Sat, Jul 05, 2008
 U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords speaks to members of the Rotary Club of Tucson Sunrise during a meeting at the Arizona Inn earlier this month. Jill Torrance / arizona daily star
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Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.20.2008
Gabrielle Giffords stands near the front of an awkwardly shaped, jampacked meeting room at Hotel Congress ready to take the stage, and even though more than 300 people are watching her, she looks the most relaxed she's been in days.
Husband Mark Kelly is standing behind her, his arms affectionately wrapped around her waist. Giffords' parents are positioned just a few feet away.
And after a week of 12-hour days full of interviews, speeches and press conferences, the 37-year-old Democratic congresswoman is now among her most loyal friends and supporters for the kickoff of her re-election bid.
Once on stage, Giffords talks not about beating the Republicans, but the need for the two parties to come together.
But being a Democrat serving a Republican-leaning congressional district with an unpredictable, independent streak is far from relaxing.
Someone in the crowd asks Giffords if she will sign an initiative to legalize medical marijuana — something Arizona voters have approved twice but that has been quashed by federal officials.
"I'm OK with putting it on the ballot — that doesn't mean I'm going to vote for it," Giffords says, after explaining the history of the effort.
"Will you sign it?" the woman asks again.
"And I'm sure there's a lot of people here you could talk to about it," Giffords continues.
For a House freshman who's sought to steer a moderate course, her answers on questions like these don't always play well to the Democratic base.
Sworn into office a year ago this month, she has worked ferociously to appeal to a broad cross-section of voters. She talks about bipartisanship everywhere, praising GOP Sen. John McCain. She's critical of the war in Iraq, but stresses her support for the troops as the reason she's voted to keep funding it.
Solar energy is the issue that she talks about the most, and it's a non-controversial one that wins praise from voters of all party stripes.
As she travels her 9,000-square-mile congressional district, Giffords mentions the importance of securing the border. She sees it as an issue of national security.
Her tempered stances, corny humor and friendly demeanor play well in front of crowds throughout Southern Arizona. Even with more Republicans than Democrats in the 8th Congressional District, an opposition poll found Giffords leading in popularity.
But as she seeks to solidify a coalition of Democrats, Republicans and independents, she's also made people unhappy.
Republicans have targeted her and will fight to take her House seat with state Senate President Tim Bee as their candidate. And her moderation has left some Democrats unenthusiastic.
Thus far, Giffords has been a bolt of energy: seven bills signed into law, three committee assignments, 33 trips home for town halls and summits.
Although the Hotel Congress event was her re-election campaign kickoff, her campaigning never really stopped. She's likely approaching $1.5 million in campaign re-election funds.
"I love the job," Giffords says in an interview. "It's hard; it's demanding in ways that you'd never know."
Finding the middle
Giffords' major votes on foreign policy in her first year have faced mixed criticism.
She supported timetables for bringing troops out of Iraq, tied to funding, angering Republicans. When that effort failed, she supported funding without timetables, angering Democrats.
"My commitment first and foremost is to the men and women who are there," Giffords says. "I didn't want the discussion on Iraq to be whether you're with the soldiers or against the soldiers, and that's how the administration has framed this debate very successfully.
"We need to get out of Iraq," she adds.
But the issue Giffords talks about the most isn't Iraq, it's solar energy. While her efforts to expand tax credits for solar use have yet to be secured, a bill establishing a grant program for industry training became part of the energy bill.
"If I'm stopped in a grocery store over one thing, it's solar," she says.
Asked what impression she hopes voters have of her, she replies: "Accessible. Independent. Fair. Hopefully, energetic."
But she did face criticism over the summer for not being accessible enough, denying an initial request by the Arizona Daily Star for her federal earmark requests.
A week later, Giffords reversed her decision, revealing $327 million in requests and a single request for $187 million in guided missiles for the Army.
Press aide C.J. Karamargin says Giffords initially agreed with other members of the House that earmarks would be released only once approved.
"She changed her mind because . . . it would be most consistent with her principles," Karamargin said.
"A better Gabby"
One critical voice on the left has been Michael Bryan, a liberal blogger and Democratic activist, who says he agrees with Giffords 95 percent of the time.
The 5 percent in which she comes up short is over Iraq, he says. For Bryan, leaving Iraq was the central promise that launched Democrats like Giffords into Congress in 2006.
"People say, 'Well, would Tim Bee be better?' " Bryan said. "Well, of course Tim Bee would not be better, but Gabby could be a better Gabby."
Giffords' supporters say dissenters are just bitter.
"I don't think there is anyone in office who will please them," says state Rep. Tom Prezelski, D-Tucson, who has known Giffords since childhood.
