Kyrsten Sinema-- The Picture Of ConservaDem Opportunism

I can't say I know Kyrsten Sinema well, but I do know her. She briefly joined a board I serve on and she seemed like a normal, smart progressive at the few meetings she attended. Back in 2012, when I heard she was going to run for Congress in a newly created Maricopa County district (AZ-09) that encompasses much of Chandler and Mesa, a bit of Scottsdale, all of Tempe and some of the burbs north and east of Phoenix, I was very excited. The district lines, which are very competitive (because there are more independents in the district than Democrats or Republicans), gave Obama a 140,444 to 129,813 win over hometown boy John McCain in 2008 and, in 2012, a 135,244 to 123,263 Obama win over Romney. In both cases it was 51-47%. Kyrsten called and requested that Blue America endorse her. I was very excited and told her I'd start the vetting process immediately.

The vetting process painted a very, very, very different picture of her than the one she had tried to present. She said she was a champion of immigrants' rights in the state legislature. Immigrants said she was an untrustworthy backstabber. Many of her colleagues in the legislature agreed-- and not just on that issue. She received the worst vetting outcomes of any candidate in the history of Blue America. It pained me to tell her we couldn't endorse her but the picture that was painted turned out to be totally accurate. She won the 3-way primary, beating another corporate Democrat, Andrei Cherny, and progressive state senator David Schapira. Because of EMILY's List she had a big money advantage-- spending more than double what Schapira did-- and took 42% of the vote to Schapira's 31% and Cherny's 27%. In November, she managed to beat right-wing extremist Vernon Parker 76,065 (47.5%) to 73,908 (46.1%). There wasn't much enthusiasm for either tragically flawed candidate.

Sinema got to Congress, told everyone who she could corner that she's a bisexual (several times) and then proceeded to join the corrupt, corporately owned New Dems. She ran up one of the most right-wing records of any Democrat in Congress. Currently, at 33.58, her crucial vote score is worse than every other Democrat other than Pete Gallego and Sean Patrick Maloney. A couple of months ago, she made the calculation that the New Dems aren't right wing enough for her and she joined the KKK Caucus, also known as the Blue Dogs.

She has a relatively tough district so when Ed Pastor announced he would be retiring after the current session, she immediately started examining the possibilities of running in his deep blue D+16 district. One of my best sources of political developments in the Phoenix area, Bmaz, posted about the race at Emptywheel yesterday. "The transformation of Sinema," he wrote, "who aggressively sold herself as progressive liberal when seeking election, to a conservative Blue Dog toadie of the Minority centrist Dem leadership has been nothing short of astounding, especially for those of us who reside in her district and voted for her in 2012. She completely betrayed her base constituents in Arizona District 9. That is mostly a story for another day though, today’s story is not about discrete policy issues, but wholesale admission of the deceptive nature of Kyrsten Sinema’s incursion into AZ-9 to start with."

Local politicians, from seemingly forever Maricopa Board of Supervisor’s member Mary Rose Wilcox to new and fairly refreshing voices like state legislature member Ruben Gallego, were literally stepping over one another to announce they would be running for Pastor’s seat. They are almost all minorities vying to represent a solidly minority district. And this is no small thing, as most all of them have to give up their current position to do so under Arizona’s “resign to run” law.

I was asked early on Thursday, not long after Pastor’s announcement, by a friend who supports liberal Dems nationwide, about Kyrsten Sinema jumping in. I thought it was a joke question and said so. Because it was crazy talk. The joke, however, was squarely on me and her other constituents in AZ-09. Yeah, Kysten Sinema, who pledged herself to AZ-09, started lusting after AZ-07 the second it was announced available… [T]he Arizona Republic/12 News got a copy of an email to Sinema’s inside staff proving it.

So, why is this a big deal? Because it shows that, for first term congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema, her own raw narcissistic ambition, in a dynamic situation, immediately trumps loyalty to her constituents and her party.

