Arizona Is Ditching The GOP-- But How Much More Conservative Will It Make The Democratic Party?

 

The anti-Trump/anti-Republican tsunami is still building force. You probably saw the newest polls already. YouGov released a batch of 'em yesterday for CBS News: Trump losing in Nevada by 6 points, Trump losing in Michigan by 6 points, Trump, Trump and Biden tied in Iowa. And then there was the ABC News/Washington Post released yesterday showing Trump's disapproval 10 points down and his reelection numbers a startling 12 points down.

And that includes Arizona. Arizona has been a deep blood-red Republican bastion for my whole life. I remember watching the returns roll in while I was a kid concerned about we was then far right extremist Barry Goldwater beating Lyndon Johnson (pre-"Hey, hey, LBJ, How many kids have you killed today?") The popular vote was overwhelming-- 43,127,041 (61.1%) for Johnson and just 27,175,754 whackos (38.5%) for Goldwater. Goldwater won the heart of the Old Confederacy, the 5 dumbest states in America-- Mississippi, Alabama (which didn't even let LBJ on the ballot!), Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana-- plus Arizona. In Mississippi, where they were still lynching blacks who tried to vote, Goldwater won 87% of the vote. Arizona was much closer, but it was the only non-Confederate state who chose a candidate who was successfully portrayed as much of a nut-job as Trump has been (and is) this cycle. I mean even states like Wyoming, Idaho, Nebraska and Utah were in the Democratic column that year! The electoral college gave LBJ quite the landslide-- 486 to 52.

Arizona seems to have come out of that trance now and is starting to look more like neighbors New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada, if not southern California (yet). All sides agree Arizona is a swing state this time around. The only reason the polling averages are even close is because GOP fake-polling firm Trafalgar is included in the averages and they manufacture weird Trump wins that Kushner can use to keep his father-in-law calm. Last week's NY Times/Siena poll of likely voters shows Trump losing to Biden by 8 points-- 49-41%. And among Independents, Trump is only getting 28% of the vote, which is what is dooming him.

It should be a good year for Democrats across the state. What a shame that there are virtually no good Democrats running for office. The Democratic establishment saw to that-- from top to bottom. Their Senate candidate, Mark Kelly, isn't even a Democrat and is likely to be one of the 3 most conservative Democrats in the Senate, possibly the most conservative, a slot now held by the other fake Democrat from Arizona, psychopath Kyrsten Sinema. The congressional candidates all stink too. But... "Democrats are on track to win big in Arizona next month-- from the presidential election to the state House," wrote Sabrina Rodriguez for Politico. "And Republicans fear it won’t just be a one-time event but the start of long-term Democratic dominance in the state. It’s a shift that’s been coming since before President Donald Trump’s election but has only been further accelerated over the past four years by his divisive presidency and the Arizona GOP’s evolution from the party of John McCain to that of Trump. Now, Republicans are reckoning with signs that the party has taken on a direction that won’t play well in Arizona in 2020-- or ever. With that, Democrats could cement control of state politics, as they have in other suburban-heavy states, like Colorado and Virginia. A win by Democratic Senate nominee Mark Kelly would put both of Arizona’s seats in Democratic hands after decades of GOP control. All Democrats need is two seats in the state House and three seats in the state Senate to flip the state legislature. Turning both chambers would be a first for Democrats in more than 50 years."

Democrats, yes-- but not the way most of us understand "Democrats." Kyrsten Sinema, for example, has the worst voting record of any Democrat in the Senate-- just as she previously had the worst voting record of any Democrat in the House. Her grade isn't just "F" from Progressive Punch; her lifetime crucial vote score is 45.39, reflecting the fact that she votes with the GOP more frequently against progressive positions than with Democrats for them. And, like I said, it won't surprise me if Mark Kelly turns out worse.

“It’s Republicans’ own fault this is happening. It’s their unwillingness to govern,” said Chuck Coughlin, a veteran GOP strategist in Arizona. “They’ve always been the party that wants to put together electoral coalitions to address policy issues. And under the party of Trump, you’re just vilifying people, not coming up with ideas.”

“Like Sen. John McCain would say, 'It's always darkest before it's totally black.' And, in this case, black is blue. I hope the party will do some soul-reflecting,” Coughlin added.

Republicans will continue to control number of statewide positions, including the governorship and the state attorney general's office. But a big night for Democrats could see the GOP lose the presidential vote for the first time since 1996, a Senate seat, both chambers of the state legislature and control of the state Corporation Commission.

Arizona’s state races haven’t gotten so much attention given the millions of dollars being pumped into the presidential matchup and expensive race between appointed Republican Sen. Martha McSally and Kelly, which could help tip the Senate over to Democrats. But it’s the possibility of flipping that state legislature that has many Republicans thinking about the long-term effects of Trump’s GOP.

