janet Napolitano
Good evening. I am Janet Napolitano, the Governor of Arizona. Arizonans are rightly proud of our state. We encompass everything from ancient Indian villages to burgeoning cities and towns. We mine copper and herd cattle, but we also conduct genomics-based cancer research and lead the nation in advancing solar technology.
Arizonans are also proud of their political tradition, from Barry Goldwater to Mo Udall to Bruce Babbitt. There’s a pattern here. Barry Goldwater ran for president and he lost. Mo Udall ran for president. He lost. Bruce Babbitt ran for president. And he lost. Speaking for myself, and for at least this coming election, this is one Arizona tradition I’d like to see continue!
Now, just as I am proud of Arizona, I like to be positive about my fellow Arizonans. So I wanted to say something positive about Senator McCain. When I heard him say the economy is not an issue he understands as well as he should, my problem was solved. Because I can say to you tonight, positively, that John McCain is right. He doesn’t understand the economy as well as he should. And he doesn’t understand how the policies he has supported and wants to perpetuate have so terribly misfired.
We cannot afford four more years of failing economics and a falling economy. For the change we need to lift working families across our nation, for the change we need to ensure the American dream is within reach of all of us, we must send Barack Obama to the White House.
As chair of the Platform Drafting Committee, I’ve listened to Americans tell me just how badly the Bush-McCain economic policies have failed, how deeply concerned they are about the future, and how high the stakes are for this election.
For example, I heard from Marcie Wozniak of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a mother of four, who has worked in a print shop for 22 years. Marcie’s money stretches only far enough for gas and groceries. She wants better for her four sons, but one of them had to drop out of college because she makes too much to qualify for financial aid.
Our children can’t afford more of the same. I heard from David Landrum of Indiana who has worked for the same refrigerator plant for the past 24 years. Now, the plant is closing and he risks losing his entire pension less than a year before retirement.
Our seniors can’t afford more of the same. Arizona is one of the states hit hardest by the housing crisis. Alfred Smith Jr. of Phoenix is a married father of three who earns a decent living. For the first time, he’s worrying about how he’ll make his mortgage payment.
Our working families can’t afford more of the same. I am positive that John McCain, as he said in his own words, doesn’t understand as well as he should how to help Marcie, David and Alfred.
But I am equally positive that Barack Obama does. His plan will help Marcie Wozniak, David Landrum, Alfred Smith and people like them. Barack Obama knows we need to move now to put money back in people’s pockets. He’ll work to provide a tax rebate for middle-income taxpayers, while totally exempting lower-income seniors from paying income tax. His economic policies will create a foreclosure prevention fund and stimulate the housing industry, and the jobs that go with it, by reforming the credit markets and policing their activities.
Long term, Senator Obama knows our economy depends on well-educated workers. He will focus on giving our youngest children a critical head start in their education. He’ll open doors to higher education by giving $4,000 tax credits to students promising to give back through community service. In Barack Obama’s world, work and reward go together. And every American should have the opportunity to make the most of his or her talents.
Senator Obama understands that America’s continued dominance in the world economy depends on our continued ability to innovate. He will invest in a clean energy economy, diminishing our reliance on foreign oil and creating 5 million green-collar jobs. He’ll encourage job training and retraining for newer, clean technologies, and he’ll work for tax relief for small business and start-up companies.
John McCain’s good friend Phil Gramm says we’re in a “mental recession,” and that middle-class folks