Posted on 12/14/2017 8:22:54 PM PST by KC Burke
Not to be ghoulish, but McCain is in the dying process now. Assuming he passes in 2018 (a realistic expectation) your Governor Ducey will appoint a replacement who will serve immediately but will have to run for that office in the next statewide election (i.e., November 2018) to serve the remainder of McCain;s term. I hope Ducey has the wisdom to appoint Kelli Ward as she was the 2nd biggest vote getter next to McCain. Remember it took tens of millions of dollars for McCain to hold on to that seat.
Don’t beat yourself up over it. A big problem was that there was no viable opponent who stepped up to run in the GOP primary who could’ve taken him down (Trent Franks had mulled it over, apparently, but he didn’t step up for the reason he just resigned). To the point, he was anointed by the party establishment and to serve as a McQueeg puppet.
Yes, I expect our favorite RINO will be checking out before long, though he might manage to hang on by feeding on his hatred of Trump. I actually disagree on one point: Gov. Ducey should NOT appoint Kelli Ward to his seat. She’s declared for Flake’s open seat for a full 6-year term. If Ducey appoints her to the McQueeg vacancy, it will be for just a 4-year term, and worse, it all but hands the Flake seat to the even more left-wing RINO Martha McSally.
I expected Ducey might appoint DeWit, the State Treasurer, but President Trump has snatched him away to serve as NASA CFO. Perhaps going to one of the other House members (except McSally) or statewide officeholders. I haven’t vetted them enough to figure which is the best.
BTW, I’m in TN, not in AZ, but we all have a vested interest in the politics of every state now for obvious reasons.
Thanks...I had forgotten about Martha McSally. So many moving parts!
I see Ducey appointing Stump if McCain goes prior to the primary
Phil Lovas is my guy.
My guy is Phil Lovas, the first Rep. to support Trump. Trump rewarded him by making him head of the SBA. He stepped down to run for this office. A fantastic man and solid conservative. He has proven he can win an election and he will not let you down.
My gosh, it is truly Great Minds Think Alike.
I don’t live in the 8th but I’ve always admired the people who sent Trent to Congress. I have faith in you guys
I was dubious about how poorly you and SJBanker rated Flake but he proved you right.
I’d compare him to Joe Suckbooger, who’s voting record was pretty good. Look at him to go full retard once out of office. Other comparable, Larry Pressler. He was never one of the most conservative guys but I never expected a full retard to be inside him, waiting to come out.
It’s interesting to see people drift once they are out of office, I’d never have suspected Kucinch would support Trump.
Sasse might be the next Flake. He may be a conservative but he appears to have a liberal’s temperament. He likes the tongue bathes liberals (who would never vote for him in a million years) give him when he tweets about how Trump sucks.
I wouldn’t be pleased with McSally (to Flake’s left but with a better temperament it would seem) but I’m still not sold on Ward, she must demonstrate that she can win the GE, we can’t risk another seat on another questionable candidate just cause we like the taste of her red meat. I’d love a third option, former State Party Chairman Robert Graham seems like the only potential candidate still thinking about it.
If McPain crokes before DeWit is confirmed to the NASA thing, I suspect he’d rather be a Senator (who wouldn’t?) For some reason he just seems to really want out of his current job so badly that he was willing to take whatever the administration offered.
And appointing Ward to the vacancy might actually be a very smart play because
1)She’d then be the incumbent
2)Whoever the rats run for the vacancy will be less formidable than the dyke Sinema.
3)No nasty primary for the Flake Seat
Auh2, what do you think? I feel like perhaps you said the same thing.
A lot of complex argumentation, Impy.
You conclude with a preference for Ward to be appointed to a McCain vacancy but then who runs in the Primary for the Flake seat that is worthy? Is that where you see Robert Graham who has not announced or filed?
That takes care of the Senate but what about the 8th?
I’m not sold on Kelli Ward. We need to win the AZ Senate election if we’re going to keep a Senate majority not just after 2018, but after 2022 and 2024 (elections in which the map isn’t as favorable to the GOP). We dodged a bullet with Flake bowing out, but we need someone who can beat the “moderate” bisexual Democrat Sinema. Running a cross between Sharron Angle and Danny Tarkanian, who couldn’t even beat McCain among a GOP primary electorate that preferred someone new, is risky at best, and certainly suboptimal. It takes skill to win contested, competitive elections, and I don’t think that Ward has demonstrated perrinent skills to win a statewide federal race in AZ. That she claims to be a 100% conservative (which I have no reason to doubt is true) will be of no solace to us if she loses to Sinema. We need a Senator from AZ voting in the Capitol, not a losing candidate sulking in Phoenix.