The Republican Party needs to understand that there’s a large number of us voting Democrat all down the ballot because of Trump, and they need to realize that their choice to blindly follow him will impact the state politics,” said Daniel Barker, a former Arizona Court of Appeals Judge who started Arizona Republicans Who Believe In Treating Others With Respect, a PAC that’s supporting Biden.

“We need to change direction,” he added.

The November election will provide the first indication of whether Arizona is becoming Democratic-leaning territory, like Colorado and Virginia-- or a perennial swing state, like Florida. The state’s growing Latino population and shifting attitudes among college-educated white voters across the state have been a boon to Democrats. Almost a third of the state is Latino-- and while only about half of them are expected to vote, they are likely to break heavily for Democrats: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema secured 70 percent Latino support in her 2018 run.

“Latino voter turnout has been growing, and then there’s moderate white voters that are breaking toward Biden. And, really, both have been needed to create this Democratic wave,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), who served in the state House for three years and now represents a safe Democratic congressional district in Phoenix.

Voter registration in Arizona is also a bright spot for Democrats. Republicans' advantage has been shrinking for the past three election cycles. Republicans now hold a lead of fewer than 100,000 voters. Compared to 2016, the GOP share of the electorate is flat at 35 percent, while the Democratic share has ticked up 2 points, to 32 percent.

Gallego said he’s optimistic Arizona’s path toward becoming reliably blue will mirror neighboring Colorado. And he argues it’s been a long time coming, dating back to when then-GOP Gov. Jan Brewer signed SB 1070, the controversial “show me your papers” law, in 2010. But the state wasn’t ready to move more toward Democrats then because the Democratic Party had largely ignored Arizona in Obama’s 2008 race against McCain, a beloved figure in the state, Gallego said.

“Trump really sped this up and gave [moderates and independents] a good reason to move away from the Republican Party,” Gallego said.

Arizona's shift left has caught Republicans mostly flat-footed, struggling to adapt to the new political realities. After McSally's loss in 2018, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey appointed McSally to the state's other Senate seat. And Republicans chose a new state party chair: Kelli Ward, the far-right candidate who primaried McCain in 2016 and lost to McSally in the 2018 Senate primary.

“I don’t think anyone would’ve guessed three years ago there’d be a battleground for control of the lower and upper chamber" of the state legislature, said Mike Noble, the chief of research at the Republican polling firm OH Predictive Insights in Phoenix. "It’s mind-blowing."

Noble said it’s unlikely that Arizona will swing from reliably GOP to Democratic in such a short time, but Republicans need to appeal to the middle of the electorate to win there.

“Right now, Arizona is a battleground primarily due to the suburban shift. And remember: Arizona is the home of Barry Goldwater and John McCain-- moderate Republicans," he said, a reference to Goldwater's libertarian streak and McCain's "maverick" persona. "It’s really not a red state like Alabama, but an independent state when it comes to the electorate."

Republican groups acknowledge that it’s a tough fight to keep majorities in both the state House and Senate, spending almost double what Democrats have in advertising. Republicans have spent $671,000 to Democrats’ $371,000, according to numbers provided by Advertising Analytics. The Republican State Leadership Committee also has Arizona on its top targets list, despite it not being a redistricting priority.

Meanwhile, Democrats have focused on four target races in the state House and six in the state Senate. Republican and Democratic strategists agree it’s most likely Democrats will win the state House, but Republicans will retain control of the state Senate-- though a full flip is certainly possible.

“Republicans are playing defense, and [Democrats] really could be handed the ball here,” Coughlin said.

Doug Ducey's pandemic response was pure Trumpism-- and Arizonans paid the price. Ducey has killed 5,759 Arizonans, the 11th worst state record. And there have been 30,909 cases per million Arionznas, the 10th worst in America, all 10 being red states were public health officials were ignored while people got sick and all decisions were made based on Trump's political agenda. 791 Arizonans are dead per million in the population-- 9th worst in the country. And by the way, Arizona's population is 14th biggest so, clearly Ducey and his Republican puppet legislature was doing something very, very wrong.

Huge Voter Enthusiasm To Rid America Of The Plague-- The Trump Plague

"Die For Me" by Nancy Ohanian

A wide consensus is forming that the two worst governors in America are Trump patsies Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Kristi Noem (R-SD). "Gov. Kristi Noem reiterated Tuesday that she won't be ordering South Dakota residents to stay home amid the coronavirus pandemic, as another 121 confirmed cases were reported in the state. The majority of South Dakota's 988 total cases-- 768-- are in Minnehaha County, which includes the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, the site of one of the largest known clusters of COVID-19 cases in the country." [Side note: Minnehaha County, the most populated county in the state, went for Trump in 2016-- but 30,610 people (39.1%) voted for Hillary, so they don't deserve this.]

