Where the candidates stand

Linda Arzoumanian * Personal: 58, single, two grown children * Career: Pima County superintendent of schools since 1999; previously an administrator at CODAC Behavioral Health Services since 1993 * Contact: 971-3274 * Education: Bachelor's degree, Stout State University, Wisconsin; master's, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio; doctorate, Nova University, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. * Political experience: None * Party affiliation: Republican * Priority: To help school districts, especially those in rural areas, secure additional funding to improve school technology. To strengthen vocational training efforts for youths and adults.

Andy Morales * Personal: 36, married, three children * Career: Teacher, Amphitheater Unified School District * Contact: 887-4975 * Education: Bachelor's degree in education and master's in special education, University of Arizona. * Political experience: Ran unsuccessfully in 1998 for the state House of Representatives District 12 seat; past president of the Amphitheater Education Association; precinct committeeman for four years; member of the state Democratic Committee. * Party affiliation: Democrat * Priority: Use the post for public advocacy and push for educational and financial accountability.

Susan K. Campbell * Party affiliation: Green No response

A Republican has been the Pima County school superintendent since the 1960s, and Linda Arzoumanian wants to keep it that way.

Anita Lohr was superintendent from 1968 until last year when she resigned before her eighth term ended.

Arzoumanian was appointed by the Board of Supervisors to fill out the term. She will have to beat Democrat Andy Morales and Green Party candidate Susan Campbell in the Nov. 7 general election to keep the job.

Arzoumanian said her top priority is to make sure her office is helping school districts, especially small and rural ones, find money to keep up with current technology.

For example, she said, the office can help districts write federal grant proposals.

She said adequate training of teachers and staff is part of the effort to raise the level of technology used in the school.

The office has been working since February with four smaller districts to coordinate their services for special education students, Arzoumanian said. Such a collaboration will make the services less expensive for them, she said.

Furthermore, Arzoumanian said her office has been involved in the effort to strengthen vocational training programs across the county for youths and adults.

"I think we've really been trying to open the office up and let some sunshine in," she said.

But Democratic challenger Andy Morales said Arzoumanian has not been enough of a public advocate for education.

He said too few people know what the post requires.

"The status quo is not appropriate," said Morales, who won a three-way primary race in September. "We need to get the community involved in education. We need to get community leaders and business leaders into the fold."

He said the superintendent needs to lobby state and local leaders to make sure that education efforts are appropriately funded and that enough is being done to recruit and keep quality teachers.

To attract more teachers, he said, the superintendent should lobby lawmakers for special tax breaks and school loan forgiveness programs for teachers.

Morales, a special education teacher in the Amphitheater school district, said he wants to develop a program in which businesses provide employees to districts to work as substitute teachers.

Morales said the effort would give business leaders a chance to see what is going on in the classroom while addressing the shortage of available substitutes.

Furthermore, participating businesses could be rewarded with tax credits, he said.

Campbell, the Green Party candidate, did not respond to repeated phone calls.

State law dictates the duties of the superintendent's office. They include overseeing the management of the county's 16 schools districts, which have roughly 126,000 students.

The superintendent also oversees the education of youths in custody at the county jail, the juvenile court center and an alternative high school, and of those who live on Mount Lemmon.

The superintendent is charged with filling vacancies on school governing boards and maintains teacher and administrator certification records.

Also, the superintendent's office distributes public funds to districts and provides financial information to the Board of Supervisors on tax rates.

The $9 million office budget was cut by nearly half this year when supervisors transferred adult education functions to Pima Community College.

With Medicare HMOs around the country cutting back on coverage, Tucsonans Robert and Grace Bridges are among millions seeking solutions to the high cost of prescription drugs.

"I'm not saying it will change our lifestyle, but it will be a burden," Robert Bridges said last week, explaining the $130 a month he and his wife will pay next year for two prescription drugs their HMO will no longer cover.

"I'm sure there's no clear-cut answer . . . but I hope that Congress will do something."

The call for government intervention is going out from advocacy groups in Arizona and nationwide, as the state's voters go to the polls next month to decide on taking a small step in that direction.

Twenty-two states have set up plans to help seniors pay for prescription drugs. Nothing on next month's Arizona ballot would take that bold a step.

But Proposition 204 would use the state's $100 million a year in tobacco settlement money to expand enrollment in Arizona's indigent health plan, which offers prescription drugs at no cost.

Proposition 204 would help the estimated 51,000 Arizonans on Medicare whose incomes fall under the federal poverty level - $8,350 a year for one person, or $11,250 for two. Total Medicare beneficiaries in the state number 433,250.

