Check out what just came out from the Arizone Democratic Party today:
PHOENIX -- A Rocky Mountain Poll of Arizona voters has President Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney and other potential Republican challengers for the presidency.
The results are the latest evidence that, as CNN's Political Ticker wrote today, Arizona is looking "competitive in the general election."
The poll shows President Obama with a 45-40% advantage over Romney in a hypothetical general election showdown, and Obama with a 44-38% advantage over Rick Perry and 45-38% advantage over Herman Cain.
"All year long, we've seen Republican presidential candidates overreach and go to extremes," said Andrei Cherny, Arizona Democratic Party chairman, "and Mitt Romney's recent call to let homeowners hit rock bottom only reinforces that the GOP is out of touch with the mainstream. Republicans may be in for a rude awakening in 2012."
Arizona Democrats have been a dispirited lot lately. Our bench is not very deep, both legislative houses are in the hands of GOP super-majorities, and obviously the attack on Gabrielle Giffords was emotionally very wrenching.
But there are some good things happening too: the state has an independent redistricting commission that is really independent and is really drawing congressional and legislative districts in a way that should make races much more competitive; the voter registration percentages are still evenly split among Republicans, Democrats, and independents; and even Russell Pearce, the loathsome architect of SB 1070 and so much more is in the fight of his political life with a hard-fought recall campaign (against another conservative Republican, but still...).
The anti-Romney ads started running this week. They are devastating. The "let the housing market hit bottom" theme won't resonate in a state that is ground-zero, or right next door to ground zero, in the mortgage meltdown. More than half the mortgages here are underwater, people are walking away from their homes left and right, and someone suggested that there is enough vacant housing stock in the Phoenix metro area to allow the entire population of Tucson to move and be absorbed here.
The view among the voters here may be that Obama's efforts to help haven't succeeded (have failed, actually), but the Republican prescriptions are so much worse. This election really may be a choice, not a referendum.
Arizona may be in play.