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Rep. McSally Officially Jumps Into Arizona Senate Race

Rep. McSally Officially Jumps Into Arizona Senate Race

Primary takes place in August.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tswvKUBng8g&feature=youtu.be

The Republican field for Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake’s Senate continues to grow as Rep. Martha McSally has officially joined the race. She joins former controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former Arizona State Senator Kelli Ward.

McSally released the above video on YouTube today. She played up her career as the first woman Air Force combat pilot. From ABC News:

“We are in a crucial time for our country. The security of the United States, and so much else, will be on the line in these coming years. It’s a time of big and defining choices,” McSally told the crowd after she’d safely landed. “I recently made one myself, and I wanted my friends in Tucson to be the first to know. As of today, I am a candidate for the office of United States senator from Arizona.”

I don’t know how well she’ll do since Politico described her as “an establishment favorite” and noted that “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called her one of the party’s best Senate recruits this cycle.” Her opponent Ward has already attacked her on this, according to ABC News:

“Martha McSally is Jeff Flake 2.0 and part of the Washington establishment that has failed Arizona for years,” said Ward campaign chair Ed Rollins. “She opposed Donald Trump as a candidate and has undermined him as president, which is why leading conservatives are rejecting McSally and are lining up behind a true reformer in Dr. Kelli Ward.”

McSally’s video shows another story. From Politico:

But McSally’s video seeks to reassure GOP primary voters that she is in the president’s corner, too. The video shows Trump at a previous event, flanked by military personnel, commending McSally.

“My friend, Martha McSally, she’s the real deal. … She’s tough,” Trump says in comments spliced together.

“Like our president, I’m tired of P.C. politicians and their B.S. excuses,” McSally says after the video of Trump’s comments. “Now, I’m running for the Senate to fight the fights that must be won on national security, economic security and border security.”

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Comments

Martha McSally: Heritage Action Scorecard rating: 43%. Conservative Review Scorecard rating: 45%.
Do you want a female McCain? Because this is how you get a female McCain.

    Daiwa in reply to Matt_SE. | January 12, 2018 at 11:15 pm

    No one is as bad as McCain has become.

    Throw Old Fart Joe out – he’s a non-starter. Arizonans have had their fill of him.

    Unless Kelli can shake her history of strangeness (I’m being kind as I can), a highly unlikely feat, McSally is the probable primary winner.

    Casey in reply to Matt_SE. | January 13, 2018 at 11:22 am

    Better a female McCain (not that that has been established) than another Feinstein or Pelosi.

“combat pilot”…. Southern Watch over Iraq, and a tour in Asscrackistan, which is the only place besides the range she used weapons. strafing the handicapped is unimpressive, unless you do it for multiple tours.

hardly the steely eyed baby killer she wants you to think she is. married, but annulled after two years. who was bearding for whom?

yeah, between the BS, “push the female forward” military career and the low McLame RINO level ratings, i’m underwhelmed.

    stevewhitemd in reply to redc1c4. | January 12, 2018 at 9:28 pm

    This is a truly contemptible comment.

    Rep. McSally flew an A-10. What did YOU do in the war, sport? Strafing the handicapped? What an ugly, ugly insult coming from a person who (I’m betting) never served.

    And then you gratuitously throw out the lesbian card.

    You, sir, are a grade A jerk.

      Btw, sometimes staffing the handicapped is a very good thing:

      ISIS strap explosives to disabled fighters in wheelchairs tasked with carrying out suicide bomb attacks:
      http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/isis-strap-explosives-disabled-fighters-9567504

      Btw, why would you subsequently call a jerk, ‘sir’ in the same sentence. It’s an oxymoron.

      Kind of like a prison warden giving a prison tour saying,’This here is death row, and this gentleman is one of the condemned.”

      Or, providing a jerk the dignity of the use of their full names (Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wayne Gacey, Jared Lee Loughner, James Earl Ray, John Wilkes Booth, Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Roddam Klinton, and so on).

