Posted on 11/13/2018 5:48:12 AM PST by LS
As a native Arizonian---though one who has been away for 30 years until 2016---I forgot a lot of my history. People like to paint states or regions as "red" or "blue" but Arizona, like most states, has a complex and hardly linear past.
Arizona began as a "Progressive" state and was denied statehood for many years because it had "democratic" elements in its state constitution (the first to do so): Initiative, Referendum, and Recall of state officials. They also included direct election of senators and women's suffrage. The feds found this unconstitutional and delayed statehood status for this reason.
Arizonians removed the offending clauses, got statehood, then immediately put them back in.
While Arizona was a Republican state, it came from the Progressive/TR/Taft wing. Nevertheless, Arizona's first two senators were Democrats, Marcus Smith and Henry Ashurst. After being reelected in 1914, Smith lost to the first Republican senator, Ralph Cameron. He'd be the LAST Republican til Goldwater!
In 1927, Carl Hayden(D) won. He became an Arizona legend and is properly celebrated here because with Ernest McFarland (D who replaced the reelected Ashurst in 1941) the two made Arizona water their top priority.
In the 1980s I was asked to create the archives of Sen. McFarland and went over every paper the man ever wrote. He literally spent 99% of his time on Arizona water. He and Hayden engineered the Colorado River project that used federal money to line Arizona with canals that brought water from the Colorado River. Without that water, Arizona today would be little different than sparsely populated states such as New Mexico or Utah.
McFarland stepped down in 1952. That marked only the second time since 1926 a Republican served in the Arizona senate delegation. Barry Goldwater held the seat until 1965. He had stepped down to run for president in 1964, and R Paul Fannin took his seat (Hayden was still there!). Hayden finally left in 1968 when Goldwater returned, and for the first time Arizona had two R senators (Fannin the other).
It didn't last long. Fannin stepped down in 1976 and another Democrat Dennis DeConcini replaced him. Ten years later Goldwater finally retired and John McCain too his seat (DeConcini still the other senator).
In 1994 DeConcini retired and current US Senator Jon Kyl was elected, becoming Arizona's most conservative senator since Goldwater. Kyl served until 2012, when the useless slime Jeff Flakey was elected (and immediately disappointed Arizonians). Upon McTurd's death, Kyl was again asked to step in.
HAVEN'T CHECKED, BUT HEARD ON THE RADIO THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN DECADES Ds OUTNUMBER Rs IN THE COMBINED AZ CONGRSSIONAL DELEGATION.
My point is only that Arizona's past is NOT reflective of "extreme conservatism," and a long view would more appropriately suggest it has been a D-leaning state until quite recently.
I'm not sure we're that close to losing Texas. Cruz' victory was surprisingly close, but Gov. Abbott kicked his (D) opponent's ass.
I do, unless some verifiable proof of voter fraud surfaces. This country isn't as conservative as many of us would like to believe.
I agree.
“...it is the fact that Arizona would elect a far leftist to represent them that is troubling.”
Sinema portrayed herself as a centrist. She has spent 6 years in the House moving to the middle in preparation for this run. Her ads boasted she was #3 on the list of Democrats who voted most often with Republicans. She boasted she voted with Trump 65% of the time.
She also isn’t stupid. Whenever possible, she’ll vote with Republicans in the Senate - on anything not too important to Democrats, or where Republicans are going to win anyways. She wants to become Ms Manchin, so to speak.
Folks following the national news view Sinema as a far-left outsider. Her entire pitch to Arizona - INSIDE Arizona, where she ran while McSally tried to run from DC - was that she has grown up and in now a unifying centrist.
Here is the endorsement of the Arizona Republic (which, no one mentioned, endorsed Hillary in 2016):
“The real Martha McSally and Kyrsten Sinema know that,” the board argued. “But Sinema is the only one willing to say it (repeatedly) from behind her mask.”