As bad as governors like DeSantis and Noem are, Morning Consult reporter Eli Yokley reported yesterday that their new poll shows that "Trump appears to be bearing the brunt of voters’ criticism toward government... The downward drift in views about Trump’s handling of the crisis comes as the share of voters who said they were 'very concerned' about the virus has increased to 65 percent, though Democrats (76 percent) were more likely than Republicans (56 percent) to share that strong concern.

The new survey found that Trump’s coronavirus approval rating fell 24 points among Democrats and 17 points among independents in the last month. His job approval on the pandemic is just 45%-- with 49% disapproving.

Reuters also released their latest poll-- by Ipsos-- which shows tremendous Democratic voter enthusiasm. It isn't for Biden. No one gives a shit about him who isn't part of the one percent. The enthusiasm is to rid America of the plague-- not just the coronavirus pandemic, but the Trump Plague. Chris Kahn summed it up perfectly:

When Republicans in Wisconsin pushed through state elections last week in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, Jessica Jaglowski donned a protective mask and headed for the ballot box, determining her best shot at self-preservation was not to stay home but to vote Republicans out of office.

Come November, when Republican President Donald Trump is up for re-election, Jaglowski, a 47-year-old Democrat in Milwaukee, says she will be even more determined to vote, even if the deadly virus continues to ravage her community.

“He’s half the reason we’re in this mess right now,” she said, criticizing Trump for downplaying the threat of COVID-19 before it hit the country hard. “If I have to wait in line for 12 hours, in a storm, I don’t care. I’m voting for whoever can get Trump out.”

After three years in the White House, this much about Trump is clear: Those who want to deny him the presidency are much more determined to vote now than they were four years ago.

Democrats’ intention to vote is also rising more than it is among Republicans, both nationally and in historically competitive battleground states like Wisconsin that Trump narrowly won in 2016, according to more than 66,000 U.S. adults who took the Reuters/Ipsos online poll in the first quarter of 2020 or 2016.

The highly motivated opposition is another sign of trouble for Trump, who saw his chief argument for re-election-- a soaring economy and record-low unemployment-- evaporate amid a health crisis that has put millions of Americans out of work.

Even before the pandemic, Trump struggled to woo independents and moderates he would need to win November’s election, and recent polls showed Trump trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden by several points nationwide, as well as in battleground states such as Arizona and Michigan.

According to the Reuters/Ipsos poll, 70% of Democrats said they were “certain” to vote in the upcoming presidential election, 9 percentage points higher than in the first quarter of 2016.

Among Republicans, the increase from 2016 was much smaller-- 3 percentage points-- with 71% saying they will vote in November.

Democrats have for years outnumbered Republicans in the United States but they also tend to be less politically active. Yet for the first time since at least 2012, nearly the same percentage of Democrats and Republicans said they planned to vote in 2020.

When the poll combined states that are expected to be especially competitive this year-- Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Colorado-- voting interest rose by 11 points among Democrats over the past four years, while it only rose by 3 points among Republicans.

...The rise in political enthusiasm was on display in the Democratic presidential nominating contests this year. Turnout in many states such as Michigan, Virginia and South Carolina surpassed previous highs set in 2008, when Barack Obama made his historic run for the presidency.

In state after state, large majorities of Democratic primary voters-- around 60%-- said they were “angry” with the Trump administration, while 30% said they were “dissatisfied,” according to exit polls by Edison Research. Most of them said they voted for a candidate who they thought could beat Trump.

The intensity of Democratic political engagement is part of a broader, tribal mentality of “negative partisanship” that has been increasingly motivating voters for a half century, said Steven Webster, a political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis.

...Another sign of Democratic enthusiasm came from Wisconsin where liberal judge Jill Karofsky scored an upset victory over conservative, Trump-backed incumbent Daniel Kelly in a state Supreme Court election in which she won some counties that voted for Trump in 2016.

Milwaukee’s Janine Hedges, 50, was among thousands who waited in line to vote last week in Wisconsin, which also held a Democratic presidential primary. She cast her ballot for Sanders, who has since suspended his campaign and endorsed Biden. In November, she is ready to wait in line again-- for Biden-- regardless of the coronavirus.

“We just can’t do four more years of this,” she said. “Even though he is not my first choice, Biden is somebody who has a more benevolent side to him. We need that.”

Bernie and-- now, having spoiled Bernie's chance to win the Super Tuesday states-- Elizabeth Warren have endorsed Status Quo Joe. No one knows how much of their followings will walk with them into the camp of one of the most conservative Democrats of the last 5 decades-- a beacon for anti-progressives in the party that many have hoped would be the progressive party. But even among Biden-skeptics, turnout is expected to be high, not just because of progressive antipathy towards Trump and Trumpism but because of the hopes that candidates running for Congress on the issues Bernie brought to the fore-- Medicare-for-All, the Green New Deal, free public universities, racial justice, dignity for the working class, etc-- will still be able to help move this issues forward.

