Subject: [big campaign] "Arizona's Go To Senator"
From: "David S. Bennahum" <[email-masked]>
To: Big Campaign <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:08:38 -0400
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

http://washingtonindependent.com/view/mccains-counterpart

Arizona's Go To Senator
Business Leaders More Often Turn to Their Junior Senator Than McCain  
for Local Needs

By John Dougherty 08/18/2008

PHOENIX, Ariz.--When Arizona's business leaders need Congress to act,  
they don't go to the Republican presumptive presidential nominee Sen.  
John McCain.

Instead, for complicated issues that require a proven ability to reach  
political consensus, patience and attention to detail, Arizona's  
leaders often seek out the state's junior senator, Republican Jon Kyl.  
While McCain has been in the national spotlight for more than a  
decade, focusing on broad issues, Arizona leaders know that he tends  
to brush aside state issues and condemn earmarks, even for needed  
local projects. Kyl, meanwhile, has regularly accomplished the heavy  
lifting on legislation that is honed to state needs.

Kyl continues the tradition of focusing first on the needs of the  
state set by his predecessor, Democrat Dennis DeConcini. During his  
years in the Senate, DeConcini served in the long shadow of another  
Republican national leader and presidential nominee, Sen. Barry M.  
Goldwater.

"From the Arizona business community's perspective, if you need  
something done in Congress the guy to go is Sen. Jon Kyl," said Chuck  
Coughlin, a prominent Arizona lobbyist and political consultant. "His  
staff and he will spend the time and attention to address the issues.”

Coughlin, who managed McCain's 2000 Arizona presidential primary  
campaign, said McCain's "career has been more focused on national  
issues, foreign relations, national-security issues -- issues that  
effect the country as a whole rather than just an issue that is  
pertinent to Arizona.”

Last November, Kyl, a hard-line conservative, was elected assistant  
Senate Republican leader, culminating years of behind-the scenes work  
and shrewd diplomacy. Depending on the outcome of the presidential  
race, Kyl may eclipse McCain as the most powerful legislator from  
Arizona. Then again, if McCain wins the White House, Arizona will be  
in enviable position -- with two native sons in powerful posts.

Phoenix Democratic political analyst Barry Dill said the state-focused  
roles adopted by DeConcini and Kyl are more a function of their  
personalities than the fact the state's senior senator at the time are  
men who ran for president. "Both DeConcini and Kyl are detailed- 
oriented and like the minutia of legislating and the legilsative  
process," Dill said. "Goldwater and McCain weren't or aren't as  
enamored with the process of legislation as they were and are, with  
the bigger global picture."

Like DeConcini before him, Dill said Kyl has earned a reputation of a  
studious legislator who puts in the long hours necessary to pass  
difficult legislation, and does not seek the media attention that  
helped turn Goldwater and McCain into national political figures. "I  
believe both Kyl and DeConcini fall in the workhorse categatory rather  
than the showhorse category," said Dill, who ran DeConcini's state  
office in the 1990s.

Kyl, 66, sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and is said to have  
played a key role in undermining President George W. Bush's nomination  
of Harriett Miers to the Supreme Court. Kyl is also a member of the  
Senate Finance Committee, where he's considered an expert in the  
intricacies of public finance. A well-known hawk, Kyl is the honorary  
co-chairman, along with Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), and former  
Secretary of State George Shultz, for the Committee of Present Danger,  
a Cold War-era anti-communist group revived in 2004. The committee  
says one of its goals is "to stiffen American resolve to confront the  
challenge presented by terrorism and the ideologies that drive it."

Kyl has dedicated much of his Senate career to addressing complex  
issues that have profound effect on Arizona's economy and future  
development. These are the essential elements of life for most Western  
states -- water, public lands, Native Americans and rural economic  
development. The most important state issue Kyl has untangled involves  
Indian water-rights settlements. In many cases, disputes over Indian  
water-rights claims have dragged on for most of the 20th Century.

Kyl was instrumental in reaching a 2004 comprehensive water-rights  
settlement agreement with several Arizona Indian tribes, giving them  
control of 47 percent of Arizona's share of Colorado River water  
diverted by the Central Arizona Project canal.The tribes will lease  
the water back to growing municipalities, generating hundreds of  
millions of dollars in revenue for reservations mired in poverty for  
more than 100 years. McCain joined Kyl as a co-sponsor of the Arizona  
Water Settlements Act of 2004, but it was Kyl who hammered out the  
complicated and often contentious bill.