But some advocates of drug assistance for senior citizens consider this step too small, in part because it benefits only low-income seniors.

One of the critics is Marian Lupu, director of the Pima Council on Aging.

"Many states have good programs that help low- and middle-income folks," she said. "Why can't Arizona do this? We are a prosperous state, we have good resources - where are our priorities?"

A small step, though, is better than none at all in the view of a state legislator who has worked for prescription drug assistance.

Sen. Chris Cummiskey, D-Phoenix, who introduced two unsuccessful proposals on the the issue in the last legislative session, said 204 would help the 200,000 Arizona seniors who are expected to lose their Medicare HMO coverage next year.

Cummiskey wants Gov. Jane Hull, who has argued for congressional intervention on the issue, to call a special legislative session after the Nov. 7 election to put at least a temporary drug-assistance program in place for seniors in Arizona.

Even if 204 passes, Cummiskey said, or if Congress enacts a national plan - either its own or one proposed by the new president - relief for seniors is at least months away.

"In the meantime there's going to be a lot of unnecessary suffering that could have been reduced if we took action," he said.

Help for low-income seniors is one provision of Proposition 204, also known as the Healthy Arizona 2 initiative. Overall, the measure is touted by its supporters as a way to increase access to health care for the state's working poor, especially those who make too much to qualify for existing programs.

Another ballot measure, Proposition 200, or Healthy Children, Healthy Families, is promoted as a way of targeting tobacco monies at two areas: preventive health care for children and health insurance for working parents.

The debate over prescription drug coverage for seniors is fueled by a growing cost gap: Last year, the cost of prescription drugs increased more than 17 percent, while health-care spending overall increased just 5 percent.

Under the federal Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Medicare payments to HMOs are increased just 2 percent a year. HMOs have blamed that for their decisions to slash Medicare coverage, or drop out of the program completely.

In Pima County, two Medicare HMOs - CIGNA Healthcare for Seniors and United's Medicare Complete - are pulling out after Dec. 31, leaving 16,500 seniors to find new coverage.

PacifiCare's Secure Horizons and Intergroup's Senior Care will remain.

But Intergroup will no longer cover brand-name prescription drugs.

PacifiCare will, but with a $1,000 annual limit and only for seniors willing to pay an extra $25 monthly premium and a $25 copayment for each prescription.

The Bridges couple switched to Intergroup after learning in July that they would lose their United coverage after this year.

But both husband and wife take medication that is available only by brand-name - for him, a cholesterol-lowering drug called Lescol and for her, a drug called Fosamax to strengthen bones weakened by osteoporosis.

Both also take generic-brand drugs, for which Intergroup and PacifiCare have promised unlimited coverage next year.

"It's not going to send us to the poorhouse, but it's not going to help," said Robert Bridges, a retired vice provost of the University of Minnesota.

"I just feel sorry for the people who have only their Social Security to live on."

Katherine Renfroe, a senior with PacifiCare's Secure Horizons, said she won't mind spending an extra $25 a month for brand-name drug coverage.

"But I think we all need to contact our elected officials about this issue," Renfroe said. "Seniors are growing in numbers . . . and people are living longer because of the care that's available today, and that needs to continue."

Last week, a coalition of Medicare advocacy groups said no amount of state help will provide the answer that the nation's seniors need.

The Medicare Rights Center, the Center for Medicare Advocacy and other groups released a statement criticizing state programs for obscuring the need for a national policy of prescription-drug coverage for all 39 million Americans on Medicare.

"History and experience tell us that the only way to insure an affordable, comprehensive drug benefit for every older and disabled American is to fold it into the Medicare benefit package," said Sally Hart, a Tucson attorney with the Arizona Center for Disability Law and the national Center for Medicare Advocacy.

Of the 22 states that have enacted drug-assistance programs, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey have the most comprehensive plans, said David Gross, senior policy adviser at the AARP Public Policy Institute.

"We want states to develop innovative and cost-effective approaches to providing or reducing the costs of prescription drugs," Gross said Friday.

"But we think the most important thing is to get a Medicare prescription-drug benefit, even though that may still leave some gaps. So we think a federal response is needed, but there may very well still be a need for states to respond as well."