      If you’re going to call someone a jerk, why not just call them a jerk without an honorarium beforehand.

      But if you want to be polite, Mr., Mrs. or Ms. Jerk would be appropriate, because its use dignifies a gender, not the jerk.

      On the other hand, if you want to call a jerk is someone who self-identifies as ‘cisgender,’ than the surname would be redundant. You merely need call him/her/it ‘cisgender,’ or ‘jerk.’ (They are synonymous.) Then again, calling him/her/it a ‘cisgender jerk,’ the word ‘cicgender’ acts as a adjective, amplifying the insult.

      Still, on the other other hand, if you call someone ‘Mr. Cisgender jerk,’ you are both amplifying the insult of calling them a jerk, and being sarcastic at the same time. A clever combination, sure to get big laughs if you”re among homophobic fake comedian Chelsea Handler and her crowd.)

      But on the other, other, other hand, if you’re short on time (if the jerk in a passing car, for example) you can simply call them ‘obama!’ Nothing would be more insulting.

        Btw, interesting how the terminology of homophobic insults has come full circle – due to the advocates of homosexuality themselves.

        To be called a ‘sissy’ was really a polite way of being mocked as being unmanly, and unspokenly, a homosexual.

        Now, the progressive gay crowd has advocated the use of the work ‘cisgender’ for people who are bisexual and/or transvestites.

        So, what’s short for ‘cisgender?’ – Cissy.

        Amazing.

        At best, liberalism chases its own tail and rots every society sucked into it. Worse, it devolves into communism — and genocide.

      redc1c4 in reply to stevewhitemd. | January 13, 2018 at 4:19 pm

      i served from ’83-’03, sillyvillian, and am currently 20% service disabled. is that good enough for you, or will you be moving the goalposts?

      blame my parents for me not being the right age to serve in the GWOT.

      as for you disliking the tone of my post, i got my people skills at the Harmony Church School of International Diplomacy & Dispute Resolution, so blame them for my “people skills”.

      PS: KMA

        maxmillion in reply to redc1c4. | January 14, 2018 at 3:15 pm

        Is your 20% disability a psychiatric rating by any chance? Because, if it is, you should talk to your doc about adjusting your meds so as to moderate the internet-posting-rage syndrome.

    Your anger and suspicions are justified: We’ve been screwed by 100% of the republican establishment 100% of the time.

    We get screwed no more.

    That said: trust retired military people who have engaged in any combat- but verify the crap out of them. (We don’t want another fake military ‘hero’ like john kerry in high office, nor another troubled Stockholm Syndrome suffere like McCain.)

    And if she married a ‘beard?’ – so did barry obama. And at least her spouse wasn’t a disgusting, useless and classless hater of his country like the Beast of Barry was, and still is.

      I don’t give a flying f*ck about her military service. I’m a veteran too, and it doesn’t impart one iota of extra authority.

        Matt,
        Her military record is extraordinary. She didn’t do a 2 or 4 year hitch: she became a full bird colonel – on her merit.

        Even IF you argue she was an affirmative action promotion (she wasn’t – her published grades bear that out, unlike the joke contrivances of, say, either obama), McSally was one of THE woman chosen to command a combat squadron – which she did well.

        Again, her voting record reflects the reality of her surviving in an historically democrat district – as a republican.

        Hey, if Jan Brewer likes her, you should give her another look:
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_McSally#/media/File:Jan_Brewer_%26_Martha_McSally.jpg

          Are you referring to Jan “expanded Medicaid over the objections of her own party, just like John Kasich” Brewer?
          Is that who you think you’re appealing to for her authority?

        It’s funny how the right still treats military service as some sort of shoe-in for public office or badge of honor. Sadly, former military personnel, at the enlisted level anyway, are causing real problems on the streets because some come home with great training and teach it to their street gang buds. I have nothing but the greatest respect for our military (I’m a military brat, myself), but the loose standards now make it impossible to afford the blanket respect for our armed forces we once did.

