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As the nominee of the minority party in Congressional District 8, Democrat Gabrielle Giffords has tried to play to moderate Republicans and centrist voters.

Her latest move comes in the form of a plain-looking letter sent to voters, trying to elevate the debate above party affiliation.

"Growing up, my mother was a Republican and my father was a Democrat — so I learned about 'bipartisanship' from an early age," she writes.

"We are fortunate in Arizona to have a tradition of mavericks like Barry Goldwater and John McCain who recognize that true leadership means putting party politics aside to do what's best for people," the letter says.

Giffords' campaign manager, Rodd McLeod, wouldn't comment on who exactly is getting the letters, though they seem to be targeted at Republicans.

Republican Randy Graf's campaign manager, R.T. Gregg, doesn't think the letter will do their rival Giffords much good.

"If I received that, I'd probably throw it in the trash," he said.

Even without the letter, Giffords seems in fairly good shape with Republicans. According to an Arizona Daily Star/KVOA Channel 4 tracking poll, 16 percent of Republicans plan to vote for her. The poll also found 7 percent of Democrats intend to vote for Graf.

Democratic Senate candidate Jim Pederson has secured the crucial endorsement of online gamblers.

Well, sort of.

The industry has mounted an attack on U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, who co-sponsored a bill that bans the use of credit cards, PayPal and bank accounts for Internet gambling.

The gaming Web site Gambling 911.com, even went so far as to threaten a media attack against the Republican senator. 

"In the coming days, the online gambling community is planning a massive protest against Sen. Jon Kyl," a post on the site reads before essentially endorsing Pederson.

Kyl PR man Andy Chasin dismissed the industry's flexing.

"They have the same right to vote, but if you look at the demographics …" he said, drifting into a long pause before changing the subject.

The pause implied that perhaps gamblers aren't the most diligent voters.

Mark Bergman, Pederson's top campaign spinmeister, had an interesting twist on the issue, somehow tying it to Kyl's support of the war in Iraq.

"He spent his time working on online gambling instead of the war in Iraq," he said.

Former state legislator John Kromko recently noticed that the name of Arizona's secretary of state appears on a voter publicity pamphlet. Then he noticed it again and again and again, for a total of 243 times.

"Seems a lot, doesn't it?" he said.

Her name appears at the bottom of nearly all of the 235 pages in the pamphlet and is scattered across its first few pages.

The secretary of state is up for re-election, and Kromko said he felt it was an abuse of power to get her name out through official capacity.

So, what would be an appropriate number of name drops?

"Maybe three or something," he said. "I don't think you could find any reasonable person that would say 243."

He has filed a complaint with the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, which has yet to make a ruling.

Given the amount of ink that the woman who's currently secretary of state has already given herself, we won't mention her name again here, but she is running against Democrat Israel Torres.

Political Notebook