"That was huge deal," Coughlin said of Kyl's persistence in passing  
the bill. "Trying to bring everybody together in that deal was  
equivalent to negotiating the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”

McCain, Coughlin said, generally has not been focused on dealing with  
complex issues that effect Arizona. "John McCain has, with a few  
exceptions, not had the staying power to be involved and invest the  
time and energy that it takes to resolve really sticky issues in  
Arizona," Coughlin said.

One recent exception, Coughlin said, was McCain's work to secure  
funding to buy land around Luke Air Force Base, ensuring a buffer zone  
between the base and the rapidly expanding communities west of  
Phoenix. But this was more than a local issue. The Luke base trains  
fighter pilots who use the Barry Goldwater Gunnery Range, to the  
southwest, for practice. Securing land around the base for an accident  
protection zone was, Coughlin said, "an issue of national security."

The deal has been criticized, however, because it involved the state's  
largest utility, Pinnacle West Capital Corp., one of McCain's major  
campaign contributors. The government paid Pinnacle West's subsidiary,  
SunCor, twice the military's appraised value for 122 acres, according  
to USA Today.

While McCain and Kyl have sharply contrasting styles, Time Magazine in  
2006 included both men in its list of the top 10 U.S. senators.

Kyl, Time noted, "has succeeded by mastering a tactic that is crucial  
in a body in which any one member can bring the place to a halt as a  
ploy or out of pique: subterfuge." Calling Kyl "The Operator," Time  
said Kyl knows how to stay in the background and then step forward to  
attain his goals. "You can accomplish a lot if you're not necessarily  
out in front on everything," Kyl told Time.

Time dubbed McCain "The Mainstreamer" for his "rare ability to put an  
issue on the U.S. agenda that wouldn't naturally be there." Time noted  
that McCain's military background and years as a POW gives him a bully- 
pulpit few senators can match. "McCain has earned that moral authority  
over the years by being patient and making the big play," Time said.  
"Many of the problems McCain tackles are entrenched and unexciting:  
they challenge the rules in Washington and the cynicism of voters at  
home."

The contrasting styles of McCain and Kyl are reflected in the major  
contributors to their senatorial campaigns. In McCain's 2004 senate  
campaign, four of his five top contributors were companies outside  
Arizona, according to Opensecrets.org. McCain's top out-of-Arizona  
contributors included Goldman Sachs with $92,865, Merrill Lynch at  
$73,150, Viacom Inc. with $65,804 and Microsoft Corp. at $54,349. The  
only major contributor with direct ties to Arizona was Qwest  
Communications, with $69,100. While Qwest is a major  
telecommunications provider in Arizona, the company is based in Denver.

Four out of five of Kyl's contributors to his 2006 senate campaign,  
meanwhile, had major operations in Arizona. Kyl faced a strong  
challenge from Democratic developer Jim Pederson, who spent more than  
$10.9 million of his own money on the campaign. Kyl defeated Pederson  
by a 53 percent to 44 percent margin to win this third term.

Kyl's major contributors included Phoenix-based Viad Corp., with  
$61,800; the Phoenix law firm of Snell & Wilmer with $56,6500; the law  
firm of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, which maintains a large office in  
Phoenix, with $55,250 and Pinnacle West, with $42,500. Kyl's biggest  
supporter came from the conservative economic advocacy group, the Club  
for Growth, with $155,753.

The Club for Growth's strong support is based on Kyl's conservative  
voting record and consistent support for tax cuts and reduced  
spending, said club spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik. While the Club  
for Growth holds Kyl in high esteem, it is far more wary of McCain --  
whose failure to support the Bush tax cuts hurt his credibility with  
conservatives.

The Club for Growth sharply criticized McCain late last month when he  
stated that, if he were president, everything would be on the table  
concerning Social Security reform -- suggesting a tax increase was  
possible. McCain responded to the criticism later, stating he would  
not support a tax hike.

Such political wavering has never been a problem for Kyl, who always  
takes solidly conservative stands.

"Sen. Kyl does not have any of these issues on his record,"  
Soloveichik said. "McCain has a great record on some things but he  
also occasionally has a habit of kicking off some conservatives. Sen.  
Kyl is just great across the board.”
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