        They’re no longer our best and brightest; they can get in with gang tattoos (though not yet with face, neck, or hand tats; the kill teardrop is therefore not allowed, but that leaves a LOT of leeway), criminal records, and no high school education (okay, that last one doesn’t matter as much now since graduating high school doesn’t assure even basic literacy).

        It’s horrendous what is happening to our military, and little else infuriates me quite as much as watching a gang member apply his military training to street crime in the U. S. I can’t find (quickly enough) the video to which I am referring (perp running zigg, ducking, firing per military training). That perp got killed by police (rightly so), but there are a ton of other videos about this sad state of affairs. On the bright side, former military are turning up in police and SWAT forces across the country, so they can apply their training equally effectively.

          In the case of McSally, she’s in a different league: she did rise to colonel, was tops in her post-grad classes, and she did effectively lead a squadron doing combat missions. (Watch: we find out she’s a Crip.) She’s obviously politically astute, as well, or incredibly persistent (she lost her first two congressional elections, and did manage to win as a GOP candidate in an historically dimocrat district.)

          Her long and successful military service is certainly a good starter. The bottom line is the positions she takes and the promises she makes. If she’s smart – if she’s REALLY smart – she’ll learn from Trump, and stick to her positions, and come through with her promises. If she does, no telling how far she might go in her career, because she’ll have an unmovable base, as does Trump.

          There’s been a fetishization of military service for some decades now. I think it’s a consequence of higher “education” instilling a professional, white-collar mentality in too many people so that they don’t want to get their hands dirty anymore.

          Half those people are Democrat elitist snobs, who think they’re actually too good for service. These are the people who think the military is staffed with people who have no other options.

          The other half still realize the military protects us from some very bad people, so they can’t be criticized. But they have no experience with that lifestyle, and it becomes something alien.

          Military service is just something you do. Anybody could do it (barring medical conditions and chronic cowardice); all you have to do is get USED to doing it. That’s something most people don’t even want to try.

          The one thing I know is that killing bad guys doesn’t give one expertise in the best way to govern a society. Imagine how absurd it would be if we treated police service the same way, and all presidential candidates had to be a former police officer to have a chance of winning.

          @TheFineReport.com:

          You seem to be overflowing with praise for her. Does her LOUSY conservative rating mean nothing to you, or are you just going to ignore it? You got any explanation of why we should vote for an obvious squish?

          Sorry, but I’ve seen how the GOPe in AZ operates up close and I will NEVER vote for another one of their members.

    Casey in reply to redc1c4. | January 13, 2018 at 11:23 am

    Never met a combat vet who didn’t love a Hog driver. They get down in the mud with the grunts.

She was not a ‘fighter pilot’ – she was an attack pilot: she attacked ground positions. (Fighter pilots fight other fighter aircraft.)

Then again, obama was not a Constitutional law professor (or anything else he purported to be, through we see how that worked out for us; but then, hillary klinton was nothing she purported to be, which did work out great for us.)

On the other hand, McSally is brilliant, capable and brave. (Read on.)

And if she’s a lesbian? – So long as she’s a conservative lesbian. (She sure beats ‘conservative’ lesbians like john boehner and paul ryan.)

Take a look at her voting records on Heritage, which is an interesting mix:
https://www.heritageactionscorecard.com/members/member/M001197?search-name=Rep.+Martha+McSally

McCain had no business being in war. A problem naval academy student, he suffering from Stockholm Syndrome after captivity by the North Vietnamese (who wouldn’t, except someone with the ‘right stuff?’) and he had no business becoming a ‘conservative’ US Senator (except to fake republicans infesting Congress.)

McSally was never captured, though she did lead an attack squadron, excelled in the military, and she is a very intelligent, predictable person with tremendous guts. Of course she’ll soften somewhat as a Senator, but she has a lot more brains and guts than McCain ever had. McSally was the plaintiff in the seminal lawsuit granting women in the military the right to be in combat. McSally thus became the first US female combat pilot.