How it trumps her constituents is easy. Sinema represents AZ-09, which though a new district emanating out of redistricting from the 2010 Census, consists of a significant portion of John Shadegg’s old district that was taken over by Ben Quayle after Shadegg’s retirement. Sinema did not live in the still leaning conservative district, and explicitly came from an out of district seat in the state legislature to run for the seat when it opened for the 2012 election. She painted herself as a classic liberal of the old Tucson school, who was a progressive and sexually liberated voice. It was a bill of goods, but Sinema was an extremely aggressive campaigner who worked her ass off thusly selling herself. She eked out a victory over a very weak Republican thanks in part to a helpful diversion of votes by a third party Libertarian candidate.

And, though she has been a disappointment to any liberal, at least we thought we had a Democratic representative of some sort for the foreseeable future. Sinema came here and took our votes, surely she was ours at least until she could run for a Senate seat or something larger, right? Apparently not.

Kyrsten Sinema has proved herself willing to leave her, apparently carpetbagged, home in AZ-09 at a moment’s notice before even consummating a whole two year Congressional term.

But Kyrsten Sinema’s knee jerk willingness to dally with AZ-07 does not just sell out her constituents in AZ-09, no it is contemplated treachery to her Democratic party and Congressional caucus as well. Why? Because there is no Democratic alternative to replace Sinema in AZ-09. None. Over the last few months, several of us Democrats here in AZ-09 toyed with the idea of finding a primary challenger for Sinema, because she has been so awful as to genuinely progressive ideas and votes in the House. But there simply are none; it was either Sinema or turn the seat back over to the GOP, which was a non-starter. At least for us. So, if Sinema leaves, AZ-09 is going to flip and the House Democrats are going to lose yet another precious seat.

What’s worse is that if Kyrsten Sinema takes her big campaign war chest to try to claim AZ-07, she will be trying to suck up a seat that has been held by a member of the Latino minority, Ed Pastor, for over 22 years. Again, Arizona’s Congressional districts have evolved over that time, and AZ-07 is a somewhat a new creation. But the core that Pastor now represents, and has always represented, is well over 60% minority, with the majority of those being Hispanic.

Kyrsten Sinema is not only thinking HARD about abandoning her current constituents that she just came to represent, and abandoning a seat for Democratic caucus to the Republicans, she is thinking hard about trying to pilfer a minority seat away from what would otherwise almost surely be a minority Democratic replacement for Ed Pastor.

Why would Kyrsten Sinema think about doing such a loathsome thing? Raw, naked, selfish ambition is the only explanation. Sinema is an aggressive political climber. And her ability to get her mug in between any scene and the TV camera was clearly learned from the great Chuck Schumer and/or John McCain. She has that skill. What it boils down to is that Sinema is on the move, but a real higher office is not in the offing, either this election or next, as Arizona’s two Senate seats are locked up-- McCain appears to be running again in 2016, and Jeff Flake is young, just got elected, and may never leave.

So, Kyrsten Sinema is left to ply her trade in the House for the time being. Thing is, AZ-07, once you are in, is a lifetime sinecure for a Democrat. You wouldn’t even have to work your ass off to stay elected, like Sinema will have to in the conservative trending AZ-09. In AZ-07, Sinema could kick back and build up her warchest for the future ambition she most surely holds, and if she never gets there, can ride out eternity in the seat easily and safely. That’s why Kyrsten Sinema wants it. Oh, and it was effectively where she came from before she so benevolently decided to insincerely grace the good folks in AZ-09 with her naked ambition.

Most national progressive organizations have already vowed to back a plausible progressive alternative if Sinema does make the jump. There are several excellent candidates looking to run and state Rep. Ruben Gallego is one of them and says he'll stay in the race regardless of what Sinema does. Another good candidate considering the race is state Senator Anna Tovar. Pastor's daughter, Laura (a nightmare) also wants to run as do right-wing Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox and state Senator Steve Gallardo (who came out of the closet this morning)… among half a dozen others. Gallardo: “I am gay, I’m a Latino, I’m a state senator and it’s OK."