A Clash Of QAnon Election Deniers? This May Be The Craziest Legislative Race In The Country

You can’t spell crazy without (R-AZ), and boy howdy does Arizona have more than its fair share of crazy Republicans.

We are hip deep in QAnon cultists, Trump personality cultists, election deniers promoting the Big Lie, and anti-government seditous insurrectionists who are engaged in an ongoing slow-motion insurrection through legislating the Big Lie and GQP Jim Crow 2.0 voter suppression laws.

Which brings me to these two: Sen. Wendy Rogers, a QAnon cultist, election denier, proud member of the Oath Keepers domestic terrorist organization, and white Christian Nationalist who was recently censured by the Arizona Senate for making threats to her colleagues on social media – not her daily anti-Semitic rants on social media or coments she made in support of a Putin-loving Neo-Nazi white supremacist at the America First convention – and Sen. Kelly Townsend, the GQP’s QAnon Queen in the Arizona legislature, election denier, and somehow chair of the Senate Government Committee, where she is engaged in an ongoing slow-motion insurrection through legislating the Big Lie and GQP Jim Crow 2.0 voter suppression laws. Her social media posts also smack of white Christian Nationalism.

Southern Arizona caught a break this weekend when the carpet bagger QAnon Queen announced that she is no longer running for Congress because her “Dear Leader” did not bless her with his endorsement that she anticipated because she is dutifully engaged in an ongoing slow-motion insurrection through legislating the Big Lie and GQP Jim Crow 2.0 voter suppression laws. Apparently this is not enough lickspittle lackey servitude for “Dear Leader” to endorse her.

Howard Fischer reports, Arizona Sen. Kelly Townsend drops out of Congress race, might take on Wendy Rogers:

State Sen. Kelly Townsend is folding her congressional bid, a move that could pave the way for her to take on the recently censured Sen. Wendy Rogers in a legislative race.

Townsend, an Apache Junction Republican, said she made the decision after failing to get an anticipated endorsement from former President Donald Trump.

She said her fate with Trump was sealed when she publicly lashed out this week at Rogers, who is closely linked to Trump and insists, as does he, that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

“The lack of the endorsement means that instead of being able to unite the field behind a single banner, my presence in the Republican primary will serve only to split the conservative vote even further,’’ Townsend said, explaining why she is dropping out of the race for the congressional seat currently occupied by Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, who is not seeking reelection.

Unable to land Trump endorsement, @AZKellyT scraps congressional bid in a move that could place her in head-to-head Senate race with @WendyRogersAZ as @ArizonaIRC put the latter into her district (but that's another story….) https://t.co/qSboOA1VZp pic.twitter.com/FKr0pz8ZJu

— Capitol Media Services 📢 Telling it like it is (@azcapmedia) March 6, 2022

But Townsend said Friday she has yet to decide whether to run for another two-year term in the state Senate. To do so would pave the way for a head-to-head GOP primary with Rogers.

I can already hear it now, “I’m not crazy, YOU’RE crazy!” Girls, girls, settle down. You are both crazy and both of you are wholly unfit to serve in any political office. It’s a national disgrace that the voters in your districts ever elected either one of you to office in the first place.

Wendy Rogers, a Flagstaff Republican, not only was censured this week for “conduct unbecoming a senator,” but could face further actions, especially after using the censure to raise campaign money, Senate President Karen Fann said Friday.

“We are giving her a little time to think about how her actions are affecting the entire Senate body,’’ Fann said.

“The Senate has received emails and calls from constituents inquiring about expulsion or filing ethics complaints,’’ said Fann, a Prescott Republican.

If those complaints are filed, they will be taken up by the Senate Ethics Committee, which could recommend additional sanctions, she said. Fann also has the power to remove Rogers from committees.

There was no immediate comment from Rogers, who was rebuked by the Republican-led Senate on a 24-3 vote for “publicly issuing and promoting social media and video messaging encouraging violence against and punishment of American citizens.’’ In a speech to a white supremacist group late last month, she said “we need to build more gallows’’ to “make an example of these traitors who have betrayed our country.’’

The censure also mentioned Rogers’ tweet, ahead of the vote, threatening “political destruction’’ of those who disagree with her views.

Townsend was not present for the vote, saying her daughter had a medical emergency. But she did comment on the Senate floor the following day after Rogers sent out an email calling the censure a “shock political hit job’’ to try to silence her, and using it to solicit campaign donations.

Without naming Rogers, Townsend apologized to those who “have had to see daily, ongoing grifting with emails that have little basis in fact, giving false hope, tearing our state apart.’’ [Wow, that’s rich. She also does this.]

Legislative race

The state Senate seat both may covet is the newly redrawn Legislative District 7, which stretches from Flagstaff through Payson, into Apache Junction and south to Oracle. It has a 60-40 Republican-Democrat voter registration. [In other words, a “safe” Republican District which GQP tribalism leads to electing candidates like these two losers who are wholly unfit to serve in any political office. This is more a statememt about the people who live in these areas than the people they elect to office: WTF is wrong with you people?]

The so-called “Independent” Redistricting Commission, at the behest of Tucson Republican David Mehl, recently moved the area where Rogers lives out of what would have been a competitive district into the safely Republican District 7. That’s the district Townsend already represents.

Note: Members of the Commission are not supposed to know nor care where incumbents live, and are certainly not supposed to gerrymander districts to protect incumbents. This was a blatant violation of the citizen-initiated Independent Redistricting Commission law, and Mehl exhibited contempt for the will of the voters and the law. There should be consequences for him.

“People that would never have supported me in the past are begging me to run against her,’’ Townsend said.

Sounds like bragadoccio to me. Put up or shut up, QAnon Queen.

Congressional race

Meanwhile, the newly gerrymandered Congressional District 6, where Townsend is no longer running, runs loosely from Casa Grande through midtown Tucson, down to Sierra Vista and up through Safford and Morenci. The new district largely overlaps the old Congressional District 2, which Kirkpatrick, who is retiring, represents.

Remaining GOP contenders include Juan Ciscomani [an aid to Gov. Ducey for whom the so-called “Independent” Redistricting Commission gerrymandered this district], Brandon Martin and Kathleen Wynn. On the Democratic side, candidates include former state Sen. Kirsten Engel, state Rep. Daniel Hernandez, and Marcos Urrea.

It is a GQP-leaning district, not a safe Republican District. A Democrat can win, and former Sen. Kirsten Engel is by far the best qualified and most conscientious public servant of all the candidates named above. Not that Republican voters care about qualifications. Just look at who we are talking about in this post, and they are the fault of Republican voters.