If McCain’s father wasn’t an admiral, McCain would have never found his way into the US Naval Academy, let alone the cockpit of a US aircraft – or probably anywhere else important.

McSally, on the other hand, was raised by a single mother (her father, a lawyer, died young). McSally is brilliant and self-made:

“McSally graduated at the top of her class at St. Mary’s Academy, Bayview in 1984.[3] She earned an appointment to the United States Air Force Academy, graduating in 1988.[3] She earned a Master’s degree from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government following graduation from USAFA and then proceeded to pilot training.[4] McSally was first in her class at the Air War College.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain

We just have to hope she doesn’t go hollywood. If she has the ‘right stuff’ of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she won’t.
McCain has an academic record as pathetic as barry obama’s:
“McCain did well in academic subjects that interested him, such as literature and history, but studied only enough to pass subjects that gave him difficulty, such as mathematics.He came into conflict with higher-ranking personnel and did not always obey the rules, which contributed to a low class rank (894 of 899)…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain

McSally was a highly skilled pilot. McCain sucked:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain

    Everything you argue in her favor is theoretical: you are using as some predictive proxy of her conservatism. But we don’t need proxies we have her ACTUAL VOTING RECORD, and it sucks.

      Look at the particular bills she voted against Heritage on.
      The percentage is not great (she’s at 43%) but she did vote WITH them on the very important stuff.

      Remember, McSally is the ONLY THE SECOND republican to ever hold the congressional seat in her district. EVER.

      Read the Heritage record.

      Sheriff Joe is 85. Love him or not, his age makes him a bad investment.

      We need conservative stars like this woman.

      McSalley is not the wet noodle like Mia Love proved to be, or that McCain has always been.

      She is her own woman. She is as likely to stand up for her convictions as Trump is, than any someone without her ‘not fake’ verve. Not many other republicans running like that, that we can name, other than Sheriff Joe, who again, is 85 – a preposterous age to invest a Senate seat in.

      Then again: let’s bring back boehner!

        Your support of McSally is irrational.

          Casey in reply to Matt_SE. | January 13, 2018 at 11:25 am

          Wow. That was persuasive…

          Matt_SE in reply to Matt_SE. | January 13, 2018 at 1:07 pm

          “Wow. That was persuasive…”
          I would’ve thought the sum of my other posts here made the case, but I guess going through them was too much work for you. Allow me to chew your food for you, and then spit it in your mouth:

          Military service is an extremely unreliable predictor of fitness as a Senator. McCain is the (for the moment) living proof of that.

          Is that better?

    I was willing to make excuses for McCain and give him a pass because of his service – up until the point that it came out that he was complicit in passing the Dossier around D.C. in an attempt to sabotage Trump and elect Hillary. Now, when he dies, I don’t want to see him buried in Arlington – I want him to be buried face down in Panama, with a kazoo stuck in his ass. That’d be the perfect tribute to his lifetimes achievements.

      You’re generous, Tom.

      McCain’s ‘service’ ended when he became a democrat useful idiot and betrayed his voters and he pathetically relished the moniker, ‘the maverick’ that the left used to so easily manipulate his vanity. That was a long time ago.

      A kazoo should be stuck in McCain’s ass well before he dies. Hell, McConnell should be stuck in his ass. (Why not kill two birds with one stone?)

        You criticize McCain because he’s on his way out and it’s easy. Also, his record of perfidy is much longer than almost any other Senator’s. But then you go on to praise McSally for almost the same irrational obeisance paid to McCain because of his service.

        If there’s one thing McCain’s tenure proved, it’s that military service doesn’t mean shit as far as a qualification for Senate.

          Take McCain’s voting record in the context of its history.

          First of all, it was good and it wasn’t so good:
          http://politicsthatwork.com/voting-record/John-McCain-300071

          Second of all, he and his buddy, Miss Lindsey, screwed the GOP base as many times as McCain’s helped.

          Given the times we live in, and the unbelievable damage done by Karl Rove, boehner and company, we have to climb back from the ignorance of the typical voter – and the ‘default’ (leftist) positions many of them living in their alt-reality universe of leftist education and media, we have ‘be like Trump.’