Polling in Arizona, until recently considered one of the reddest of red states, shows that Democratic centrist Mark Kelly will trounce Republican incumbent Martha McSally in November. He's leading her by 9 points right now, a steadily increasing advantage. Republicans favor her; Democrats favor him. But independent voters have moved decisively in favor of Kelly and against McSally, a knee-jerk Trump enabler.

I asked four of the progressive congressional candidates from very different districts if they get a sense of what's driving Democratic voter enthusiasm beyond Trump-hated. Please read what Cori Bush, Eva Putzova and Tom Guild told me last night about what they think isn motivating voters in their districts and, please, consider contributing to their campaigns by clicking on the Blue America 2020 thermometer below.

Cori Bush, who is running in St. Louis, feels one crucial factor is that people are looking for leadership-- and honesty and integrity in leadership. She told me that the "top issues that motivate the voters and supporters we speak to across the board are Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. Our base understands that no matter who is in the presidency, we will need leaders in Congress willing to champion these bold policies and hold the executive office accountable. The majority of Americans support both policies, and yet even in the midst of a pandemic, we are clearly seeing how many politicians are digging in their heels."

Eva Putzova's vast Arizona district, AZ-01, is far more rural. "In my district," she said, "most Democratic and Independent voters that I talk to are desperate to get rid of Donald Trump. But they are also increasingly motivated to change the direction of the country and not merely return to the status quo prior to Trump. They want immigration reform, they want universal health care and Medicare for All, they want immediate action on fighting climate change and they support the Green New Deal, among many other priorities. This is why my campaign for Congress is gaining so much support. Voters are tired of politicians, like my opponent, who are satisfied with minor reforms that don't address the major problems facing people today. The reason for that, of course, is that many incumbent politicians, like my opponent, are bought and paid for by corporate contributions to their campaigns. I don't take any corporate money and can't be bought. The voters in my district see that and are responding to my campaign with great enthusiasm."

Robin Wilt was inspired by Bernie and by the issues he was running on. Bernie is no longer running and Robin is representing those issues to the voters in Monroe County, New York. "The theme of Bernie’s campaign for the Presidency is 'Not me. Us,' she told us last night. "The slogan concisely communicates the sheer breadth of the movement that his platform spurred to action. There are hundreds of candidates down-ballot that represent 'Us.' Someone once asked me, after Bernie exited the Presidential primary in 2016, whether I still supported Bernie Sanders. I emphatically replied , 'Of course I do,' since my ethics and morals remained the same both prior to Bernie’s candidacy and after his exit. Now that Bernie has suspended his 2020 candidacy, the movement spawned by the ideals that he articulated is no less active. In Rochester and Monroe County, we have been fielding calls and emails from Bernie supporters who are excited to continue the fight for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, Education and Income Equity, and Housing Justice. Bernie’s candidacy was never about Bernie, himself, but rather about the interests and policies that the 99% deserve. Those interests and policies are no less important now than when Bernie was running. Bernie may not be at the top of the ballot, but he created a movement that was farther reaching than his coattails on a ballot. He demonstrated the power that resides within each of us to fight for someone that we don’t know."

Tom Guild's district is mostly Oklahoma City. Yesterday, he told me that "A majority of Democrats and Independents who voted in the 2020 Oklahoma Democratic presidential primary in March told exit pollsters that they favor Medicare for All. With the projected loss of private for profit employer provided health care estimated at 35 million workers, now more than ever Americans are coming to the conclusion that Medicare for All is the way to go. There are eleven candidates who filed for Congress in my district. I’m the only candidate who favors MFA. Not one single competitor has publicly embraced any plan to bring universal health care to the American people. As more people learn that I’m the only candidate running who wants to give them dependable and affordable universal health care security, our support continues to grow. Many younger voters and others are very serious about climate change. As they learn that our campaign supports the Green New Deal, and that no other candidate has the same position, we have many who are anxious to join us. The future viability of our planet is too crucial to neglect. I’m also the only one running in the 5th district who not only supports raising the minimum wage to $15, but also going a step further. I want all Americans to have a living wage. Once the living wage is set it will be automatically adjusted upward as inflation eats into the purchasing value of the wage. Working Oklahomans have lower wages when compared to national and regional averages, and they are excited that they can look to a future when they can work a 40 hour week and afford their basic expenses every month. On the international front, I’m the only one running for this seat in Congress, who wants to reassert the power of Congress, and stop this president or any future president, from initiating another endless foreign war without the authorization of Congress. The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the sole power to declare war. Many Americans are exhausted with the current series of endless wars. There are millions alive today who have never experienced an America at peace. Opposition to endless war cuts across nearly all demographic and partisan groups. It is a strange and unusual election year, because of the pandemic emergency. Blue America and DWT help many grassroots progressive candidates garner the resources to get our essential message out to voters. It’s a challenging environment, but thankfully there are many progressive champions willing to go to work for ordinary Americans. We appreciate your support!"

