A new Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey finds Brewer leading Democrat Terry Goddard by a 56% to 37% margin. That’s little changed from a month ago. Just two percent (2%) prefer another candidate while five percent (5%) are undecided.

Brewer’s prospects dramatically improved after she signed the much talked about immigration law that has become the subject of a national debate. In Arizona, 65% of voters continue to favor the law while just 27% are opposed. Nationally, most voters would like a similar law in their own state.

By a 60% to 34% margin, Arizona voters oppose the Justice Department lawsuit against their state. Opposition to the lawsuit is similar nationwide. The law is scheduled to go into effect on July 29 and a federal court is currently hearing the federal government’s claim that the law should not be implemented.

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of voters in Arizona want President Obama to send more U.S. troops to their state in an effort to help secure the border. Only six percent (6%) believe there are already too many troops in the state.

Forty percent (40%) believe that the immigration law has had a positive impact on the state’s image while 46% believe it’s had a negative impact.

Forty-three percent (43%) believe the law is good for the state’s economy while 37% say it’s bad for the economy.

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Here’s the story from Jonathan J. Cooper, via HuffPo:

A now-disbarred Florida lawyer who admitted to orchestrating a huge Ponzi scheme gave more than $180,000 to Arizona Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, contributions that McCain’s Senate rival is now making an issue in their competitive primary.

Scott Rothstein was sentenced Wednesday to 50 years in prison after he confessed to running a $1.2 billion fraud using faked legal settlements.

Rothstein also was a key contributor and fundraiser who bundled more than $500,000 in campaign contributions for McCain’s 2008 race, according to the campaign finance watchdog Center for Responsive Politics.

The exact amount he raised from others is unknown, but Rothstein boasted to the Wall Street Journal in 2008 that he raised as much as $1.1 million for McCain.

The campaign of former U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who is challenging McCain in Arizona’s Aug. 24 Republican primary, demanded that the four-term senator account for and donate all of the money connected to Rothstein.

“McCain can’t have it both ways. He can’t be the champion of campaign finance reform one day and then take more than a million dollars from a convicted felon the next day,” Hayworth spokesman Mark Sanders said.

Read the whole thing here.

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U.S. Sen. John McCain and Republican challenger J.D. Hayworth spent a second night tearing each other apart, while Jim Deakin laughed at both of them and promised to dismantle everything from Medicare to the Environmental Protection Agency.

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The week in review, courtesy of the Arizona Illustrated Roundtable gang.

Don’t forget: Bill Buckmaster will be moderating the McCain-Hayworth-Deakin Senate debate from 7 to 8 p.m. tomorrow night on Channel 6. (Tonight’s Phoenix debate can be seen here in Tucson on Channel 18.)

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It has been a very strange season in the political career of John McCain. The former maverick who once fought his own party on everything from tax cuts to torture, who built a reputation as a prickly independent, now marches in lockstep with his party, from his objection to Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court appointment to his support of a draconian new immigration law in Arizona that would have repulsed him three years ago. When Newsweek asked him whether a maverick would take such positions, he responded that he’d never considered himself a maverick. It all seemed to defy logic.

But did it really? For John McCain, being a maverick always meant following different and contradictory scripts, according to his whim and the political realities of the moment. Long dependent on advisers to harness and manage his political energies, McCain has never resolved an inherent contradiction in his brain trust, between Rick Davis, a veteran lobbyist who helped McCain win the Republican nomination, and Mark Salter, the speechwriter who single-handedly crafted the maverick image of McCain from the early aughts. Both represent distinct parts of McCain’s psyche, the former McCain’s instinctual need to survive and fight, the latter his need for honor and dignity in the Washington snakepit (it was Salter who wrote McCain’s concession speech). And both have served him well. But this year, as McCain has been gripped by fear of political mortality, one of the voices in his head is, increasingly, drowning out the other. In a sense, the campaign he’s running is a continuation of his presidential campaign, the same battle on different ground. And though for the nation the stakes are much lower, for one man—John McCain—they are even higher.

Some fascinating behind-the-scenes insights in the story. Read the whole thing here.

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The week in review, as seen by Arizona Illustrated’s Roundtable gang.

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Congressman Raul Grijalva takes on Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on CNN.

BTW: Grijalva will visit Arizona Illustrated’s Friday Roundtable this week. The show airs at 6:30 p.m. on Channel 6.

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That claim has been debunked by the gang at PolitiFact.com:

True, “Kidnapping capital” is a headline-grabbing label. But so far, we’ve seen no evidence that it’s accurate, or even close. And since we first considered this claim earlier this month, no one has stepped forward with more information.

Phoenix has experienced hundreds of kidnappings over the past few years. However, we couldn’t find reliable around-the-planet evidence to confirm that only Mexico City experiences more of them. In fact, experts advise that such rankings can’t be made based on available information. If they could, they speculate, other cities would prove to have more kidnappings than Arizona’s capital.

We found nothing confirming Phoenix as No. 2 in kidnappings worldwide. We’ll reconsider our rating if compelling evidence surfaces, but for now McCain’s statement is False.

More details here.

Why does it matter? Because when you talk about beheadings and kidnappings and the great dangers of Arizona, you screw up the tourism industry. And it doesn’t make it any easier to attract new employers, either.

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Nick Smith brings us a TWTV report from today’s press conference announcing that 524 National Guard troops and other resources are being sent to the Arizona border.

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The Center for Biological Diversity today filed an Endangered Species Act listing petition seeking protection for two species of talus snails that are threatened by the proposed Rosemont Copper Mine in the Santa Rita Mountains, 30 miles southeast of Tucson. The proposed mine would be an open pit more than one mile wide and more than half a mile deep that would destroy at least 4,400 acres of habitat, including more than 3,300 acres of public land on the Coronado National Forest, where the mining waste would be dumped.

“The Rosemont Mine threatens the survival of these two rare Arizona snails,” said Tierra Curry, a biologist at the Center. “The two snails need immediate protection under the Endangered Species Act to have any chance at survival.”

The Rosemont talus snail is only found in the Rosemont area, meaning the proposed mine could cause its extinction. The Sonoran talus snail is found in the Rosemont area, in the Tumacacori Mountains, where it is threatened by smuggling and

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