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Another Letter to Congresswoman Martha McSally
Dear Congresswoman McSally,
I deeply admired your true courage and integrity in your long fight to force the Department of Defense to live up to the Constitution, not subjecting military women to the outrageous demand they conform to a 7th Century dress code in a country we were keeping free from Iraq and Iran. I was pleased to cross your path in the Davis-Monthan photo facility, as I was taking another Army board photo, and you were getting a command photo. The Air Force did the right thing, eventually, despite your righteous, eventually public, fight against bad policy.
You seem stuck a week out, still unable to persuade about three to six percent of Arizona voters to commit, but you can overcome this reticence, if you show your military career courage and integrity. The weight holding you down is the recent history of the past two Republican Senators. You must show, not say, that you will not stray from your campaign promises.
You can do so as Ambassador Nikki Haley did in her White House farewell comments. Include in every appearance, video, and ad, from here through Election Day, that you look forward to working with President Trump, on behalf of Arizona, for the next six years. That subtly, but definitely, shows you truly intend to join in “promises made, promises kept.”
During the debate, you defended not endorsing Donald Trump in 2016 as a matter of habit. That explanation expired when you stepped on the podium in Mesa, receiving President Trump’s endorsement. You had the opportunity, then, to close out your pitch with “I look forward to working with President Trump, on behalf of the great state of Arizona, for the next six years.” It would have brought the roof down.
Your failure, to make any such commitment, has reinforced the suspicion that you will subvert and slow walk the MAGA agenda. You should be a natural ally of this president, because he is constantly focused on campaign promises, insisting that they are kept. Work with that, burn your bridge to 2020 presidential primary challengers, and you will be the next Senator from Arizona.
Best Regards,
Clifford A. Brown
Published in Elections
Sure hope your letter reaches her eyes and heart. If that loonie opponent of hers wins, it will be a tragic bungle of epic proportions.
It sounds as if @cliffordbrown , you aren’t very certain of McSally’s reliability. That is a problem right from the get go. In what areas do you believe she opposes the President?
This election makes no sense to me.
Why in the world is McSally running behind to this complete nut while the Republican governor is up by 15 points?
This makes no sense to me.
I would think that Arizona might now have too many liberal Californian transplants, but then why is the Republican governor doing so well?
…
The other state that confuses me is Montana. The body-slamming Republican congressman is up in the state and projected to win while the non-body-slamming Republican senate challenger has been behind in every poll. However, I guess the body-slamming congressman is listed closer to a toss-up now.
Believe it or not there are conservative Republican voters (a) who think that John McCain were great senators by being separate from Trump and (b) who approved of Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater and House Minority Leader (once my own Representative) telling Nixon it was time to go.
Republican Governor Doug Ducey is winning re-election by 15 points because he governed as a fiscal and social conservative. He has generally kept himself away from Trump.
However, Trump has brayed that this race is about him. If so, the biggest question I have for Martha McSally is what she would do if Trump obstructed Justice by trying to fire Mueller? I sure would like to hear from independence from Martha McSally, so that I can count on her being a check on Trump in the Senate. I haven’t heard it yet.
I will vote. I will walk my ballot over to the County Recorders Office. But, I reserve the right to decline to vote in a particular race and to not vote for either candidate, but to move down the ballot to vote in other races.
The primary concern, driven by the long term behavior of John McCain, is that she is posturing as tough on the border, fully intending to back down and even sabotage tough immigration legislation to keep it from becoming a reality.
Sinema is an exceptionally smooth politician, given cover by the print and broadcast media in the state. McSally does not have the same political chops. McSally, as I point out, is weighed down by recent Republican Senators’ conduct. She seeks to replace one who was so reviled by Republican voters that he was scared out of even running for reelection—facing likely primary defeat by a former state senator. She runs under the shadow of another military veteran, combat pilot, who routinely promised to be tough on the border, during reelection years, then went back to representing the Chamber of Commerce cheap labor position. McCain’s crowning legislative act was ostentatiously breaking the promise he and his party had made ever since passage of Obamacare.
Who do I call to get my money back?
As to Montana, or Florida, or West Virginia, incumbents have to really tick off voters to lose. That said, the Montana Libertarian candidate for Senate just asked his supporters to vote for the Republican challenger, after an ad from a group backing Tester urged conservatives to vote Libertarian. The Libertarian does not want to be used by Democrats, so has thrown his support to the Republican.
Just that feeling is what may be driving the extraordinary 3-6 percent refusing to choose a candidate one week out. Texas was down to 1 percent undecided in a Beto-Cruz Senate race poll in September. In AZ, the race may come down to whether Green Party supporters actually vote for their party’s candidate or strategically vote for Sinema.
Refusing to bend the knee to someone you consider unfit does not equate to subverting the conservative agenda.
