Emily DeRose

Less than five weeks from election day, both the Arizona Democratic Party and Arizona Republican Party are anticipating pick ups in state House and Senate races.

Brett Mecum, the political director of the Arizona Republican Party, told PolitickerAZ.com that the party's doubts about making gains in the Arizona Legislature have disappeared with the addition of Gov. Sarah Palin to the Republican presidential ticket.

Mecum said that while "as little as a month ago" the AZ GOP had fretted they might not net seats in the Legislature, Palin has "energized the Republican base across Arizona, and, quite frankly, across the nation," and that new energy will translate into down ticket victories.

Mecum predicted his Party would gain one Senate seat and two to four House seats, though he didn't say which he thought were likeliest to switch.

Not surprisingly, Emily DeRose, spokeswoman for the Arizona Democratic Party, had a different take.

Both the campaign of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Tucson) and the Arizona Democratic Party accused state Sen. Pres. Tim Bee (R-Tucson) of religious intolerance Tuesday for criticizing Giffords's return to Arizona during the Rosh Hashanah holiday.

Bee put out a statement earlier Tuesday in which he decried Giffords's return to Tucson Monday night. In the statement, he urged her to "follow her own advice and rush back to Washington, put politics aside and develop solutions as quickly as she rushed to Arizona to campaign against me."

However, Giffords, who is Jewish, plans to stay in Arizona throughout Rosh Hashanah, which doesn't end until Wednesday at sundown. According to her congressional spokesman C.J. Karamargin, Giffords plans to fly back to Washington, D.C. either Wednesday night or Thursday morning, after the Jewish New Year is over.

"For anyone to criticize someone for their religious beliefs, it's unconscionable," said Karamargin. "If that is indeed the basis of the criticism then it is a sorry statement on the state of his campaign and the depths that he's sunk to. To be criticized for celebrating a religious holiday is completely out of bounds."

PHOENIX -- A bipartisan debate watch party became a proxy battleground for the campaigns of Sens. John McCain (R-Phoenix) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.), as tempers flared and representatives of the state's major parties spun their candidates' performances.

The event at Tom's Tavern in downtown Phoenix was billed as bipartisan, but the decision by the Arizona Republican Party to make it the official debate watch for its supporters resulted in a crowd that was heavily biased toward the Republican presidential nominee. McCain banners, buttons and handmade signs were in evidence throughout the room, making the near absence of representation for Obama all the more conspicuous.

Sydney Hay, the Republican candidate in the 1st Congressional District, still stands behind the lawsuit she filed on behalf of mining company Phelps Dodge as president of the Arizona Mining Association, she told PolitickerAZ.com Wednesday.

After the Arizona Democratic Party attacked her over the suit on Tuesday, Hay fired back with an email to PolitickerAZ.com saying the EPA's regulations on toxic waste reporting are "burdensome."

"This type of burdensome reporting requirement takes precious time and resources away from the serious work of real environmental compliance - the important regulations that we want and need for all of our health and safety," wrote Hay in an email.

The Arizona Democratic Party is attacking 1st Congressional District Republican candidate Sydney Hay for a lawsuit she filed against the Environmental Protection Agency on behalf of a lobbying client of hers.

Hay, president of the lobbying group Arizona Mining Association, filed suit against the EPA on behalf of Phelps Dodge Bagdad, Inc., one of the biggest copper mining concerns in the world, which sought to exempt mining companies from an EPA rule requiring that harmful chemicals left in mines be reported. The suit alleged the requirement was "burdensome."

"I would hardly call protecting the basic health of Arizonans 'burdensome,'" said Emily DeRose, spokeswoman for the Arizona Democratic Party, in a release from the party. "Putting corporations before people is exactly the kind of flawed priority that needs to change in Washington."

The general election race in the 1st Congressional District is already getting rancorous, mere hours after the contestants were finalized.

Wednesday, Ann Kirkpatrick, the Democratic nominee in the 1st district, said she anticipated a "tough" and "heated" fight between she and GOP nominee Sydney Hay.

"We're not taking anything for granted," Kirkpatrick told PolitickerAZ.com.She also said that her campaign was not going to quail in the face of harsh criticism already coming from the Hay camp. Tuesday night, as it became clear that Hay, a mining industry lobbyist, would defeat her closest GOP rival in the primary, Sandra Livingstone, Hay sent out her inaugural statement as her party's congressional nominee, slamming Kirkpatrick, who easily won the Democratic primary earlier in the evening.

Emily DeRose, communications director for the Arizona Democratic Party, sees an advantage for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) to be Sen. John McCain (R-Phoenix).

"This makes it impossible for Senator McCain to criticize Senator Obama for his lack of experience ever again," said DeRose. Obama has been pegged as too inexperienced to lead, as he is serving his first term in the U.S. Senate. Gov. Palin was first elected governor of Alaska in 2006, after serving as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

DeRose also downplayed the importance of Palin being a woman in terms of poaching votes from Obama, saying, "This is identity politics at its most crass."

There is a wall of silence surrounding potential plans by the Barack Obama campaign to extend its reach into Arizona, which state Democrats have insisted will happen eventually but which so far hasn't materialized.

While rumors are circulating that a state director for the Illinois senator's Arizona efforts has been chosen, neither the Obama camp nor the Arizona Democratic Party is talking. The national campaign has failed to respond to numerous requests for information regarding its designs for the state, and Emily DeRose, the state party's spokeswoman, flatly refused to answer any questions on the issue, even declining to say why she couldn't talk about it.

The Republican takeover of the out-of-session U.S. House will continue into the foreseeable future, said U.S. Rep. John Shadegg (R-Phoenix) Wednesday.

"We're going to keep it going as long as we can," Shadegg told PolitickerAZ.com. Shadegg, the most senior Republican in Arizona's House delegation and a close ally of the GOP leadership, said the minority Republicans plan to continue to take to the floor of the House throughout the summer recess in protest of inaction on the expansion of domestic oil production, even though the House remains officially out of session and is not scheduled to resume legislative business until Sept. 5.

"The bottom line request of Republicans is that [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi] allow the question of domestic oil production to be debated and voted upon," said Shadegg. "So far she has precluded a debate, and has certainly precluded a vote," he said.

In an interview with PolitickerAZ.com, Sean McCaffrey, executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, described the party's vision of itself under the leadership of Chairman Randy Pullen, and slammed what he sees as irresponsible journalism surrounding the presidential campaign.

McCaffrey maintained that there is no schism between the Arizona Republican Party and its counterparts on the national and county levels, and explained that any appearance to the contrary was an outgrowth of the party's new role.

"The party exists specifically to assist local candidates," said McCaffrey. "The top of ticket for us will be the governor's race and then legislative races."