Pathetic Trumpist Hack Martha McSally Is Having A Hard Time Taking On Mark Kelly-- So She Is Ginning Up A War Against The Media Instead

The Arizona Senate race is going to be one of the hottest of 2020, but it isn't one that DWT, let alone Blue America, has been active in. Like the Arizona Senate race last cycle, there's just no good choice, just two bad ones. Last time, the theory was that Arizona Democrats needed a Republican-like candidate to win a red seat. And that was confirmed when wretched Blue Dog Kyrsten Sinema, then the single worst Democrat in the House, won the open red state seat. Today, Sinema is the single worst Democrat in the Senate, with a voting record to the right of Joe Manchin's. But that didn't stop Schumer-- it encouraged him-- from clearing the field for former Republican Mark Kelly to run against appointed Senator and cowardly Trumpist Martha McSally... the very same flawed candidate Sinema beat in 2018. McSally had once pretended to be a "moderate." Today she's an all-in Trumpist fanatic. When people call on Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Cory Gardner, Lamar Alexander, even Rand Paul and Mike Lee to consider the idea of a fair trial in the Senate, no one ever wastes their breath mentioning Martha McSally, just another sickening version of Marsha Blackburn. But Arizona isn't Tennessee and what works there, may backfire in a demographically changing Arizona.

From the perspective of the DC horse race game, Kelly is a great idea and will likely beat McSally and give Arizona two Democratic senators, something no one would have bet on in the last half century. Two Democrats-- but not Democrats from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. Better than McSally? Sure. More harmful to the party than McSally? Yep. Arizona voters, especially young ones, are going to be very hard pressed to understand the difference between the two parties with Sinema and Kelly as their two highest-ranking elected officials.

McSally is getting desperate. She lost to Sinema-- a less popular candidate than Kelly-- 1,191,100 (50.0%) to 1,135,200 (47.6%). She lost her own congressional district (Tucson) and she lost Maricopa County (Phoenix). Both-- and therefor the state-- are trending away from Republicans. She's knows she's going to do even worse against Kelly than she did against Sinema. Last time Sinema outraised her slightly-- $22,197,141 to $21,618,743 with outside spending favoring Sinema. Outside spending also favored Sinema-- $33,915,055 to "just" $28,749,237 for McSally. This cycle, despite the advantages of an incumbent, Kelly is already outraising her-- and by a lot. In a report from KTAR, Kevin Stone revealed that "the challenger outraised the first-term Republican by more than $2 million in the fourth quarter and has amassed a far larger war chest. Kelly’s campaign on Tuesday touted a 2019 fourth quarter total of over $6.2 million, more than 50% higher than McSally’s announced total of around $4 million... The Q4 totals track with the yearly numbers in the race, with Kelly taking in around $20.2 million in 2019 to McSally’s $12 million, according to the campaigns."

Desperation is one ways to account for McSally's purposefully and aggressively nasty, boorish and probably racist behavior towards respected CNN reporter Manu Raju Thursday.

Raju: "Sen. McSally, should the Senate consider new evidence as part of the impeachment trial?"

McSally: "Manu, you’re a liberal hack. I’m not talking to you."

Raju: "You're not going to comment?"

McSally: "You’re a liberal hack, buddy."

McSally immediately posted the video her staffer shot on her official twitter page. Simultaneously, she unveiled her new website, "Liberalhack.com," apparently eager to use her time in her Senate office illegally campaigning rather than going over the hundreds of pages of Lev Parnas evidence Raju was asking her about. She quickly sent out a fundraising e-mail bragging about how she owned the liberal media, a popular refrain among the Trump-loving hate-filled, right-wing masses. I'm not saying she personally designed the ugly t-shirt herself, but she was hawking them on her site before Raju had left the Capitol! ($35 for anyone who would contribute to her campaign.)

She then booked herself s slot on Laura Ingraham's Republican Party propaganda show to discuss the latest developments in her war against the media. Chuck Todd noted how quickly she was raising money from the interaction-- "so quickly, in fact, that it seemed planned?"

