Rep. Martha McSally announces her bid for the Senate (Updated)

Southern Arizona’s media invention mythical moderate Republican, Rep. Martha McSally, who is really a wingnut hardliner who has embraced our nativist and racist President Donald Trump, voting in support of his agenda 96.7% of the time, announced today that she is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Jeff Flake.

Good riddance from your constituents here in CD 2, Martha, and here’s looking forward to your being unemployed come November (don’t worry, the congresswoman from Raytheon no doubt already has a job waiting for her in the military-industrial-congressional complex).

The Hill reports, McSally announces bid for Arizona Senate seat:

Arizona Rep. Martha McSally (R) has officially announced her bid for Senate, a long-awaited announcement that caps a busy week in the race to replace retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R).

McSally formally announced her bid Friday morning in a tour across the state, but her campaign tipped its hand by releasing a video hours before.

The spot leans heavily on her experience as the first female combat fighter pilot and portrays her as an ally of President Trump.

Her blunt talk in the video shows a push to connect to Republicans across the spectrum, an important challenge for McSally considering she will be facing off in the GOP primary against two controversial candidates in former Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former state Sen. Kelli Ward.

“Like our president, I’m tired of PC politicians and their BS excuses. I’m a fighter pilot and I talk like one — that’s why I told Washington Republicans to grow a pair of ovaries and get the job done,” she says in the video.

Martha lies like Donald Trump. What she actually said was “Let’s get this fucking thing done” before voting to take health care away from millions of Americans. What a sweetheart.

“Now, I am running for the Senate to fight the fights that must be won. On national security, economic security and border security.”

McSally is seen by many as the more establishment alternative to both Arpaio and Ward, who have built up a following among the more conservative segments of the GOP primary field.

Arpaio is a sheriff known for his hard-line and controversial border-security policies, as well as his ardent belief that former President Obama forged his birth certificate.

Ward unsuccessfully launched a primary campaign in 2016 against Sen. John McCain (R) and had been working to fashion herself the choice for Arizona’s more conservative voters in this election.

But McSally makes a clear attempt to appeal to the party’s right flank in her video, immediately reminding voters about her successful challenge to military rules that mandated women wear an Islamic robe over their uniform while in some Muslim countries.

“I absolutely refused to bow down to Sharia law. After eight years of fighting, I won my battle for the religious freedom of American servicewomen,” she said.

McSally was serving as a guest in a Muslim country, and demonstrated disrespect for the host country’s laws and customs. She is a religious bigot and the proverbial “ugly American” in a foreign country who did not want to wear a head scarf.  McSally’s one claim to fame, her opposition to wearing a head scarf while in Muslim countries, was not universally shared by her fellow female officers in the Air Force. Lt. Col. Cheryl Garner, USAF Best Defense guest columnist for Foreign Policy (March 2011) wrote Hey, it should be our choice – The Best Defense – Foreign Policy. And her fight was with her employer, the Department of Defense for refusing a command, not with Sharia law.

And she also tries to tie herself tight to Trump, including a picture of her with the president and video of the president calling her “tough” in her announcement.

All three candidates will likely try to leverage their ties to Trump to their benefit.

Arpaio served as a campaign surrogate for Trump, who pardoned Arpaio after a conviction related to a racial-profiling case.

That should give Arpaio a leg up in getting Trump’s endorsement. There is no bigger endorsement than a presidential pardon for his fellow Obama Birther conspirator.

Ward, who has been backed by former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, has framed her campaign as an extension of Trump’s “America First” agenda, although that could be more difficult now that Trump is feuding with Bannon.

Ward is now trying to distance herself from Steve Bannon after his fall from grace following the publication of Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury.”  “Steve who? Never heard of him.”

But while McSally is trying to align herself with the president now, she refused to endorse his presidential bid, ammunition that her opponents might use to launch their own attacks on the campaign trail.

The GOP primary winner will likely face off against Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, the front-runner in the Democratic primary.

Democrats have been emboldened by Flake’s retirement to make a strong challenge for the seat and believe the state, which includes a significant portion of Hispanic voters that typically lean to the left, is one of the best offensive opportunities for the party facing a tough Senate map.

Let the ugly GOP senate primary begin! Let’s hope these losers destroy one another in the GOP primary.

UPDATE: Rep. McSally went full authoritarian during her Tucson campaing kickoff. Martha McSally launches Senate bid, leaves wide open race for Tucson’s CD2:

The 9 a.m. event, while held on private property, was advertised as open to the public. However, by the end of the event, several people attending were escorted out by law enforcement.

One of them was congressional candidate Mary Matiella, who held the civilian equivalent rank of a four-star general when working for the Department of Defense. She is running for the Congressional District 2 seat that McSally now represents.

Matiella, along with several other women who had invitations, said they were identified by McSally’s staff and escorted out of the hanger by officers despite their pleas to stay.

These ladies were escorted out simply for being Democrats at a GOP event. McSally has a reputation for ignoring her constituents and only speaking before friendly audiences. She is making it clear that she intends to only listen to right-wing Tea-Publicans, everyone else she sees as an enemy. A member of Congress must represent all her constituents.

McSally also embraced “Trumpism” with a big wet kiss, and promised to stand by her man:

A portion of her speech in Tucson was spent praising Trump on several key policy accomplishments in his first year in office. If elected, McSally said she’d be Trump’s wingman in the Senate.

“You better believe that I will keep working with President Trump to finally get things done for the good of our country,” McSally said.

* * *

Talking to reporters after the Tucson event, McSally touted her voting record as one of the most reliable in Arizona for Trump.

But she sidestepped a follow-up question on what she thought about his comments Thursday labeling Haiti and African countries “shitholes.”

“I speak a little salty behind closed doors at times as well, so I’m not going to throw the first stone on using any language,” McSally said.

She then reminded reporters the president has denied making those remarks. “I guess there is a dispute as to what was actually said,” she said.

No, there is no genuine dispute about what was said. Sen. Tim Scott: Sen. Lindsey Graham confirmed Trump’s ‘shithole’ comment. Trump is lying about it. So take a position, Martha. What do you think about Haiti and African countries being “shithole countries”? Oh that’s right, you have already established that you are an Islamophobic anti-Muslim bigot, so you likely agree with your man Trump.

McSally has a reputation for avoiding discussing controversial subjects for which she does not want to go on the record with a statement. And a supine Tucson media market has allowed her to get away with this crap for years. A statewide race with national media attention is going to prove to be much different.

UPDATE: The Republic‘s E.J. Montini writes, McSally pretends ‘s***hole’ is not a slur:

Rep. Martha McSally needs the votes of Trump supporters to win the Republican senatorial primary in Arizona so she decided to pretend she is less intelligent than she is.

To pretend that ‘s***hole’ is not a slur.

When the congresswoman was asked about President Donald Trump’s comments during a immigration meeting, in which Trump supposedly said, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” McSally feigned the inability to distinguish profanity from prejudice. From racism.

McSally said, “I speak a little salty behind closed doors at times as well, so I’m not going to throw the first stone on using any language. Look, the issue he was trying to get to is we’ve got to reform our immigration system.”

That’s not it and she knows it.

Making excuses for a bigoted remark in order to gain political support is McShameful.

“It’s sad that McSally felt the need to go McShifty and equate a racial slur with salty language.”