Pick your poll Some results from national and state polls on the presidential race. When results don't total 100 percent, the remainder either didn't know or refused to answer. CNN-USA Today-Gallup * Bush, 46 percent * Gore, 46 percent * Nader, 3 percent * Buchanan, 1 percent 640 likely voters polled Sept. 25-27. Error margin of 4 percentage points. Voter.com-Battleground * Bush, 44 percent * Gore, 41 percent * Nader, 3 percent * Buchanan, 1 percent 1,000 likely voters polled Sept. 19-24. Error margin of 3 percentage points. Los Angeles Times * Bush, 48 percent * Gore, 42 percent * Nader, 2 percent * Buchanan, 1 percent 694 likely voters polled Sept. 23-25. Error margin of 4 percentage points. Newsweek * Gore, 47 percent * Bush, 45 percent * Nader, 3 percent * Buchanan, 0 percent 766 likely voters polled Sept. 20-22. Error margin of 3 percentage points. Fox News/Opinion Dynamics * Bush, 43 percent * Gore, 43 percent * Someone else, 3 percent 900 likely voters polled Sept. 20-21. Error margin of 3 percentage points. Reuters/MSNBC * Gore, 44 percent * Bush, 43 percent * Nader, 3 percent * Browne, 2 percent * Buchanan, 1 percent 1,213 likely voters polled Sept. 26-28. Error margin of 3 percentage points.

By John Harwood and Cynthia Crossen
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

If you really want to touch off a debate about the 2000 presidential campaign, just start talking about the polls.

Consider two surveys of the nation's "likely voters" that were released just last week. According to the Los Angeles Times, Texas Gov. George W. Bush has taken a solid 48 percent to 42 percent lead over Vice President Al Gore. Then there's the poll conducted by International Communications Research in Media, Pa., which shows the same six-percentage-point advantage - but for Gore.

That sort of disparity has become common as Gore and Bush enter the final phase of their race, and it may be further magnified next week as the campaigns and the media scramble to measure the impact of tomorrow's first debate between the two candidates. The result - for pollsters, politicians and the ordinary voter - has been a swelling sense of confusion, embarrassment or even outright disbelief.

"Polls are often governed by the way you ask the questions," complains retired banker Frank Storey, a Republican who attended a rally for Bush last week in Spokane, Wash. Back on Capitol Hill, Senate Democratic leader Thomas Daschle sounds just as wary: "I don't buy this margin of error of 3 or 4 percentage points, spoken so authoritatively. It all has to be taken with a grain of salt."

Both the Los Angeles Times and the ICR polls last week have a 4-percentage-point margin of error.

Many analysts do expect this race to rival the photo-finishes that ended the 1960 and 1968 campaigns. And it is never easy to measure the sentiments of 200 million Americans by interviewing several hundred of them. But using polling to measure slight shifts in a contest between evenly matched rivals can be excruciatingly difficult. Even more daunting to pollsters is the large segment of the electorate that is apathetic, irresolute or merely undecided this year, and whose opinions can thus fluctuate, producing widely varying survey results.

The science of statistics recognizes that any poll, no matter how well-conducted, is vulnerable to misrepresenting the actual state of public opinion to some degree. In a random survey of 1,000 Americans, for instance, the "margin of error" on any individual finding might be a few percentage points in either direction.

But the everyday practice of polling, which blends science and art, can exaggerate the problem in many ways. For example, the order in which questions are asked can be a factor. Last week, Voter.com's "Battleground Poll," conducted by Republican pollster Ed Goeas and Democrat Celinda Lake, stood out because it showed Bush in the lead when other surveys gave the edge to Gore.

Democratic critics fingered one potential reason: The Battleground Poll asked respondents to state their presidential preference only after having asked them to evaluate President Clinton "as a person," which may have had the effect of reminding voters of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and turning respondents away from Gore. Because "there was a question in my mind" about whether the Clinton question "polluted" the presidential-preference data, the Battleground Poll reordered its questions, says Goeas. The poll has drifted toward Gore in recent days, since the change, while other surveys have moved in the opposite direction.

In theory, every United States household should have the same chance of being included in a national opinion poll. But not every American is equally likely to be at home when polling firms are operating their telephone banks, typically between the hours of 5:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. in each time zone. Moreover, a growing segment of the nation's population speaks English less than proficiently, or not at all.

That's why some pollsters argue that the choice of days on which a survey is conducted can skew a survey's outcome. Strategists for Gore insist that polls conducted on weekends, for unknown reasons, have produced samples tilted toward Bush. Republicans argue precisely the opposite, reasoning that a more affluent GOP electorate is more likely to be out at social events on Friday nights and Saturdays.

Constraints of time and money can introduce even more variation. To ensure that their samples are truly random, pollsters persist in trying to contact those who initially are either unable or unwilling to participate. But that can be difficult when operating on a deadline.