So, yes, there's more to it than just McSally's desperation. In an unrelated post on Thursday, we saw Trump uses the media for his own ends-- and how Democratic politicians are unable or unwilling to do the same. Peter Hamby noted in an essay for Vanity Fair that manipulating low-info voters is how Republicans have overtaken Democrats in certain demographics ow consistently voting against their own interests. "Trump," wrote Hamby, "despite his deep personal insecurities and lust for elite validation... has derived much of his political success by ignoring Washington finger-waggers and connecting with the more primal instincts of his supporters, in whatever televised or digital corner of the media he can, with or without the good graces of the national press and savvy insiders. Trump stumbled into understanding something crucial about the electorate, which is this: There are plenty of divisions in our conventional wisdom-- insider versus outsider, progressive versus moderate, young versus old-- but one of the biggest splits in American politics is simply between those who follow politics closely and those who do not." Is McSally as bad as Trump? She's trying. Martha McSally, like Trump, is trying, as Greg Sargent noted in a different context, to create and exploit "a fog machine of disinformation and incoherence." There isn't much more politicians with anti-worker/anti-family platforms like hers can do.

The next day we looked at a related essay by Sean Illing forVox about flooding the zone with shit to confuse these same low-info voters, utterly overwhelming the capacity for Trump's low-info supporters to be able to discern what's real and what isn't. Illing wrote that 'Regardless of how clear a case Democrats make, it seems likely that a majority of voters will remain confused and unsure about the details of Trump’s transgressions. No single version of the truth will be accepted. This is a serious problem for our democratic culture. No amount of evidence, on virtually any topic, is likely to move public opinion one way or the other. We can attribute some of this to rank partisanship-- some people simply refuse to acknowledge inconvenient facts about their own side... We live in a media ecosystem that overwhelms people with information.'" McSally may be relatively new to that world, but she's taken to it like an old pro. All authoritarian politicians move rapidly to shutting down alternative sources of information. McSally gets it.

Fake Journalists-- Whether At Politico Or The Texas Monthly, Don't Know What A Primary Is

The headline is idiotic. The Texas Monthly asked, trying to be provocative, I suppose: Can Out-of-State Liberals Oust a Texas Democrat? The answer, of course, is NO. Only a solid home-grown progressive Democrat from Webb or Bexar County is going to oust Henry Cuellar. Good candidates aren't found on top shelves in an old WalMart and they don't get invented. No one wins a race who isn't positively driven by inner demons, especially not a primary.

Six of the nine counties that make up Texas' 28th district are deep blue. Tiny Atascosa, Wilson and even tinier McMullen Counties are the exceptions. Trump won Atascosa with 63.2%, Wilson with 72.7% and McMullen with 91.3%. It didn't make any difference. The massive majorities Hillary ran up in the more populated counties-- Webb (74.4%), Bexar (54.5%) and Hidalgo (68.6%)-- gave her a districtwide 58.3% to 38.5% win over Trump.

Last year the Republicans didn't even bother running an opponent against Cuellar, not just because he votes with them more than any other Democrat in Congress, but because the district is too blue for them to win (PVI is D+9). Republicans in TX-28 are lucky if they can get a third of the vote. In Congress, Cuellar's Trump adhesion score is 55.9%, the highest of any Democrat... by far.

Maria Recio wrote, so simplistically as to be almost misleading, that "Now the same group of young activists from Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign who boosted Ocasio-Cortez are looking to replace other moderate and conservative Democrats across the country with leftist candidates. Their first target? U.S. representative Henry Cuellar, of Texas’s Twenty-eighth Congressional District. 'His votes and his rhetoric are not upholding Democratic values,' says Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of the political action committee Justice Democrats, which launched its 'Primary Cuellar' campaign in January. In arguing why the eight-term congressman must go, Rojas points to the frequency with which Cuellar votes with President Donald Trump-- about 60 percent of the time, more than almost any other House Democrat-- despite representing a district that favored Hillary Clinton over Trump by nearly 20 percent in the 2016 election. The Justice Democrats say they believe, contrary to the results of recent elections, that the values of Texans aren’t significantly different from those of New Yorkers-- and, furthermore, that those values are progressive. 'In poll after poll, Americans everywhere want change in immigration, health care, climate change, and income inequality,' Rojas says."

Justice Democrats didn't invent Ocasio-Cortez. Their support for her was very important in her victory. But it was her victory, based primarily on how smart and effective she was as a campaigner and how charismatic she is. The way to do this is to start with a candidate, not with an enemy. "Their effort," wrote Recio, "is something of a proxy war for a larger conflict that has erupted within the Democratic party about the right way to mobilize voters and take the White House back from Trump in the 2020 election. Did Clinton lose the presidency because she failed to excite progressives by not tacking far enough to the left or because she didn’t hew close enough to the center to attract moderates? And is the answer to that question the same in all parts of the country?" Jesus, what a bunch of amateur and idiotic question-- well-meaning, terribly put.