          Alphas win. GOPe betas loose.

          Not that she’s the only choice, but vet and and give her a chance to make promises.

    Correction – sorta:

    McSally did command the 354th Fighter Squadron.

    (The squadron conducts Close Air Support, Air Interdiction, Forward Air Control – Airborne, and Combat Search and Rescue for theater commanders worldwide.)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/354th_Fighter_Squadron

    However, as most people use the term, ‘fighter pilot’ means “A fighter pilot is a military aviator trained to engage in air-to-air combat while in the cockpit of a fighter aircraft. Fighter pilots undergo specialized training in aerial warfare and dogfighting (close range aerial combat). A fighter pilot with at least five air-to-air kills becomes known as an ace.”
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter_pilot

    Think “Top Gun.” She was not that. She was, however, an “attack” pilot, and flew combat missions.

    This is WAY more than hillary klinton, any female elected democrat, or any female hollywood idiot has ever done.

    Then again, F-18 fighter pilot Amy McGrath is running for Congress as a democrat. Ugh.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_McGrath

    Nothing’s perfect.

      A fighter pilot with at least five air-to-air kills becomes known as an ace.

      And the story of how that came to be is thoroughly ridiculous.

      Suffice it to say, the press was involved.

      Short form: she flew CAS: Close Air Support. It’s not, by the way, the same thing as “bombing,” a claim I’ve seen before.

      inspectorudy in reply to TheFineReport.com. | January 13, 2018 at 12:38 pm

      I was a “Fighter” pilot in the Marines and flew many missions into North Vietnam in support of ground attack missions from other sources. I never actually was attacked by an enemy fighter although I had been trained to engage any such attack. My primary mission was CAS for the Marines on the ground but on the F 4 we always carried four Sparrow air to air missiles and sometimes Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles. There are only a few aircraft that are true fighters only. They are the F 22, although they are employing it in the Syrian skies now with air to ground ordinance, and some versions of the F 15. For every other aircraft, they are capable multiple missions. Sometimes they are CAS or interdiction but then they can be assigned to fly protective mission based on fighter to fighter encounters. It is silly to wade into this with a black and white attitude since the entire structure of modern aircraft is one of change. What this tells me about this woman is that she is a very bright and determined person and if she doesn’t agree with all of the votes that Heritage thinks she should, then it is up the voter to make a choice. I have also read some unfavorable things about Kelli but since I don’t live in AZ I will leave it up to those citizens to make the decision on whom to vote for. As to the meme of a vet having a leg up in society, I don’t think that is true. But I also don’t think it should ever be a negative like was indicated in an above comment. Each should be judged as an individual, not by association.

Everyone is saying she is a Democrat pretending.

    The democrat media’s opinion on anything involving us is irrelevant. In fact, it’s a warning sign if they like her, and thumbs-up if they don’t.

    So far, they’re trashing her.

    So far, so good.

      Example from the fake news rag, “New Yorker Magazine:”

      “GOP Establishment Favorite Martha McSally Will Run for Senate As a Sharia-Hating Trump Ally”
      http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/establishment-fave-mcsally-will-run-for-senate-as-trump-ally.html

      “Sharia-hating Trump Ally”? Notice the they try to show her as a muslim ‘hater,’ and Trump as a mulsim ‘hater’ in the same sentence, and an ally of Trump.

      Then the New Yorker tries to give her advice (THAT is hilarious! Well, maybe not, considering it’s worked with GOPe scum like mccain for years):

      “You’d figure that with two primary opponents from the mad fringe of the Republican Party, Congresswoman Martha McSally might want to exploit her reputation for being something of a moderate….”

      S-hole magazine continues:
      “And while she cannot match the senator she wants to succeed, Jeff Flake, in independence from the Trump takeover of the GOP, she has maintained some distance from the president until recently…”

      — “Cannot match” Jeff Flake “in independence…” (Flake is ‘independent,’ all right: with an 18% approval rating, the rat is as alone as a politician can be.)

