Cornyn: Arizona GOP Primary Has 'Gotten My Attention'

By Shane Goldmacher  //  May 17, 2012 | 6:15 p.m.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn's chief job this year is to elect enough new Republicans to the Senate to take control of the upper chamber. So when one Republican candidate starts airing bruising attacks against another fellow Republican in a potentially competitive state, as has begun this week in Arizona, Cornyn takes notes.

"It's gotten my attention - let me put it that way," Cornyn, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told National Journal on Thursday.

This week, businessman Wil Cardon, a multimillionaire who has already poured more than $4 million of his own money into the race, hit the airwaves with his first negative ad against the frontrunner, Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

The ad accuses Flake of supporting an energy tax that would cost families $1,000 per year. Flake's campaign has fought back, saying Cardon is "dishonestly" attacking a Republican alternative to cap-and-trade.

Either way, the ad is airing in the desert state both in a 30-second television spot and in a one-minute radio commercial.

"Flake's energy tax is wrong," the announcer says in the radio ad. "Jeff Flake - career politician we can't trust."

The "career politician" bit echoes the same line of attack that Democratic candidate Richard Carmona, a former surgeon general, has been making against Flake. "It's a free country so anybody can say what they want and the primary voters will cast their verdict," said Cornyn, who has watched as the favored Republicans have fallen in the last two competitive GOP Senate primaries (Richard Lugar in Indiana and Jon Bruning in Nebraska). He remains bullish on holding the seat of retiring Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. "I'm optimistic about the outcome overall," Cornyn said.

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