Welcome to the 758th original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today we’ll be taking a look at Martha McSally, the junior U.S. Senator from Arizona, a position to which she was appointed by shady-as-hell Arizona Govenror Doug Ducey, after the predictable resignation of Senator Jon Kyl in early 2019, who himself was appointed to finish out the six-year term that John McCain was elected to in 2016.
The fact that she is now a Senator defies most respect for Democracy, considering Arizona voters rejected the thought of her as their Senator in the 2018 elections, choosing Democrat Kyrsten Sinema over her after she spent almost two years sucking up to Donald Trump and adopting his racist demagogue stances. It was one thing to go fearmongering about MS-13 and calling for a border along the U.S./Mexico border, but Martha McSally actually was caught up in xenophobic euphoria that she called for a border wall to be built between Arizona and California, too.As McSally began to trail behind Sinema in polls, she started pushing a disgusting barrage of campaign ads where McSally falsely claimed that Sinema’s anti-war protests against the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 featured her “denigrating the troops” (Sinema’s criticism was for the war pigs ordering the invasion, not the brave Americans asked to carry it out). That still failed to put Mcsally in the lead, and as final polls began to show that McSally would end up on the losing end of the race and allow Arizona to have a Democratic senator for the first time in decades, she responded with a Hail Mary, accusing Sinema of “advocating for treason” in their debate in October of 2018. Because accusing your opponent of a capitol offense is totally reasonable.
Martha McSally was never a candidate the people of Arizona rallied behind, as even with a gerrymandered map helping her try and win Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District in the House of Representatives, she still lost in 2012, and even in the 2014 elections with Republican tail winds behind her, she only won over Democrat Ron Barber by 161 votes. She inspires the people of Arizona so much that she got caught during the 2018 campaign using sock-puppet accounts to post compliments to herself. She has a U.S. Senate seat for now… but will have to defend it in a special election 2020 just in order to finish the term that was originally won by John McCain in 2016 to last until 2022 (more on who she will face in November 2020 later).
McSally’s voting record during her two terms in the House shows she’s on pace with the conservative extremism that embodies the Republican caucus over the past decade:
- January 22nd, 2015: Martha McSally votes for HR 7, an anti-abortion bill that makes even some Republicans pause before voting for it because of its language that tries to define the conditions for what “rape” is, in it.
- September 18th, 2015: Rep. McSally co-sponsors and votes for a bill with most House Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, based on highly edited “sting” videos submitted by a Pro-Life advocacy group that have been repeatedly debunked by investigators.
- November 19th, 2015: McSally votes for the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, reacting to the terror attacks in Paris by jihadists from France and Belgium by trying to create greater restrictions to keep out Syrian refugees, of whom exactly zero were involved in those attacks.
- February 2nd, 2016: Martha McSally votes for HR 3762, the 61st attempt by Congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act (which is still working better than was predicted).
- March 16th, 2017: Martha McSally votes for HR 1181, which would allow veterans deemed mentally incompetent to continue to own firearms, and not have them taken away without a judge’s written order.
- March 28th, 2017: Rep. McSally votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers’ internet usage to businesses.
- May 4th, 2017: McSally votes for the GOP’s healthcare plan, that would allow 24,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions, and would treat pregnancy, post-partum depression, and sexual assault as “pre-existing conditions”. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that McSally would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country.
- June 8th, 2017: Martha McSally votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.
- October 3rd, 2017: McSally votes for HR 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, that would try to create an unconstitutional ban abortion at 20 weeks (even though medical science tells us fetuses do not have the capability to feel pain until 29 weeks).
- December 19th, 2017: Martha McSally votes for HR 1, the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.
- February 18th, 2018: Rep. McSally and her fellow Republicans decide that poor big businesses are suffering too much at the hands of the Americans with Disabilities Act too much, and vote for HR 620, which would strip most of the civil rights protections guaranteed by it.
Since arriving in the Senate, McSally has continued to rubber-stamp every Trump appointee who comes in front of her, no matter how unqualified, for every judge’s seat, ambassador post, or other Cabinet position. She was already unloved at the polls, but now as an incumbent, maybe momentum would swing in her favor?
Heh heh. NO. Martha McSally is already shaking in her boots at the prospect of facing former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly. If McSally couldn’t beat a Democratic candidate like Kyrsten Sinema, against Mark Kelly… even her attack strategy of using her military service as a fighter pilot to attack her opponent as “treasnonous” isn’t just moot, it’s dwarfed by the guy who has that on his resume, and then went on to go into space. They’re polling dead even now, a year and a half before the election, and McSally has firmly placed herself as an acolyte of Donald Trump. Which leaves McSally scrambling to try and crawl back to the center in Arizona, and tethered to all the stupid decisions Trump makes that affect her state, like say, threatening Mexico with tariffs that would cripple Arizona’s economy. We’re wholly expecting her to get desperate sometime before the 2020 elections and start fearmongering that if Mark Kelly is elected, he’ll “take all your guns away” with his support of gun control, even though his stance on the issue is pretty measured, and obviously motivated by personal experience, what with being the supportive husband of Gabby Giffords, a former Congresswoman and survivor of gun violence. But we’re almost betting McSally will do something that dumb, because that’s the sort of blunder she’s has become synonymous for.
It’s entirely possible that running Martha McSally as the lead candidate for U.S. Senate in two consecutive elections could result in the Republican Party seeing both of Arizona’s seats in the Senate flip blue, a feat that seemed impossible only two years ago. Historic precedent for this among candidates since 2002 is not good, with any candidate from either party attempting it losing, and all getting less of a percentage of the vote than they did in their prior attempt. McSally only garnered 47% against Sinema, and we’re wondering how low she might go against Mark Kelly. In any event, seeing someone who proves to fawn all over Donald Trump sitting in John McCain’s senate seat is disgusting enough to witness that we’re looking forward to cheering for Senator Kelly (not the guy from X-Men comics, though).
One Year Ago, June 14th, 2018: Bill Fawell (FL)
Two Years Ago, June 14th, 2017: John McCain (AZ)… 2017 Update
Three Year Ago, June 14th, 2016: John McCain (AZ)… 2016 Update
Four Years Ago, June 14th, 2015: John McCain (AZ) … Original Profile