      “It’s even possible she is determined to out-crazy Arpaio and Ward, which would be quite the trick. But it’s very definitely a sign of the times, and of the futility within today’s Republican Party of Flake’s efforts to defend traditional conservatism against Trump….”

      So there you have it: Sheriff Joe is crazy, so is Ward, and globalist hack and GOP backstabber Flake – a poodle on a short leash of the dimocrat media – is the ‘defender of traditional conservatism.’

      (LAUGH TRACK UP.)

      (LAUGH TRACK FADE OUT.)

      So far, McSally is on the right track.

      (APPLAUSE)

    Casey in reply to puhiawa. | January 13, 2018 at 11:29 am

    A lot of folks made the same claim against Trump during the campaign. How did that work out?

      Matt_SE in reply to Casey. | January 13, 2018 at 1:12 pm

      The GOPe made the same claims against Mo Brooks. They’re busy making the same claims against Kelli Ward right now, and I’d be willing to bet they’ll make similar claims against any other challengers to the GOPe squish candidates.

      Strangely, many people seem willing to believe the GOPe in those cases, despite their repeated evidence of treachery.

Congresswoman Martha McSally might want to exploit her reputation for being something of a moderate…

There’s the fly in the ointment. “Something of a moderate” as seen from the New Yorker‘s perch is probably a person so far to the left she sings The Internationale in the shower.

Good passionate discussion here. My thoughts:

1- I am assuming we all want the best conservative who can win in the general. However, if that person isn’t a conservative at all (see: McCain), I would normally want them to lose if they are to the left of the state as a whole. E.g. I can take Susan Collins from Maine because I may not be able to get better. I can’t stand Murkowski from Alaska because I can get better from Alaska.

2- McSally is so-so. Not my favorite and we can do better from Arizona statewide based on her voting record, but if she is the best you can get from her district (Clinton +5) she is a good rep. I wouldn’t knock the voting record of someone like that as much. It could go blue as a result of her chasing Senator. However while AZ deserves a better Senator – doesn’t mean we have one running

3- Arpaio is 85 years old, has a ton of real baggage – turns off plenty of good Repubs in AZ, and can definitely lose the general and is bad investment even if he wins. Love some of what he has done but it’s like the Democrats running Biden in the 2024 election for President.

4- Ward seems a little flakey. The chemtrails ad is overblowing the issue – but she made some ambiguous statements around it. Was she just catering to crazy voters and knew that they were conspiracy nuts? The biggest worry I have about her losing the general like another Judge Moore if more stuff comes out like that.

Right now our overall position is precarious in the Senate, so we need to pick a winner.

It seems between Ward and McSally to me as the best choice.

1/ The media can’t be allowed to frame Ward as crazy if she is in the general and is a solid candidate. But if she has other skeletons and can’t overcome the crazy label she can’t be our nominee

2/ I am also looking to see who the media tries to get to lose in the primary, a la the McCaskill – Akin strategy. They wanted the weak Akin to win the primary and lose the general. Watching their coverage can tip off what they think

Trump can help overcome bad media coverage – but there are limits. See Moore.

I think the primary will help us see if Ward is a solid candidate or we need to go with a squish like McSally who might actually be ok at a state level that I believe is redder than her district and but might go even squishier when she lands in the swamp.

I could be wrong but that’s what I see and I don’t know which is the right choice yet. I do know Kelli Ward has got to fix the Crazy Chemtrails branding though.

    Matt_SE in reply to PrincetonAl. | January 13, 2018 at 11:03 am

    Your point #4 is a replay of every single challenger to the GOP establishment, except people so monumentally overqualified that they can’t be attacked this way, like Cruz.

    It is the GOPe’s main strategy for attacking people who don’t have widespread name recognition. They smear them because people don’t know any better, and it pisses me off.

