Surgeon general under Bush to run as Democrat for Senate

Former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona will enter the Democratic primary for one of Arizona’s Senate seats, a boon to Democrats who viewed him as their best chance to take control of the seat from Republicans.

Carmona, a Vietnam veteran who served as surgeon general under former President George W. Bush, will have a busy winter: He has just been tapped to head an independent military oversight panel that is investigating the mistreatment of the remains of fallen U.S. troops at an Air Force base in Delaware.

{mosads}“Like most Arizonans, it’s clear to me that Washington is broken, and it is time for honest people with real world experience to step forward to solve the problems we are facing and get our economy going again,” Carmona said in a news release announcing his candidacy.

Camona’s entrance into the race for retiring Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-Ariz.) seat is also likely to quell speculation that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who is recovering from a January assassination attempt, will enter the race. Giffords’s longtime campaign manager, Rodd McLeod, is advising Carmona’s Senate run, he said Thursday.

Don Bivens, a former chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party, has already launched a campaign for the seat — one that Democrats are most hopeful about flipping in 2012. But Democrats in Washington and Arizona were concerned Bivens would not be competitive enough against Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), the front-runner in the GOP primary.

“While some in D.C. have selected their candidate for Arizona, I am proud to have the support of hundreds of Arizonans and prominent Arizona leaders,” Bivens said in a statement, touting his endorsements from former Reps. Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.) and Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.), who is running to reclaim her old seat.

Hoping for a candidate with an independent background who could appeal to centrist Republican voters and the state’s growing Hispanic population, Democrats actively recruited Carmona to enter the race, with President Obama reportedly calling him personally. While not a partisan figure in the past, Carmona donated to Bush’s first presidential campaign in 1999, according to Federal Election Commission records.

In an interview with The Hill on Wednesday, Carmona said colleagues from both parties had asked him to consider running, and said his lack of former involvement in partisan politics was what positioned him to contribute differently than those currently in office.

“That’s why people are encouraging me to run, because they trust me and I have not been part of the political system,” he said.

Carmona also downplayed concerns that it would be difficult to mount a Senate campaign at the same time as he headed the high-profile investigative panel for the military.

“Many of us who are busy do three or four or five things at one time,” he said. “I don’t think you should read anything in that.”

Born to a Hispanic family in Harlem, N.Y., Carmona received two purple hearts in the Army and later worked as a trauma surgeon in Tucson, Ariz. He spent 25 years as a deputy sheriff and SWAT team officer in Pima County, and in 2002, Bush nominated him to be the nation’s top medical official.

Carmona becomes the second major Democratic recruit to make the leap into a Senate race this week. On Tuesday, former North Dakota Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp entered the race to replace retiring Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.).

—This post was updated at 2:49 p.m.