Update to A Clash Of QAnon Election Deniers? This May Be The Craziest Legislative Race In The Country.
The Phoenix New Times reports, Choose Your Fighter, Trump Might Just Pick the Winner in this Arizona Senate Race (rigged eelction?):
Two firebrand [certifiably crazy] Republican lawmakers have entered the ring for a fight to claim Arizona’s most hotly-contested Senate seat, in a race some liken to a televised World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. bout for the GOP voters.
And just like showy WWE fight matches full of theatrics and drama, there’s always one person behind the scenes in trying to pick the winner.
Former President Donald Trump once worked as a WrestleMania promoter who was eventually inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
After folding her congressional bid on Friday, Republican State Senator Kelly Townsend has filed for re-election in the newly-drawn Legislative District 7, which stretches from north of Flagstaff to south of Apache Junction.
Townsend is pitted against her “frenemy” and Trump-endorsed State Senator Wendy Rogers, a prized political jewel for the Trump campaign.
Both are white Christian Nationalists, sycophant Trump personality cult members, QAnon cult members, Covid-deniers, anti-vaxxers, and election deniers promoting Trump’s Big Lie propaganda. Time to take out the trash. Elect any generic Democrat in the November general election.
Lawmakers last week voted 24-3 to censure Rogers, a Flagstaff Republican, for “conduct unbecoming of a senator,” after recent inflammatory remarks.
That led Townsend to “emphatically” reject an endorsement from Rogers, despite a critical need for cash and notoriety, after Trump’s promised endorsement never materialized for Townsend. But that doesn’t matter, now that the former friends are duking it out for the District 7 seat.
“The most recent actions of Wendy Rogers and those she supports are so very concerning,” Townsend told Phoenix New Times. “The way they condone the hate is beyond comprehension.”
The flashy, often polarizing antics of these two Republican women may sound familiar for any conservative voter.
Townsend and Rogers are both “Freedom First” candidates, a common moniker of Trump loyalists. The politicians attempt to woo the same constituency and freely speak their minds on social media.
Sometimes, political strategists would argue, silence might be a more beneficial move for their respective campaigns.
“From a policy perspective, there is no daylight between the two,” said Barrett Marson, a Phoenix-based political strategist who predominately represents Republicans.
Crazy twins, seperated at birth.
Right now the major difference between the two campaigns is Trump’s blessing. And with it comes cash and a whole lot of it.
“Townsend has never been a fundraising juggernaut and that will be painfully obvious over the next five months,” Marson said. “Wendy Rogers will swamp Kelly Townsend with hundreds of thousands of dollars in resources.”
Rogers has raised nearly $2.5 million for her re-election bid and has more than $1.6 million in cash on hand, according to filings with the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.
The Washington Post adds, Arizona lawmaker speaks to white nationalists, calls for violence — and sets fundraising records:
Midway through a white nationalist’s conference in Orlando last month, [Wendy Rogers] drew applause calling for gruesome violence against “traitors” after excoriating critics of the “honorable” Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and proponents of the “bioweapon” coronavirus vaccine.
“We need to build more gallows,” the speaker said, adding that such a deadly fate would “make an example of these traitors who’ve betrayed our country.”
[Rogers] is a Republican lawmaker who represents tens of thousands of constituents and has found a rising national profile as a face of the radicalized wing of the GOP.
Rogers’s trajectory shows the political and financial incentives of going to extremes. After losing her earliest races as a mainstream Republican, she moved further and further right until she beat an incumbent by campaigning as the more conservative choice. Now, after a year of fanning bogus allegations about election fraud and other false claims, she is the most successful fundraiser in the Arizona state legislature.
She raised nearly $2.5 million in 2021, outraising even statewide candidates for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, according to campaign finance records. Nearly $2 million of that money came from small donations from outside Arizona as she traveled the U.S. calling for the 2020 election to be overturned and demanding audits of the vote without any credible evidence of fraud.
While her support for former president Donald Trump’s election falsehoods puts her in line with many Republicans, Rogers has moved unapologetically further to the edges of American politics: Calling for jailing and executing her political opponents, identifying herself as a member of the Oath Keepers militia group, and attending a conference organized by a group linked to QAnon, the violent anti-government ideology.
Townsend, on the other hand, has raised less than $10,000, state records show.
Still, Townsend, who blamed Trump for sabotaging her Capitol Hill bid, is hell-bent on stifling Rogers’ flush campaign. [Jealous much?]
Rogers has more cash than most Arizona candidates for U.S. Senate and leads state senate campaigns in funding. Phoenix public relations consultant and progressive political advocate Stacey Champion was the first to compare the District 7 race to a WWE fight.
“It has become theatrical,” Champion said. “They may as well start wearing masks and capes. It’s this absurd show of who can get more body slams.”
Themes like payback and spoiled friendships are evocative of the flamboyantly scripted Monday night wrestling showcases.
The soap-opera-style storyline in District 7 offers entertainment value to voters but delegitimizes the political work being done, strategists agree.
“Politics shouldn’t be entertainment,” Champion said. “Politics should be boring. It shouldn’t be this.”
Townsend says she’s not intimidated by Rogers’ campaign riches. Even though Trump’s endorsement has garnered Rogers $269 for every Townsend dollar.
Townsend, who lives in Mesa, hopes her opponent’s recent slapdown by her colleagues is enough to tip the scales back in her favor.
District 7 leans far to the right, meaning whoever wins the Republican Primary is a shoo-in for the senator’s seat. Based on the 2016 and 2020 elections, the district is 21 percent more Republican than the national average.
The one lesson I have learned in over 40 years in politics is that the “conventional wisdom” of pundits and reporters is almost always wrong. There is no such thing as a “sure thing” in politics. Every week is like a year, and anything can happen. It’s a long way to November. I hope these to destroy each other, and clear the path for a sane, rational, responsible, public servant Democrat.
Note to Media: Instead of being dismissive and trying to suppress voter turnout for a yet-to-be-named Democratic candidate, the only appropriate way to report on this race is for pundits and reporters to constantly point out that neither one of these GQP candidates is fit to serve in public office, as they demonstrate to voters every day.
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Should be a popcorn-rific race.
I know, I know -politics shouldn’t be regarded as entertainment. But sometimes it’s hard to resist. 🙂