    Think rationally for a second: it cannot be possible that every challenger is a kook, especially when they were elected to local office — do you think local people elect kooks often? Do you think they’re less rational than people anywhere else?
    If the accusation keeps coming up, it tells you that someone is pushing an agenda. The GOPe does this for two reasons:
    1) So their candidates win, obviously. More squish Senators means it’s easier for them to do things like push amnesty and resurrect the Export-Import Bank.
    2) If the establishment’s candidate loses the primary, the GOPe sabotages the race and blames the loss on “kooks.” This sets up the NARRATIVE (i.e. bullshit) that only the GOPe is qualified to pick winners.

    It irritates me that they keep doing this in race after race, yet nobody seems to notice the pattern.

Tepid on immigration per her voting record on NumbersUsa. Looks like Flake 2.0. Whether AZ will stay red or go blue depends on whether refugees fleeing overtaxed Illinois will counterbalance the incoming Californians.

    inspectorudy in reply to jack burns. | January 13, 2018 at 12:48 pm

    Unfortunately, the fleeing blue hoard is poisoning once proudly red states. These cowardly escapees do not stop to think about why they fled their old state and set up their liberal demands in their new state. Texas is becoming closer and closer to a blue state because of the immigrant population. The Dems know this and with a few hundred thousand more, DACA, they can push Texas into the purple column. There is an e-mail purporting this to be behind the DACA demands. I hate to say it but it looks like the future is going to be one of “Moderate” candidates from many states that were always considered red and conservative. It is up to the voter to dig and sort them out.

      jack burns in reply to inspectorudy. | January 13, 2018 at 1:31 pm

      In the case of Illinois you’re looking at the end game of >50 years of Democratic policies. They first packed Chicago with southern blacks and built projects, then they imported hispanics. The tax cattle were overwhelmed. Illinois can only be fixed now by way of an armed uprising. No cowardice involved, its a cautionary tale. Californians are Californians, most are toxic waste who are cashing out, buying McMansions, and telling the locals how to live.

She now has a legislative history, How does it compare to her campaign rhetoric. McCain was the most conservative build the damn wall Republican Senator on the campaign. Then – worse than a Rhino.

    Remember, McCain is mentally ill, and suffering from severe Stockhlom Syndrome. He was a GOPe POW waiting to happen. And it happened rather quickly. A weak man in general, he took the easy way out, and was kept on a short leash by the democrat media, and controlled him by appealing to his petty vanity.

    Same with obama. No wonder McCain bizarrely defended obama as he did when running against him.

McSally launches Senate campaign in Arizona, says GOP should ‘grow a pair of ovaries’
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/01/12/mcsally-launches-senate-campaign-in-arizona-says-gop-should-grow-pair-ovaries.html

Yeah, she sounds just like a conservative. I can’t wait for her rallies, wearing a pussy hat.

“McSally, a two-term congresswoman already backed by many GOP leaders in Arizona and Washington, described herself as anything but an establishment candidate in a fiery announcement video that touched on border security and Sharia law and featured Trump himself.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/01/12/mcsally-launches-senate-campaign-in-arizona-says-gop-should-grow-pair-ovaries.html

For comparison:

“Alabama interim Sen. Luther Strange, who has the backing of President Donald Trump in his bid for Tuesday’s runoff election, denied that he’s part of Washington’s “swamp” establishment that the president has criticized.”
https://www.newsmax.com/Politics/luther-strange-the-swamp-washington-dc-donald-trump/2017/09/26/id/815805/

Also:
“In 2007, he [McCain] lead the charge to reform the immigration system. Scuttled by far-right lobby groups [i.e. normal Americans], McCain moved away from his comprehensive reform approach and pushed for securing the border, running an ad in 2010 during a primary challenge from the right that said “Complete the dang fence.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50874570/t/far-right-mccain-you-said-build-dang-fence-wheres-fence/#.WlpqSkxFyUk

When Heritage Action and Conservative Review give someone a middling-40% rating, there’s a good reason for it.

    Look, you could be right. But we need to fully hear her, compare and make a choice.