Hard-core Republicans have not been won over by the moderate message.
Bee supporter Pete Davis says Giffords' support is "three miles wide, and one-inch thick."
"She does make a nice presentation," Davis says, "but she refuses to answer questions. The press is absolutely in love with her, but when people see her voting record, she is absolutely opposed to our Republican principles."
Republicans cited her support of a $60 billion children's health- care package — vetoed by the president — as evidence of this.
District 8, however, is known for its moderate Republicans, who might not find such a position that disturbing.
Speaking to the Rotary Club of Tucson Sunrise recently, Giffords charmed a number of registered Republicans in attendance, with one declaring: "She's no squishy liberal."
"Schmooze time"
Giffords almost always takes questions at public events. Her handlers schedule in "schmooze time" so the congresswoman can meet people one-on-one.
She's held 11 "Congress on your corner" events, during which people line up outside a grocery store to get a few minutes with her.
Such events are a tool that freshman Democrats in swing districts coast-to-coast are using to show accessibility and draw positive media coverage. Giffords says she prefers the intimacy of these events to a town hall. At one "Congress on your corner" this month, more than 100 people, mostly older constituents, lined up outside a Green Valley Safeway. Some had to be turned away, and the event had already run an hour over its scheduled time.
Many just wanted to meet Giffords. Others have specific issues they want fixed, like dumping near their homes. And some need to vent, like Steve Long, a retired Green Valley resident who came out to talk about impeachment.
"I think he's a liar," Long says of President Bush. "I think he's a criminal. He's acting like some kind of dictator."
Afterward, Long says he likes Giffords even though she's not supporting impeachment, noting he's glad she's willing to listen.
Giffords backer Randy Mayer isn't completely satisfied, either. The pastor at Good Shepherd United Church of Christ and a pro-immigrant activist says he'd like a slightly different answer on illegal immigration.
"When she talks about national security, she doesn't say she's also working on the economic issues," he says.
"I know people are mad"
Her stands are not always popular. Take the debate over a permanent border checkpoint along Interstate 19.
Checkpoint opponents were angered by Giffords' eventual support for an interim checkpoint in Southern Arizona.
"I know people are mad. I know people aren't happy with me," she says. "My job, I'm sorry to say it, isn't to make people happy with me."
Less controversial was her entry into Marana politics.
After the Federal Emergency Management Agency declared large parts of Pima County part of a flood plain, Giffords intervened and got FEMA to suspend the mapping process for 12 months while an engineering study is completed.
In the process, she won over the town's Republican mayor, Ed Honea, who likes Bee — but won't be voting for him.
"In 20 years of public service, I've never asked a federal official to do something and gotten a response," says Honea, a fan of Giffords and Bush.
"She loves it"
As Giffords responds to constituents in Green Valley, her husband is sitting inconspicuously inside the Safeway, reading The New York Times.
As a NASA astronaut, he has his own hectic schedule and demanding career — but nothing like that of his new wife.
Giffords and her husband see each other about six days a month, and usually only one full day. She spends most of her time in Washington. He lives in Houston.
Even when he is in town, Giffords' days are jam-packed.
"She loves it," he says. "It doesn't seem to wear on her like it does to me."
"I used to have these delusions of serving in public office," he says. "It's not an easy job."
This is Giffords' new life.
Less than two years ago, she was a Midtown resident whom most people wouldn't recognize — unless they remembered her El Campo Tire television commercials from the '90s.
Now she can't go anywhere without being noticed.
As when someone approached Giffords and her husband at Hotel Congress on a Friday night. "Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Gabrielle Giffords?" the slightly inebriated man told her.
Still, being in Congress isn't necessarily glamorous. Back in Washington, she has a small apartment near Capitol Hill and walks to her office each day.
It's a seven-hour, door-to-door trip between Tucson and D.C., and she's made 33 trips home in the past year, sometimes getting stuck overnight in Dallas without a toothbrush. In December, she took her first vacation in more than two years.
But Giffords seems to like it.
"From what I've seen and heard, she is much busier then she lets on," says Joan Cauthorn, part of Giffords' fundraising team and a friend. "How she runs from one part of the state to another is beyond me."
Giffords is 20 years younger than the average member of Congress — leading some to wonder how long she'll seek to stay in the seat if voters give her that chance.
"I don't know," she says when asked. "Twenty-two years is a long time," referring to predecessor Jim Kolbe's tenure. "I would like to think that I would do the job as long as I continue to have the passion for it and the energy for it."
Giffords is relaxed as she kicks off her re-election campaign
● Contact reporter Daniel Scarpinato at 307-4339 or dscarpinato@azstarnet.com.
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