Democratic Party Arizona

Arizona Gov. Fife Symington lied to lenders and "abused his office" by trying to extort loan concessions in an attempt to shore up his crumbling real estate empire, a prosecutor charged Friday at the start of the governor's trial on fraud, extortion and perjury charges. Symington's lead attorney, however, told the jury that the governor is "completely innocent of the charges" and blamed Arizona's real estate depression for his client's undoing. In his opening statement, Assistant U.S. Atty.

At a critical moment in the 1980 Democratic National Convention, when dissension flared among supporters of then-presidential candidate Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, deputy campaign manager Ron Brown was dispatched to put out the fire. "You've got to keep yourself together," Kennedy's disgruntled North Carolina floor leader Chris Scott recalls Brown telling him. "Politics is a long-term sport." For the last eight years, Brown has been practicing what he preached.