Kyrsten Sinema is having a very, very bad week — worse than the national media coverage even suggests.
It began two weeks ago, when the Arizona Democratic Party officially threatened Sinema with a vote of no confidence if she didn’t move on the filibuster and stop impeding Biden’s Build Back Better plan. Then last Wednesday, several very credible grassroots organizations began fundraising for a potential primary challenge. Sinema’s refusal to answer activists’ questions at a lobbyist fundraiser and then literally everywhere else became national news, and while she got some misplaced sympathy from the press for her bathroom dash, she blew that when she blew off reporters in DC.
And that was just the start of her Sinema’s self-inflicted troubles.
New polling shows that her approval rating amongst all Democrats in Arizona is cratering, down 21 points over the past four months, and down five points amongst independents. And while she’s gaining a little bit of ground with Republicans, most of
Every word from this piece should be put on digital billboards circling the whole of Capitol Hill.
I am a conservative and I voted for Donald Trump, but I am calling on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema to support the Biden administration’s proposals to help working people survive this pandemic and the financial upheaval it has caused for so many families. We need more good jobs to get people back to work and revitalize local communities.
Arizonans also need more affordable health care options, I can’t afford a marketplace plan and I can’t afford to pay out of pocket for the medications I need to take every day, much less the regular care I need to keep me healthy.
We need more help keeping utility costs down. As an Arizonan Senator Sinema, you know how much it costs to cool your home on 118-degree summer days.
I am also the mother of two adult children and a grandmother of eight. The expanded child tax credit has made a huge difference for my son and daughter and their families – it should be permanent.
It feels like all our elected representatives in Washington keep telling us to wait for more support. But if I wait any longer, I’m going to lose my house.
The professional columnists — save for the wild-eyed right-wing ones — have been even more direct, calling out Sinema’s cynical tactics and branding her a failure.
Here’s one take down that cuts right to the core of her delusions:
The praise McCain received for going against the grain in those instances wasn’t for being mavericky, but for being right. Each time he was putting country over party.
Sinema may well believe that she, too, is putting country over party, but she gives the impression of putting herself over party or country... What she’s doing, particularly in supporting the filibuster, will set back voting rights for decades. And there are other issues as well.
That makes her plenty mavericky, but also wrong. And there shouldn’t be any love for that.
The anger at Sinema is clearly not just from the left. It’s from across the entirety of the Democratic Party (and even some Trump voter who would vote blue if the party actually delivered much for them). And it wasn’t just a matter of a recent flare-up leading to an angry reaction; as this video report reveals, Sinema has been blowing off the Democratic Party in Arizona — officials, not just activists — for an entire year.
In just one week, even with three years before any primary election and no candidate lined up, the Sinema Primary Pledge campaign have raised well over $100,000 for the potential primary. Sinema is literally teaching a course at ASU on fundraising, so it’s clear that she won’t have a problem with cash come 2024. But as they note in the video, lobbyists and max donors don’t block walk in 110-degree Arizona desert heat. They don’t even vote in Arizona.
P.S. The national media didn’t touch any of the protests against Sinema this weekend. We have to create or own media ecosystem to keep people informed, which is the goal of
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