viewed as a permanent fixture of Washington.

But when candidates live a few miles over district lines in the same state, it's harder to attack them, Arnold said.

"It's very difficult to ... convincingly make the case that by moving a few miles to be across a district line, a member will be a better representative," he said.

Politicians have survived carpetbagging attacks.

John McCain had recently moved to Arizona after retiring from the Navy in 1982 when he won a seat in Congress. Hillary Clinton sailed into the Senate in 2000 despite having never previously lived in New York.

And while Kirkpatrick's permanent home is in her district, she spends some nights at a second place outside it. She owns a condo in downtown Phoenix, where a Republican operative reported seeing herwalking her dog.

"Ann's home is in Flagstaff, but her family's condo is a helpful stop-over point whenever her schedule includes flights out of Sky Harbor or long drives from northern to southern Arizona," campaign spokesman D.B. Mitchell said in a written statement.

Tobin's reversal on carpetbagging could be used against him on the campaign trail, said American politics expert Peri Arnold, who teaches at the University of Notre Dame.

"What he's done is given his opponent words to use against him in television ads," Arnold said. "The story here is ... he's perfectly willing to look a fool to run in the district he wants to run in."

Any criticism can be detrimental, said American University professor Jennifer Lawless, which is probably why Gosar went as far as renting an apartment