While that may be your view of President Trump, I’d be interested in an explanation of honor or integrity that involved seeking the public endorsement of “someone you consider unfit,” so you get the power and perks of a Senate seat. Or, perhaps you have a notion of honor or integrity, that justifies running on promises of “build the wall” and “repeal Obamacare,” then proving by actions in the Senate that you never intended to keep your word.
Excluding the issues of segregation and slavery, she’s be just about the biggest embarrassment ever elected or appointed to the U.S. Senate, but I guess Arizona feels otherwise.
Oh, now, give some credit to Barbara Boxer and Joe Biden!
I confess I am unfamiliar with the AZ race. Did McSally actively seek out Trump’s endorsement or did she accept it because a refusal would be uncivil and very bad politics? If she said she supports the general thrust of Trump’s administration I agree with her and see nothing wrong with that statement. I wholeheartedly agree “build the dang fence” during the campaign and then gutting immigration reform in office was outrageous, but I am unaware of anything similar from the current candidate.
Notably, McSally’s staff is non-responsible to e-mails. Tweets from voters who supported Kelli Ward hang in social media space, unanswered. Yet the GOP machine is supposed to be backing McSally. More signals that she just doesn’t want some voters? Or, are these signals that a solid candidate, an honorable person, is being ill-served, by a Steve Schmidt-y campaign manager or adviser?
McSally has been happy, throughout the primary and general campaign, to associate herself with President Trump, citing his praise for her and her work with him on AZ priorities. She has not had the chance, yet, to follow McCain’s worst examples. But, it hangs in the background, and it appears she has not quite closed the deal with the critical segment of voters, who crossed over, or engaged for the first time, in voting for both Trump and McCain in 2016.
What exactly constitutes ‘bending the knee’ vs. not ‘bending the knee’?
Boxer and Biden look like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster compared to Kyrsten Sinema.
Fawning over Trump when you don’t approve of Trump. McSally didn’t like Trump when he mocked a disabled reporter or talked about grabbing a woman’s crotch then and she shouldn’t have to like it now.
So what constitutes ‘fawning’ then?
And who says she should like what Trump did/said/claimed?
If McSally, in her heart, does not believe Trump is the best candidate the Republican Party could nominate she should not lie and pledge loyalty to him for the next six years. I think doing that would be fawning or bending the knee. I would have no problem with her saying she thought Sen. McCain was wrong in his stance as a “maverick” betraying what he promised, but I don’t think that would satisfy the pro-Trump people that backed Ward or Sheriff Joe.
Ah. OK, that’s reasonable.
Except, of course, he did not mock a disabled reporter as you claim. And Senate candidate McSally has no business kissing President Trump on the cheek, before and after her campaign pitch, as he endorses her, if she now holds him in the same low regard as you.
Amen. A mere Like is not enough.
Not bending the knee to Trump: Flake, McCain, Sasse, Romney, Ryan, Haley, Ducey, Mueller, and the Judiciary.
Bending the knee: Damn near everyone else, especially those who are afraid of a tweet.
I believe my own eyes and my own ears about the disabled reporter.
I believe my own eyes and my own ears that Trump accused Cruz’s father of helping Lee Harvey Oswald.
I believe my own eyes and my own ears that Trump said that he preferred heroes who weren’t captured.
I believe my own eyes and my own ears that Trump promoted the execrable lie of Birtherism long after Obama produced his birth certificate.
Trump says that I must follow him like a good Republican. No. I am a Christian, an American and a Conservative in that order before I am a Republican. Because I am a Christian, an American and a Conservative before I am a Republican, I am compelled to vote against Republicans who say that Trump is “their” leader, as opposed to the current leader of the party that they and I belong to.
Martha McSally’s refusal to fully bow the knee to Trump is the one reason why I am open to voting for her, despite that she is self-branded as a Republican. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey keeping distance from Trump speaks well of him.
I will not vote for Republican candidates who said in the primary that they were the “Trump” candidate, like Secretary of State candidate Steve Gaynor, or House of Representatives Candidate Wendy Rodgers. And our Republican legislative candidates? They invited Steve Bannon to campaign with them! That’s even worse.
I don’t know about down ballot Republicans like Treasurer Candidate Kimberly Yee, or our candidates for AG, Superintendent of Public Instruction and State Mine Inspector.
There is a businessman who is running for City Council who is untouched by the “mark” or “curse” of Trump. I will be voting for him, likely on a single shot ballot, where I vote just for him, instead of for three candidates.
On the local and state propositions, of course I will be voting against raising the minimum wage, and against a sales tax on services. I am a fiscal conservative.
I suggest all of the Ricochet NeverTrump caucus schedule a meet-up. We could probably host it in a gas station rest room with plenty of room for a guest speaker.
You give him almost mystical power as if he was some kind of supernatural being.
Too funny. Good one.