ONE ON ONE: SHADEGG REFLECTS ON DECISION TO STAY ON

Hours after announcing that he was reentering the race to reclaim the U.S. House seat he has held for seven consecutive terms, Republican Congressman John Shadegg today said he recognized that he would need to fight for reelection.

“I’m confident that if I don’t do my job I may lose,” Shadegg told PolitickerAZ.com.

In a wide-ranging half-hour interview, Shadegg touched on the family concerns that led him to initially announce he would be stepping down from his seat, the people that had pushed him to reconsider, his losing 2006 bid to win a place on the Republican House leadership, his race for reelection, and his vision for how he can influence Congress in the future.

Shadegg shocked the Arizona and Washington political establishments when he announced on February 11 that he would not be seeking reelection. It was three days later when 145 House Republicans wrote a letter to the Congressman urging him to reconsider his decision. Then, early this week, Shadegg received a second letter, this one signed by conservative groups, asking him to stay on.

“It turned out to be a lengthy list,” Shadegg said.

Shadegg today pointed to several people who were instrumental in communicating their wish for him to remain in office. Ed Feulner, who heads up the Heritage Foundation, was “involved in getting the ball rolling,” Shadegg said. Also key, the Congressman said, was Pat Toomey, the leader of the Club for Growth.

Shadegg said one of the reasons he had initially decided to step down was because of concerns about his family. Shadegg’s wife, Shirley, a school teacher, and two children reside in Phoenix. Shadegg would fly home on the weekends to see them. The distance, he said, was beginning to take a toll.

It came as something of a surprise, Shadegg said, when Shirley urged him to listen to the people that were telling him to stay on.

“She said ‘look maybe we could stay in there.’”

With the Congress in recess this week, Shadegg talked the decision over with his family in Arizona.

The outpouring of support from colleagues and friends in Washington and Arizona ultimately pushed him over the top.

“People like to be respected by their peers,” Shadegg said.

As news surfaced late last week that the Congressman was reconsidering his decision to step down after the term, some in Washington and Arizona political circles began questioning his motivation.

One strand of thought was that Shadegg was interested in pursuing John McCain’s U.S. Senate seat, and that a plan was in the works for the senior Senator and presumptive Republican presidential nominee to step down to focus on his run for the White House.

Not so, says Shadegg, noting that McCain was “shocked” when he spoke to him via telephone following his retirement announcement. Shadegg said it was his own personal speculation that McCain “would not want to give up (his) Senate seat.” And should he fail to win the presidency, Shadegg said, there would be many in the Republican Party who would urge McCain to run for reelection in 2010, when sitting Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano might run for the seat.

Others suspected that Shadegg was using his retirement announcement in an effort to leverage a leadership post in the House. But Shadegg, who waged an unsuccessful 2006 bid for Republican House Leader, said he has since decided to influence the Congress in other, more public, ways. He said, for example, that in the coming months he would talk directly to voters on how Congress should tackle the health care debate.

Shadegg said his failure to win the leadership post was a blow. He said he ran because the Republican majority was making significant mistakes on a number of fronts, especially with spending and ethics.

“We were not changing the way Washington worked,” Shadegg said.

Shadegg’s bid for the seat was a long shot, he conceded, but it was what sparked the first thoughts of retiring.

It was “pretty discouraging,” he said. “So I began thinking about (not running for reelection) way back then.”

Shadegg now faces a race to win back his seat. Democratic challenger Bob Lord, an attorney, is running a well-funded and aggressive campaign. And Arizona Democrats, already prepared to do battle for the House seat, seemed energized in the aftermath of Shadegg’s reentrance. The Congressman, they say, is proving himself to be a pawn of the Washington insiders who begged him to stay in office.

But Shadegg says he is ready to take on the charge.

“That’s exactly what I would do if I were a Democrat,” he said, before adding: “But I don’t think it washes.”

The Congressman argued that he had a close following and solid support from his Arizona constituency.

Shadegg’s political team, meanwhile, is planning an aggressive campaign. It will begin hitting the radio and television airwaves soon. And, Shadegg says, he is going to begin challenging Lord on the issues.

“I am the son of a campaign manager,” Shadegg said, referencing his father, Steve, who worked as a key operative to Barry Goldwater. “I believe campaigns matter. A popular incumbent can still lose a race.”