“In a Washington in which rancor and malice are disturbingly normal, Sinema is the antidote,” the board added. “Leaders like her can come from any party and they are needed more than ever...She has traveled a long ways from the street-marching activist she once was to the good-natured centrist she now is.”
McSally was the GOP-E candidate who won 51% of the primary vote just SIX WEEKS BEFORE VOTING STARTED! She then ran a DC based campaign. Sinema did the work inside of Arizona, going on local radio. She also was able to run ads unopposed all summer!
If we want to win the next election, we need to face what happened in this one!
“Hasn’t helped that any time a conservative won the primary here, the state and National GOP pulled all funding since they assume a conservative candidate equals a certain loss. It is Democrat again after the GOP ran no ads that I know of until a couple of days before the election.”
Precisely why I NEVER give money to the GOP. Not even the AZ GOP. My donations go directly to candidates’ campaigns.
Though it is unfathomable to us that any Republican would vote R straight down the line but cross over and pick Sinema over McSally, obviously quite a few did - because they bought into Sinema’s blow-dried suburbanite makeover and multi-million dollar, out-of-state-funded media messaging.
And Arizona is loaded with conservative retirees who still get virtually all of their political information from the morning paper.
It was never Red. it was Blue as blue can be as they voted decade after decade for McInsane.
bookmark
3.) Cruz blamed Trump’s “rhetoric” when the lefties rioted at Trump’s Chicago campaign rally. Cruz was being touted as a constitutional genius. The 2 did not compute and Cruz lost a large portion of his credibility in that moment.
Actually if you’re going back that far, the most “conservative” Republican states (e.g., in the South) had something of a similar, but generally even more Democrat, background.
McCain’s elections were funded by the left, most especially the primaries. Saw a lot of this crap even with the primary between McSally and Ward. Big money spent against Ward by organizations not affiliated with a specific candidate.
They campaign so as to get the more liberal Pubbie to run against their candidate so either way they win. Thus McCain and Fake, RINOs doing the bidding of the left.
I stopped giving to the GOP after the GOP gave money DURING THE PRIMARY to stop the conservative running in the district. When he won the primary anyway, they killed all funding to his campaign. Haven’t given the bastards a penny since!
Folks need to understand that a lot of conservatives in Arizona were holding our noses while voting for McSally. She has the charisma of a dead fish and opposed Trump until...oh, August 2018.
The invasion is ongoing. Texas to fall next and when it does the Ds will be America’s lone political choice. RINOs, and their supporters, are to blame for our pending collapse. Supporting Trump is our last chance to save ourselves.
McSally was an obvious fake - I can see how many conservatives considered her to be “McFlake.”
Your history of Arizona is somewhat misleading. Though the Teddy Roosevelt faction was strong in Arizona, it wasn’t strong enough to stop the Democrats from ending the Arizona Rangers while Roosevelt was president. The Rangers had greatly reduced crime in Arizona but were opposed by local sheriffs and politicians who saw the Rangers as an enemy, and one that impeded the usual corrupt way of doing business in the state. The like-minded moneyed men have run things ever since (and that included the multi-millionaire Goldwater, and more recently John McCain).
If Cornyn runs against a reincarnated Beto, Beto will begin with a huge money advantage I would assume.
The GOP should have won that race and held onto the seat but for a vicious and nasty primary fight between two Republican Congressmen, Sam Steiger and John Conlan--both solid conservatives--that spilled more blood than the Battle of the Somme. By the time Steiger won the nomination, the anger of the sullen Conlan partisans made it worthless. De Concini went on to do tremendous damage to our country such as serving as a key figure in the Panama Canal giveaway.
The R governor won by over 300,000 votes, but the R senator lost by 32,000?
Does that pass the smell test to you?
Now the narrative about how Arizona is actually purple.
It isn’t. It’s red, and very corrupt.
“...holding our noses while voting for McSally. She has the charisma of a dead fish and opposed Trump until...oh, August 2018.”
Yep. But he came to do a rally for her anyway because he knows we need every seat we can get even if it means RINOs. DJT is a prince.
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