CD8 primary battleground pits former Marine vs. Army Reservist

Jesse Kelly, Jonathan Paton

When Jonathan Paton decided to resign from the Arizona Senate and run for Congress, the prevailing view in political circles was that he represents the Republican Party’s best chance to defeat U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

But the former state lawmaker faces a more immediate challenge from fellow Republican Jesse Kelly. Political insiders now say Paton has yet to wrap up the primary race in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District.

“This was supposed to be Jonathan Paton’s race,” said Chad Willems, a Republican political consultant. “I think it’s a hotly contested primary now.”

Another GOP consultant agreed, saying Paton may have focused too heavily on running a front-runner campaign. Such a strategy can work, but only if one’s primary opponent lacks the resources to compete.

And that’s clearly not the case with Kelly, a U.S. Marine veteran who has been running a dogged campaign ever since he announced his candidacy in April 2009.

“In this case, Kelly’s group had the energy. He had money. He didn’t have as much money as Paton but he had enough money (to compete),” said Constantin Querard, a Republican political consultant.

Kelly began raising money, collecting endorsements and writing editorials in local newspapers almost a year before Paton entered the race. And he’s been able to hold his ground since then, despite Paton’s past legislative service and name recognition among southern Arizona voters.

Paton, though, has shaken up state Democrats who believe he’s the biggest threat to Giffords. A Democratic operative follows him around to campaign events to monitor what he says. And he’s raised more money than Kelly even though he’s had less time to court donors.

Even the D.C.-based CQ Politics changed its rating of the congressional district from “likely Democratic” to the more competitive “leans Democratic” after Paton’s initial announcement.

For all practical purposes, the three-way GOP primary is really now a duel between Kelly and Paton. The third Republican candidate is Jay Quick, but he doesn’t have the resources to compete.

Other candidates have dropped from the race and thrown their weight behind the two. Brian Miller, an Air Force pilot, is supporting Paton. Andy Goss, another candidate who pulled out, is backing Kelly.

Whoever wins the Republican primary will have a difficult challenge in the general election, however, because Giffords has positioned herself as a moderate Democrat in a district where most voters are Republican and one-quarter of the voters are registered as independent.

Giffords also has a huge financial advantage. She has stashed away about $2 million, and she continues to raise money while Kelly and Paton spend frantically to gain an edge in the GOP primary.

Democrats have attacked Paton for lobbying for the payday loan industry prior to his stint in the Legislature and Kelly for staking out views that are “too extreme” for the district.

“It will stack up one or two ways,” said Anne Hilby, Giffords’ campaign spokeswoman. “The congresswoman will on Aug. 25 either be running against a corporate lobbyist… or a candidate who is far too extreme for southern Arizona.”

Kelly

Kelly, 29, who works for his family’s construction business, portrays himself as the conservative in the race.

Actually, the two candidates have staked out similar positions on issues ranging from immigration to spending, but Kelly’s campaign has painted Paton as a career politician who has voted for big spending.

While Paton has received many significant endorsements, including a nod from U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, Kelly has secured the backing of some influential people in the state, including Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Kelly is running an aggressive campaign — Paton’s camp said it’s an extremely negative one — and is focusing his guns on both Paton and Giffords.

The strategy appears to be working.

A recent poll showed that Kelly has opened a significant lead over Paton. It showed Kelly ahead by nearly 20 points, with about one third of the voters still undecided. But Paton’s campaign questioned the poll’s validity by going after the group that conducted it, saying at least four of the group’s committee members have contributed to Kelly’s campaign.

“If you acknowledged the result of a poll, Jesse Kelly stands really on the edge of a potential upset victory in this primary and perhaps positions himself in a very positive fashion in the general against Giffords,” said Bruce Ash, a Republican national committeeman from Tucson.

The contest has intensified in the past couple of months, based on the frequent attacks levied by both campaigns.

Kelly has characterized Paton as the establishment candidate, a strategy that relies on perceived voter frustration with incumbent politicians. Kelly’s camp also has criticized Paton for voting to approve a state budget in fiscal 2008 that was backed by then-Gov. Janet Napolitano and a bipartisan group of lawmakers, a budget that included massive deficit spending as the recession halted economic growth.

“I’m the conservative in the race, and I’m not a career politician and I’m not a lobbyist,” Kelly said.

Mudslinging is expected, but the charges expectedly exaggerate certain aspects of the truth.

It is true that Paton voted for Napolitano’s fiscal 2008 budget in 2007, but it wasn’t exactly in the “middle of an economic downturn” as Kelly alleged. The economy already showed signs of stress when the fiscal 2008 budget was adopted, but state revenues didn’t take a precipitous dive until fiscal 2009.

It’s also true that most House Republicans voted against the budget while most Senate Republicans supported it, but the overarching debate then was one of ownership: The House and the Senate were doing the usual dance over whose budget would prevail.

Paton

Paton, 39, proved to be an extremely hard-working lawmaker.

During his six years in the Legislature, he sponsored 44 bills that were eventually signed into law — 14 in 2009, more than any other lawmaker that year.

Paton also co-authored a set of laws that sought to make Child Protective Services more transparent, his most memorable legislation. He was known as an opponent of Arizona’s Clean Elections system, although he didn’t have much success in his fight to eliminate it.

Paton’s resume also buttresses the image of someone who could break into the national political scene.

As a member of the U.S. Army Reserves, Paton was serving in Iraq when he was re-elected to the House in November 2006. His tour of duty caught the eye of Time magazine, which wrote that when politicians usually travel to Iraq they get their pictures taken with soldiers while Paton “is going to fight.”

The Arizona Capitol crowd regards him as level-headed but driven; he’s a good debater and deliberative, but not rabid. So when he decided to run for Congress, many Republican leaders coalesced around him.

But being an ex-legislator, even a successful one, isn’t necessarily a boon in today’s anti-incumbent political climate.

The Republican base this year tends to favor newcomers and challengers, not necessarily the person backed by political and community leaders.

“The energy in the base of the Republican Party right now is with the newcomers. It’s with the challengers,” said Querard, the Republican political consultant.

Until recently, Paton ran a frontrunner campaign and focused most of his criticism on Giffords. His camp had made a decision not to “tear down” fellow Republicans.

But the tight primary race and frequent attacks from Kelly’s campaign has changed Paton’s strategy. He now responds to criticism from Kelly and has taken aim at his opponent.

Paton’s camp ramped up its attack earlier this month by calling Kelly a hypocrite for saying he’s against the federal stimulus package even though his family’s company got stimulus dollars.

Paton called on Kelly to “pay back the millions of dollars his company has received in stimulus and earmark dollars,” and an Internet video slams Kelly for lining his pockets with taxpayer money.

Despite the rhetoric, Kelly doesn’t exactly “lobby” for stimulus dollars. He works as a project manager for his family’s construction business, Don Kelly Construction, which bids on sewer and flood-control projects.

He’s working on a sewer expansion project for Pima County. Part of that funding for the project came from the federal stimulus. But Kelly’s campaign was quick to point out that just like any other company that bids on government projects, Kelly’s construction firm has no control over the funding source.

“Jonathan is desperate to distract voters from his record, but people know that Paton eagerly voted for Napolitano’s big-spending budgets,” Kelly said.

Paton’s spokesman Daniel Scarpinato agreed that the race looks different than it did in January. But he said that’s because Kelly started slinging mud to gain an edge.

“The reason, in large part, is because no one could have ever imagined that Jesse Kelly would run one of the most negative, slanderous campaigns that we’ve seen in Arizona probably in decades,” he said.