      No, as odd as it sounds, “hearing her” is the last thing we should do because it’s IRRELEVANT:
      If she’s a truthful, good person she’ll say lots of things we agree with. If she’s a lying career climber, she’ll say lots of things we agree with.

      The chattering class deals in words and conversation, so they think more talking is always better. That’s why they’re more susceptible to propaganda: because they willingly expose themselves to lies, arrogantly imagining that they can withstand the mental assault. The fact is, they can’t and some portion of the poison always seeps in around their defenses.

      Don’t judge her on her words, judge her on her actions. Those are subject to interpretation, but a track record (like a record of voting, for example) eventually washes out the noise.

I did rant enough here, but it did synthesize a closing thought:

We can never change the corruption and backstabbing from the GOP – it’s rats have just been around too long, and they are too entrenched and they’ve been bought and paid for too many times. (McConnell’s been in the Senate for over THIRTY YEARS! Boehner stunk the place up for 24 years!)

In truth, Trump was a de facto third party candidate. He really was the Tea Party candidate. And he won. (As did the Tea Party itself win Congress in 2010 onward.)

Bernie Sanders could have run as a third party candidate and gotten more votes than H Rotten Klinton.

We need to be the Tea Party wing, and that’s that: it’s ours to rebuild.

    Admirable goal, Fine, but many of us Tea Party types are conservatives. The Trump Train has relentlessly bashed conservatives, smearing us as obsolete, laughably principled relics to be disparaged, insulted, and reviled. Heck, uber-conservative, uber-Tea Party Senator Ted Cruz was shamefully bashed and his father bizarrely linked to the JFK assassination. We’re not elephants, but we can remember what happened two years ago.

    Some Tea Party types will get on board . . . with reservations and wariness, and others will not be interested due to the alt-right campaign against conservatives. It’s not just elections that have consequences, and I have long-warned, on these very pages, that turning so viciously on and attacking/belittling/dismissing conservatives was a huge mistake made by Trumpsters who thought they were the new silent majority and didn’t need anyone but the most devote Trump followers.

    Reality bites.

    Conservatives tend to be pragmatic, so quite apart from the shocking attacks on conservatives, we’re smart enough to know a con when we see one. We know what Trumpsters think of us, and we’re not stupid, gullible, or irrational.

    It’s probably best to find a solution other than rebuilding the Tea Party in Trump’s image. He’s not Tea Party, and Trumpsters made it clear that we Tea Party types have no place on the Trump train.

    My favored approach is what we have now, a loose grouping of allies who come from the Tea Party, from the alt-right, from fed-up and forgotten Americans. That’s really Trump’s base; he’s not a “third party” to anyone but avid Trump supporters. To the rest of us, he’s acceptable as long as he continues to fulfill and work to fulfill his campaign promises. And he’s a billion miles better than Hillary would have been. But that’s hardly the foundation of a cohesive “wing” of Trump support.

      No, it was not conservatives that were attacked by the “Trump Train”, it was the nevertrumpers using conservatism that were attacked.

      Long before the national election I said he would win and be the most effective conservative president in 50 years. We “Trumpsters”* were told over and over by the nevertrumpers that Trump was a left wing narcissistic collectivist…

      You were wrong and have admitted it. You don’t like Trump and never will. That’s fine, but at least you have the courage to admit you were wrong about what he would do in office. Good for you. You’re honest. But your view about the “attacks” is wrong and colored by the time period incorrectly. (some exceptions can be found of course)

      *your name not “ours”. And nevertrumper is a name you chose for yourselves, “Trumpsters” didn’t choose it.

Thane_Eichenauer | January 14, 2018 at 10:24 pm

“Who will win the 2018 Arizona Republican Senate primary?”
https://www.predictit.org/Market/3836/Who-will-win-the-2018-Arizona-Republican-Senate-primary

If I were a registered Republican in Arizona I would choose Craig Brittain. He isn’t even listed at PredictIt.

https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_election_in_Arizona_(August_28,_2018_Republican_primary)