The writer is so inept than she tries to say TX-28 Democrats should be discouraged because Beto didn't win Texas, seeming to have forgotten that he did win TX-28-- and massively so. Beto took Webb County 71.2% to 28.0%, Bexar 59.5% to 39.6%, Hidalgo 68.8% to 30.6% and so on. Of course, she's absolutely correct in pointing out that "Cuellar’s slice of South Texas and AOC’s corner of the Bronx and Queens are culturally worlds apart" and maybe even that "the Justice Democrats may be deluding themselves into thinking that they can replicate in Texas’s Twenty-eighth District the success they achieved in New York’s Fourteenth." There's no replication in politics. The Justice Democrats-- and the rest of use hoping to replace Cuellar with an actual Democrat-- need to find a good solid Texas candidate and then support her or him with all our might.

Recio veers off course though when she implies that the Justice Dems, in "their desire to shift the party sharply to the left could undermine the Democrats’ renewed attempts to turn the state blue." What does "blue" mean to Rechio; she doesn't say in her piece. Cuellar-like? Is that the blue she means. I can't speak for the Justice Democrats, but I sincerely doubt they would consider that electing more Henry Cuellars-- something Cheri Bustos' DCCC has made clear that that's exactly what they want to do-- would equate to turning anything blue at all. Nor is there a need for that. There are dozens and dozens of districts that are less blue than Cuellar's with more progressive congress members than he is. Take a guy like John Yarmuth. Not only is Kentucky (R+15) much redder than Texas (R+8), Yarmuth is, across-the-board, far more progressive than Cuellar despite representing a less blue district. TX-28 has a PVI of D+9 while Yarmuth is far more vulnerable in a D+6 district. Instead of Cuellar's strong Trump adhesion score (55.9%), Yarmuth's is more like a normal Democrat (16.5%). Babbling imbeciles like Recio, shrieking about leftists and mixing up facts-- citing Filemon Vela, for example as a liberal, when Vela is also a right-of-center Blue Dog with a solid "F" ProgressivePunch score in an even bluer district than Cuellar's-- spit out pseudo analyses that just confuse her readers. Vela supports Cuellar, she reports. Wow! Amazing, two right-wing corrupt Blue Dogs support each other. Unheard of!

She did stumble upon a fact worth noting though. Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the Texas Democratic party, disagrees with the DCCC policy protecting worthless incumbents like Cuellar from primary challenges. Hinojosa doesn’t believe the Justice Democrats’ efforts pose any threat to the party’s plans because the TX-28 itself is already 'deep blue' and is likely to remain so, regardless of the nominee who emerges from the primary. Exactly what establishment hacks rarely seem capable of grasping.

Politico found someone as hackish and ignorant as Recio, Steven Perlberg, to write a posy for them yesterday, How The Intercept Is Fueling The Democratic Civil War. Because, you know, primaries between progressives and the Republican wing iff the Democratic Party are always terrible civil wars. "For a broad swath of Democrats," wrote Perlberg, a [Mark] Kelly campaign is precisely what the party needs." Really? A Republican suddenly pretending to be a Democrat is just what the party needs? Perlberg described him as "a patriotic, mediagenic, center-friendly liberal who has a rare chance to turn the longtime Republican stronghold of Arizona into a state with two Democratic U.S. senators." He's wrong about "liberal" and very correct about "center-friendly," not as in center of the Democratic Party, but center of the political spectrum... so the place where the GOP meets the Democratic Party, home to shitheads like the aforementioned Henry Cuellar, as well as other corrupted right-wing corporatists who usually join the Blue Dogs and New Dems in the House and vote with Joe Manchin (WV), Mark Warner (VA), Michael Bennet (CO), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Tom Carper (DE) in the Senate. You know who was defeated in the midst of the big anti-red wave last year? While Democrats were capturing dozens of Republican-held House seats across the country, "center-friendly" faux-Dems like Joe Donnelly (IN), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Bill Nelson (FL) and Claire McCaskill (MO) all lost their seats, failing to win their gamble that Republicans would vote for them and that the Democratic base would go with a lesser-of-two-evils strategy. Meanwhile, Tammy Baldwin (WI) and Sherrod Brown (WI), similarly targeted by the GOP, stuck to progressive platforms and won solid reelection battles in states Trump won.

Perlberg is angry that an Intercept reporter reported that Kelly, who pretends to be free of building a political career based on fealty to corporate special interests-- which Democratic and independent voters are demanding nationwide-- "made at least 19 paid corporate speeches in front of audiences including Goldman Sachs" and was enjoying the inherent corruption of having slimy lobbyists raise money for his campaign from DC fat-cats. Perlberg is freaking out because suddenly the less vigilant Arizona Republic and CNN picked up on the story and because the embarrassment caused Kelly to return the $55,000 the Emeratis had given him as a legalistic bribe for services they expect will be rendered. "For The Intercept, wrote the foolish Perlberg who probably never imagined the Republicans would use this kind of thing against Kelly when it would be too late for Democrats to find a better candidate, "it was another notch on an increasingly crowded belt-- mostly decorated with attacks on Democrats."

