Kerrying Arizona?
Both Bush and Kerry are targeting Arizona as a potential battleground state. Personally, I don't buy it, but
George Will does. It's not often that I get a chance to fisk someone I respect so much, but here goes:
In 2000 George W. Bush carried Arizona, which then had a Republican governor, with just 51 percent of the vote.
True enough. But Gore got only about 45% of the vote, so Bush's margin here was a little over 6%, making Arizona the state with the 23rd highest margin for Bush.
Indeed, Democrats have won half of the past eight gubernatorial elections.
Again, true, but not as meaningful as it sounds. Republicans had won four straight gubernatorial elections prior to 2002. So turned the other way, Republicans have won 4 of the past five gubernatorial elections.
Yet if liberalism and urbanism still increase in tandem, a salient fact may be that Arizona is heavily and increasingly urban: Almost 80 percent of Arizonans live in or around Phoenix and Tucson. Mesa is a "suburb" contiguous to Phoenix, but its population is larger than that of St. Louis.
And Mesa is probably the most conservative town in the state. The fact that 80% of all Arizonans live in or around Phoenix or Tucson is again not surprising; I'd suspect that ratio has remained constant for about 40 years.
And another fact encouraging to John Kerry is that the state has, Napolitano says, 600,000 veterans, many of whom are Hispanic and Native American voters.
My guess is that's a gross overestimate. That would indicate one in nine Arizonans is a veteran, which seems awfully high. And even if it is true, from whence comes the belief that they will disproportionately vote for Kerry?
Is Arizona less conservative than it was? Yeah. But six of its eight representatives are Republican, as are both of its senators. The fact that AZ went for Clinton in 1996 was a fluke, caused by Steve Forbes' carpet bombing of Bob Dole before the Republican primary that year. The fact that Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, is governor happens to be another fluke. But if John Kerry wins in Arizona this year, that would not be a fluke. It would be an upset of historic proportions.
Ain't gonna happen.
Don't get me wrong. I can understand why Janet Napolitano, the governor who apparently was the source for much of the story, would want to convince George Will that this state is in play. It gets more attention for the state, and is so far bringing in LOTS of ad dollars. And maybe Will is just playing along to get Kerry to waste his attention here.
