Joe Arpaio

Kyrsten Sinema is the Democrat who can Beat McSally for US Senate

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Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema is running for US Senate.
Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema is running for US Senate.

Congress member Kyrsten Sinema is the odds-on favorite to beat the gaggle of wacky Republicans, including mean Joe Arpaio, kooky Kelli Ward and seldom-seen Martha McSally for the US Senate seat for Arizona.

Sinema spoke at the Democrats of Greater Tucson and was poised, intelligent and articulate. “I launched a campaign for Senate to cut through the chaos and dysfunction in Washington and finally get some stuff done. The enthusiasm on the ground is like nothing like I’ve seen before. Our campaign is building a statewide team we’ll need to reach voters who are more motivated than ever to make a change,” she said.

Sinema is a three-term Congresswoman from the 9th Congressional District in Phoenix, first elected in 2012. A member of the Democratic Party, she served in both chambers of the State Legislature, being elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2004 and the Arizona Senate in 2010.

She has a compelling personal story of growing up homeless in a gas station. Saying, “I knew I could make it if I got a good education,” she went to BYU with the help of student loans, academic scholarships, and financial aid, and then ASU, where she now teaches Legal Issues in Social Work.

The American Dream

“I am a product of the American dream. And my way of paying my debt to society is public service.  It is my commitment as a United States Senator that I will continue to do the work as I have done to be accountable, to listen even to people with whom I disagree, and to make best decisions in the best interests of my community,” she says.

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Phoenix Anti-Hate Rally Draws 1000s: Video the News Didn’t Show You (video)

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Reps. Sally Ann Gonzales and Pamela Powers Hannley
Rep. Sally Ann Gonzales and I were interviewed by NBC News out of Los Angeles at the downtown Phoenix rally outside of President Trump’s speech.

On August 11, a white supremacist protest against removal of a Confederate monument in Charlottesville, Virginia turned violent, and a young woman, who was a counter-protester, was killed. This sparked anti-hate/anti-fascism/anti-Nazi marches across the country, including an estimated 1500 people who marched through downtown Tucson.

President Trump’s claim that there was “violence on both sides” in Charlottesville ran counter to what many Americans saw in the news and on social media.

Presidential comments that appeared supportive of white supremacists, the rumor that Trump would soon pardon former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (which did happened), Trump’s threat to shut down the government if Congress doesn’t fund the border wall, and the potential end of the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals)– all made Trump’s August 22 campaign rally in Phoenix a potential powder keg.

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The science it out: It is about race

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Thanks to this concise tweet by Salon‘s Amanda Marcotte

For alerting me to the piece by her fellow Salon writers Sean McElwee and Jason McDaniel on how it truly has been racism, and not economic angst as so many believe, that has fueled the rise of Donald Trump.

The American National Election Studies 2016 Pilot Study, a presidential primary extension of a long-running election survey, asked 1,200 eligible voters about the election, and their views on race, from Jan. 22 – 28, 2016. The poll had a number of questions designed to measure racial animus.

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That time Bernie Sanders voted to protect the Minutemen

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As I was planning to do a post about Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ problems attracting black and Hispanic voters earlier yesterday afternoon, the news broke that Bernie’s wife Jane Sanders visited Maricopa County’s Tent City Jail in Phoenix. She was there for the laudable purpose of calling attention to mistreatment of inmates and immigrants but, of course, Arpaio hijacked the event and turned it into a PR photo op. Most of the local news coverage (warning, autoplays) featured Sanders and Arpaio disagreeing amicably about the jail and about Donald Trump’s candidacy, with Arpaio getting (yet another) earned media opportunity to promote himself in an election year.

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Doug Ducey the man-basher?

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

In an otherwise unremarkable (for a conservative Republican governor in the pocket of Koch Industries) State of the State speech on Monday, Governor Doug Ducey said a few remarkable things. One of which was a (good, and long overdue) proposal to create a task force to address thousands of untested rape kits in Maricopa County. He has assigned Sen. Katie Hobbs, a long-time advocate for violence victims and children, to it. So far so good. (In an interesting side note, lobbyist Chris Herstam pointed out on KJZZ to host Steve Goldstein after the speech that the Governor’s announcement appeared to be a dig at Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was seated in the audience and whose office had failed to follow up on rape investigations. If you recall, Arpaio endorsed Ducey over several challengers eager for his blessing in the 2014 primary election.)

But then he said this other thing that sent ripples through social media. He announced that he had directed the state’s Department of Economic Security to start publishing the names and photos of “deadbeat dads” online. Whatever one thinks of the ethics and effectiveness of such public shaming campaigns, the likelihood of this one producing an appreciable stream of revenue to struggling single mothers is probably low.

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