As the election draws near, some news organizations have begun doing nightly "tracking" polls, and offering a rolling, three-day or four-day average of the results of relatively small groups of respondents surveyed over the previous few nights. That technique can magnify daily changes in public sentiment. Over the past 10 days or so, for example, the CNN/USA Today/Gallup tracking poll has gone from showing a double-digit Gore lead to a slight Bush lead. Thursday, its tracking poll showed the two candidates dead even at 46 percent, with a 4-percentage-point margin of error.

Rasmussen Research, of North Carolina, has started using automated, recorded telephone surveys that respondents participate in by touching the dial pad of their telephones, while several firms have been experimenting with Internet polls.

Head-to-head contests let millions judge Gore, Bush under pressure

Al Gore George W. Bush

WASHINGTON - At their best, this month's presidential debates could showcase Al Gore's mastery of detail and George W. Bush's engaging personality. At worst, they could play out more like a battle of sanctimony vs. peevishness.

The trio of debates - 4 1/2 hours in all beginning Tuesday - will give millions of voters their last, best chance to take the measure of the men who would be president.

"I don't think they're looking for a person who will win a college debate series," said Stanley Renshon, a City University of New York political scientist and psychoanalyst. "They're looking for a person who's in command of their views. . . . They're looking for a person who is not afraid to state what they think."

Each candidate has strengths to play up and weaknesses to overcome.

Plus side, minus side

Gore, by far the more experienced debater, is well known for his command of details. He can turn people off, though, when he pushes too hard.

"There's a kind of sanctimonious aggressiveness to Al Gore that I would call his principal weakness when he gets mobilized in an attack mode in a debate," said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas political scientist. "If he seems to be bullying, his talents don't do him any good."

And Gore can get into trouble for overreaching when he's spewing out all those facts - such as his recent claim that his mother-in-law had to pay more than his dog for the same arthritis medicine. It turned out the figures came from a study, not Gore's family.

There's also the old rap about Gore's plodding rhetoric, which feeds into the perception that he's lecturing.

"He adopts a singsong voice, which is the rhetorical equivalent of 'Look, you fool,' " said Renshon. "It'll be interesting to hear how George Bush handles Mr. Gore's tendency to climb up on a soap box and lecture."

During his primary-campaign debates with Bill Bradley, Gore often sounded as if he were talking down to the former senator, as when he contended that Bradley "gets a little out of sorts . . . when I talk about the substance" of his policies.

And the flip side

Bush's strengths and weaknesses are almost the flip side of Gore's: His best weapons are his chatty affability and ability to connect with voters one-on-one; his soft spots are a perceived lack of depth on issues and a smirky defensiveness.

Steve Forbes, who went up against Bush in the GOP primary debates, said that while the Texas governor "didn't do well at the beginning, he showed he could re-gear. . . . Even though it's a formal setting, I think he'll be relaxed enough to show some of that easygoing charm."

Some of Bush's best moments in the primary debates came when he was able to chat up his audience with easy self-assurance.

For example, he got roars of approval for his lighthearted answer to a question about his biggest mistake, confessing that as a baseball team owner, he had "signed off on that wonderful transaction: Sammy Sosa for Harold Baines."

But at other times, Bush gave rambling answers that did nothing to quell reservations about his credentials as a world leader. Asked if he would meet with the Russian president as the GOP presidential nominee, Bush said, "I don't know. I don't know. Probably not. Maybe."

Robin Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, said Bush's difficulty sometimes in getting out an articulate, grammatical sentence is "forgivable in one-on-one talk," but Americans could see it differently in a more formal debate format.

That could be especially true if the awkward elocution winds up being replayed over and over as a TV soundbite. That's just what happened after Bush recently botched his pronunciation of subliminal - repeatedly saying "subliminable."

Another debating danger for Bush, observers say, is that he can turn peevish when put on the defensive.

Short fuse a hazard

"There's a kind of shortness, a dismissive tone that slips in," says Wayne Fields, an expert on presidential rhetoric from Washington University in St. Louis. "He's got to avoid projecting anything . . . to suggest that he's arrogant."

In the primary debates, Bush was sometimes snappish with his opponents, dismissively telling one rival, "You don't know my record," and on several occasions complaining, "Let me finish! Let me finish!"

If Gore has the experience edge at the debate lectern, Bush has the advantage of low expectations.

But Bill Miller, a Texas political consultant who has represented candidates from both parties, says Bush shouldn't be underestimated.

"He's got a strong competitive streak in him," Miller said. "He's going to rise to the level of the competition."

On the stump...

Where they are today

Political Notebook