So would McSally be a stronger GE candidate against Sinema? The evidence points in that direction. In 2012, McSally nearly defeated Democrat incumbent Ron Barber, who had been wounded by the same shooter who almost killed Gabrielle Giffords, but had the election stolen fom her; in 2014, she finished the job, knocking off Barber and surviving the obligatory recount. McSally was reelected with 57% in 2016 despite Hillary beating Trump by 50% to 45% in the Tuscon-based district. She clearly has won over voters who have soured on the GOP of late, and those skills should translate well to a statewide election.
McSally also would have a fairly conservative voting record in the Senate—not like Cruz or Lee, but more like Toomey or Rubio. In the House, McSally has voted for the 20-week abortion ban, repeal of Obamacare and almost all other conservative measures; she would have even more leeway to compile a conservative voting record in the Senate, as AZ as a whole is more conservative than her district. And if there’s one thing that the past few years have shown us is that McSally will vote for President Trump’s judicial nominee and Sinema would vote against them.
And what would I do if I were Gov. Ducey and had to fill a vacancy for John McCain’s seat in the next few months? I would name Congressman Paul Gosar of AZ-04 to the Senate. Gosar is a solid conservative who has represented all of northern AZ in the House, since he was elected in 2010 (over incumbent Democrat Ann Kiloatrick) in the old AZ-01 in NE AZ, and in 2012 was redistricted into the AZ-04, which is in NW AZ and goes into the Phoenix suburbs. Not only would Gosar be a formidable candidate as a Senate incumbent in a 2018 special election, his appointment would allow Kelli Ward (who represented a large part of AZ-04 in the state senate) to coast into the very conservative AZ-04 in the special election held in the summer. We then would have Gosar and McSally as Senate candidates in 2018, and Ward can hone her skills and prove her conservative bona fides in the House from a safe GOP district. Win-win-win for us, in my book.
Oh, and in McSally’s AZ-02, Lea Márquez Peterson has announced a run and could give us a Hispanic conservative Republican congresswoman in an in reasingly Hispanic district. https://mobile.twitter.com/LeaPeterson That would be strong GOP ballot in AZ in 2018 and beyond.
McSally = RINO ..Big Time!
How many of the Republican Senators that voted to eliminate the filibuster for SCOTUS nominations and to confirm Justice Gorsuch are, by your estimation, RINOs? I’d rather hae an imperfect conservative Republican Senator voting with us 80% of the time than a Democrat Senator voting with us 10% of the time. Imperfect conservative Republican Senators can help us adopt a conservative agenda and move the country forward. The Senate would have repealed and replaced Obamacare had imperfect conservative Republicans Ayotte and Heck not lost close Senate elections (in Ayotte’s case, had it stolen) last year in battleground states.
Do you know who is an imperfect conservative Republican? President Trump. We can’t reject those who aren’t quite as conservative as we are without risking a President Hillary or a Senate Majority Leader Schumer. Nose, face, you know the drill.
Joe Suckbooger ? My cranial sobriquet chart can’t place that one.
I think he’s referring to Joe Scarborough.
I can’t agree with that at all. Dr. Ward had the intestinal fortitude to take on the AZ RINO political machine not once but twice, and she was far outmatched the first time in resources, but still held McQueeg to a subpar margin in the primary. Her entry into the Senate race the second time all but scared Flake out. I have no hesitation to back her 100% for this Senate seat.
As for McSally, the whole point was to run a RINO embarrassment out of one of the Senate seats. McSally IS the choice of the McQueeg/Flake RINO machine and will be yet another colossal embarrassment and thorn in the ass of those seeking to Drain the Swamp. If our side has to resort to running even more left-wing candidates than the execrable incumbents, what the hell, then, is the point ?
As with the equally horrid Joe Heck in NV, whom I viewed as so bad, I made a last minute endorsement of Sharron Angle to defeat him and refused to endorse him in the general (and you know how bad he had to be and indeed turned out was for me to endorse someone I viscerally opposed in the 2010 Senate primary), I would equally refuse to endorse McSally in the general election, just as I refused with Flake in 2012.
This would be as bad for me in Tennessee if I were to endorse leftist RINO La Raza Randy Boyd for Governor to succeed RINO Haslam. As I said a long time ago, I am absolutely done endorsing these types of RINOs who are as far afield from my values and beliefs as can possibly be.
OK. Mika’s manwhore. Yeah, he really gave no signs of being a future flake in FL. He was regarded at one point as being a potential future Governor or Senator, that was until that dead staffer Lori Klausutis interrupted his career. Too bad we didn’t stop the equally creepy “Orange Menace” Crist before his rise to power.
McSally is John McCain with better flying skills.
LOL — That’s sure the truth! But then, just about every licensed pilot has better skills than Juan.
Yes. Seems like a natural nickname to me, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it till now. :0)
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