The Politico hit job on The Intercept is funny. I wonder if The Intercept is encouraging it. Politico, like The Hill and other Beltway trade publications exist to puff up the establishments of both parties. That's very, very different from the actual reporting The Intercept does. Real journalists don't write for Politico and Politico isn't able to grok what writers like Ryan Grim, Lee Fang, Kate Aronoff, David Dayen, Akela Lacy and Mehdi Hasan do. Politico is a press release-based operation. The Intercept isn't part of their sad little world.

Can Mark Kelly Close The Deal For Democrats In Arizona?

Let's say all his hatred and bile finally backs up and kills McCain and that he dies while you're reading this post. After all the bullshit about what a national hero he was for crashing every plane he ever piloted and spending the Vietnam was in a prison cell is over with, the two parties will have to come up with candidates to replace him. The Republicans have a whole bench of zombie retreads sitting and waiting-- from sex predator John Shadegg and Internet pornography entrepreneur Ben Quayle to whomever still isn't in prison between Rick Renzi and J.D. Hayworth. And never forget that deranged right-wing closet case Trent Franks' biggest dream in to sit between Miss McConnell and Lindsey Graham in the Senate. But what about the Democrats? Do they have a bench in Arizona?

You know, despite Jeff Flake winning the Senate seat against Richard Carmona, 50-46%, and despite Romney's 54-44% win, Arizona's non-gerrymandered congressional districts actually yielded up five Democratic winners and only four Republicans (although one of the "Democrats," Ann Kirkpatrick is so far the only Democrat in the House to vote with the GOP on 100% of the crucial roll calls this this session). And there's always former two-term Governor, current Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano. But, as Aaron Blake pointed out in yesterday's Washington Post-- and as anyone watching the Senate gun violence hearings Wednesday had already noticed-- Arizona Democrats may have a new star on the immediate political horizon.

Despite Democrats’ argument that the state is shifting toward them politically, they still haven’t been able to break through in offices other than the U.S. House. Today, Arizona Democrats hold not one statewide office.

But if anyone can change that, many believe it’s Giffords’s husband Mark Kelly.

The question is whether he wants it.

Kelly had his biggest turn on the political stage Wednesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence, and the reviews were strong.

But while Kelly and Giffords have made clear that they will be players in politics-- through both a political action committee (Gabby PAC) and a super PAC described by some as the anti-NRA (Americans for Responsible Solutions)-- it’s not clear that Kelly is interested in realizing his wife’s political goals. Namely, running for statewide office.

Kelly has the kind of profile that political recruiters drool over. He’s a retired astronaut, a strong public speaker, and he has banked a significant amount of goodwill over the last two years. What’s more, the fundraising involved in the couple’s new ventures is great experience for a political campaign.

But even those close to Giffords and Kelly have no idea what the future holds for Kelly.

“I have no idea if he’d be interested,” said Republican former Kentucky secretary of state Trey Grayson, who is a co-chair of Gabby PAC. “Obviously, he has a lot of attributes that would make him a strong candidate if he wanted to run-- good personal narrative, charisma, smart, drive, been in outer space, Gabby’s network of volunteers and donors.”

...Before the tragedy in Tucson, Giffords built an impressive electoral record in the House, holding a Republican-leaning district in a very tough year in 2010, as other Democrats in similar districts-- even longtime incumbents-- lost in the GOP wave.

Any Democrat who would run statewide would need to run strong in Tucson-based Pima County, and Kelly would undoubtedly have a leg up in that region. Beyond that, it’s about keeping it close in the rest of the state-- particularly Republican-leaning Maricopa County.

And despite his efforts on guns, Kelly hasn’t marginalized himself on the issue. During Wednesday’s hearing, for instance, he focused on issues besides the controversial assault weapons ban and more on tougher background checks, which polls show have broad public support.

Kelly and his wife are also gun owners (he said Wednesday that he and his wife are “pro-gun ownership” but “anti-gun violence”) and his wife ran as a supporter of gun rights in her previous campaigns. Kelly also reached out to NRA head Wayne LaPierre after Wednesday’s hearing-- after firmly disagreeing with LaPierre’s stance against increased background checks-- which suggests he’s hoping to remain someone that advocates on both sides of the gun issue feel comfortable with.

That may be aimed at the super PAC’s political goals more than Kelly’s own, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt if Kelly were to attempt a run in a red state.

Of course, no one really has much of a clue where he stands on the basic issues other than gun violence. Few people remember that Giffords was an ardent Blue Dog well to the right of the Democratic mainstream on almost every important issue. That doesn't mean that Kelly is as bad-- or, he could be even worse. Or better.