National groups pump nearly $1M into last-minute ads for Horne, Rotellini

Candidates for Arizona Attorney General, Democrat Felecia Rotellini (left) and Republican Tom Horne (right), speak at the National Association of Women Business Owners meeting Oct. 13 in Phoenix. (Photos by Evan Wyloge/Arizona Capitol Times)

Many Democrats view the attorney general’s race as their best chance of winning a statewide office in 2010, and national organizations from both sides have spent nearly $1 million in the final weeks of the campaign.

The Washington, D.C.-based Committee for Justice and Fairness, which gets its money from the Democratic Attorney General’s Association (DAGA), began a $600,000 television ad campaign on Oct. 20 against Republican nominee Tom Horne.

Several days later, an independent expenditure called Business Leaders for Arizona started a $350,000 campaign aimed at Democrat Felecia Rotellini. The group gets a large portion of its money from the Republican State Leadership Committee, which was co-founded by GOP operative Karl Rove.

With Democrats facing a hostile political climate and Republican Gov. Jan Brewer looking relatively strong at the top of the ticket, some in the GOP are predicting a sweep of Arizona’s six statewide offices. Democrats, though, are hoping the DAGA-funded ads will put Rotellini over the top in what appears to be a tight race against Horne.

“What it tells me is this is a highly competitive race, and what we on the Democratic side have said is that if Felecia Rotellini can get up on television, we firmly believe she has more than a 50-50 chance of winning this election,” said Democratic lobbyist Barry Dill, of the firm FirstStrategic. “I think it is very indicative that (Republicans) are worried about that race, as well they should be.”

Polling on the race has been inconsistent. Horne commissioned a poll that showed him leading by 18 points on Oct. 8, while the Arizona Republican Party released a poll about a week later showing him with a 9-point lead. A Rocky Mountain Poll released Oct. 12 showed Rotellini down by just 4 points.

Kathleen Winn, the chairman of Business Leaders for Arizona, said her group is still raising money and is working on several new ads. If the fundraising goes well or more money comes in from the Republican State Leadership Committee, Winn said the group could ramp up its television advertising.

“It’s been as little as four percent and as high as 18 percent, depending on which poll you were looking at. I think the reason that they’re dumping money into this is they still think there’s a chance to win,” Winn said. “Both sides know how important the attorney general’s race is in this state.”

Horne could not be reached and a campaign spokesman declined to comment. But Rotellini said the recent spate of independent spending against her is a sign that Republicans are worried.

“I can only speculate that the Republicans must feel that Mr. Horne isn’t leading in the polls and that I’m a real threat to him,” Rotellini said.

Both candidates have spent heavily and hit the airwaves hard after winning tough primaries. Horne had spent about $653,000 at the end of the last campaign finance reporting period on Oct. 13, and had $141,000 on hand. Rotellini had spent $467,000, with about $121,000 left in her war chest.

Rotellini also has benefitted from an independent expenditure largely funded by the Professional Firefighters of Arizona and the Arizona Conference of Police and Sheriffs. The ads feature former Attorney General Grant Woods, a Republican, touting Rotellini, whom he hired as a prosecutor during his time in office.

The Republican State Leadership Committee ad attacks Rotellini, the former superindendent of the Arizona Department of Financial Institutions, for opposing SB 1070 and for taking campaign contributions from unions that advocated a boycott of Arizona over the strict illegal immigration law. Horne focused on those issues in his campaign’s ads as well.

The DAGA ad accuses Horne, who has served as superintendant of public instruction since 2003, of voting against tougher penalties for statutory rape as a member of the Legislature in 2000, and of using his vote on the Arizona State Board of Education in 2006 to recertify a teacher who had been caught looking at child pornography on a school computer.

The statutory rape bill was failed in the House Committee of the Whole by a 12-41 vote over concerns by lawmakers that it would stiffen penalties for teenagers who engaged in consensual sex, an issue that Horne said led him to vote against it. Former Sen. Karen Johnson, who sponsored the bill, said she is glad the bill failed.

The teacher Horne voted to recertify in 2006 acknowledged looking at pornography, but investigators from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office investigation said no child pornography was found on the computer’s hard drive. The former Queen Creek High School teacher had undergone years of counseling since resigning in 2002, and Horne said he believed the teacher had been rehabilitated. The Board of Education voted 6-5 to recertify the teacher on the recommendation of its Professional Practices Advisory Committee.