Susan Bitter Smith

DENVER -- U.S. Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-Tempe) is not worried about the outcome of the Republican primary in the 5th Congressional District, which will lead to the selection of his  opponent in the general election.

"It makes no difference," said Mitchell, when asked if he had a preferred candidate to face after the Sept. 2 primary. "We've always run tough races. This is my 17th election. We always run against Republicans in Republican districts. This is no different, we're ready for any of them."

The David Schweikert campaign will report having $244,174 on hand as of Aug. 13, campaign spokesman Michael Juel told PolitickerAZ.com.

The campaign is transmitting its Federal Elections Commission report Thursday, which covers the period from July 1 to Aug. 13. Juel said the campaign will report raising nearly $100,000 over the six week period.

Schweikert's overall fundraising stands at $943,431 over the course of the cycle, which includes $250,000 the candidate lent his campaign. He has so far managed to outraise his opponents substantially, taking in more than three times what Jim Ogsbury raised during the same period.

The Club for Growth, which is backing the candidacy of Republican primary candidate David Schweikert in the 5th Congressional District, has come out with two new ads, according to a Club release Thursday. Both ads - one a 15 second television spot, the other a 60 second radio commercial - hit Susan Bitter Smith, one of Schweikert's opponents in the primary contest, for voting to increase property taxes as a member of the Scottsdale City Council.

"“Throughout the decade in a half in which Susan Bitter Smith has been involved in politics, her record has been consistently liberal on economic issues,” said Pat Toomey, president of the Club for Growth, in a statement unveiling the ads.  “She supported a huge tax increase when she was a city council member in the early nineties and she refuses to fight wasteful spending today as a congressional candidate.  Susan Bitter Smith can call herself a conservative, but when voters look at her record, they will see just how liberal she truly is.”

David Schweikert is hammering back against an attack by his 5th Congressional District Republican primary rival, Susan Bitter Smith, after Bitter Smith put out a mailer attacking Schweikert's record as Maricopa County treasurer.

Tuesday morning, a hit piece from the Bitter Smith campaign showed up in mailboxes across the district saying Schweikert mismanaged the county's funds during his tenure as treasurer. Later that day, the Schweikert camp put out a robo-call refuting the charges and slamming Bitter Smith's "negative" tactics.

Brian Hummell, Bitter Smith's campaign manager, pointed to an audit of the treasurer's office from April 2007 to support his claim. The report stated that "some Treasurer’s Office actions conflict with uniform accounting practices and with State Statutes" by allowing its servicing bank "to extend credit beyond line of credit limits."

Inside Edge has been informed that AZ-5 Republican Susan Bitter Smith will appear on an Internet radio show called Morning Meows on Thursday.  

Bitter Smith will sit down with the station's human DJ, the Cat Protector to answer the questions on both the minds of cats and their humans.

"Finally, we have a U.S. congressional candidate that isn't afraid to admit that they're ruled over by cats. Perhaps we'll be seeing a cat related movement in Washington. It's good we have a political candidate running for a national office that isn't afraid to come on our station. One thing's for sure, you can expect us to ask the questions that are on our listeners minds," said Nohl Rosen of Cat Galaxy.

Cat Galaxy has invited all of the AZ-5 congressional candidates to appear, but only Bitter Smith has responded to date.  This is a great move for Bitter Smith to go after the “cat-lovers” vote if the other four candidates in the primary are focusing on the “dog-lover” vote. 

Susan Bitter Smith, Republican primary candidate in the 5th Congressional District, is playing up her tough stance on issues of illegal immigration and crime with two new endorsements from law enforcement unions and a just-released ad featuring Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

On Wednesday, the Bitter Smith campaign unveiled the backing of the National Border Patrol Council Local 2544, which represents U.S. border agents, and the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association (PLEA), which counts 2,500 memebers of the Phoenix Police Department among its membership. 

Susan Bitter Smith, one of the Republican primary candidates in the 5th Congressional District jockeying for the chance to take on U.S. Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-Tempe) in the general election, held a "virtual" fundraiser Wednesday for donors in Washington, D.C. and across the country.

The event may have been virtual, but the money is real. Bitter Smith told PolitickerAZ.com that the conference call brought her campaign $10,000.

"It ended up being actually quite an interesting event," said Bitter Smith. "The only thing they didn't get was obviously the soda and cheese and crackers."

As of Wednesday, Susan Bitter Smith has become the third of the five major candidates in the 5th Congressional District Republican primary to hit the airwaves.

Her first ad begins by invoking Ronald Reagan, showing Bitter Smith as a Reagan delegate at the 1980 Republican National Convention, and prominently features Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a key endorser who spoke at her campaign kickoff.

SCOTTSDALE -- Jim Ogsbury knows how to walk neighborhoods. He doesn’t mess with marker caps anymore – “I got sick of fumbling with them,” he explains – now he’s got a retractable one to mark off houses on his walk sheet. He also uses it to knock on doors, joking he “must have permanent tissue damage in my knuckles” from all the doors he’s knocked. By his count, that’s now about 16,000.

Today he is taking his quest for the Republican nomination in the 5th Congressional District to a quiet Scottsdale street, rich in what Ogsbury terms “loyal Republican voters.” He plans to spend the afternoon, from 1:30 until dark, introducing himself to residents of house after house, chatting with the voters inside and putting campaign literature into their hands personally.

Congressional candidate Susan Bitter Smith: Campaign photo5th Congressional District Republican candidate Susan Bitter Smith continues to blast away at her would-be rival, U.S. Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-Tempe) over his performance in Congress on energy issues, and his association with other Democrats.

The Bitter Smith campaign issued an attack against Mitchell Monday, claiming Mitchell supports a "failed policy" to curb high fuel prices.

"A few short days after Democrats like liberal Harry Mitchell passed on a key opportunity to help forge an American energy policy that would lower gas prices," read a release from the Bitter Smith campaign, "Arizona Democrats invited one of the architects of this failed policy to our state. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill, a classic Chicago pol and the Democratic Caucus Chair made an appearance in the Valley this weekend to raise money from Arizonan’s [sic] while perpetuating what Mitchell called 'one of the most costly hidden taxes on the American people,' just two years ago."