The Daily Agenda: Whose party is it?
The Daily Agenda: Whose party is it?
A rally is just one factor ... You gotta listen to this Finchem interview ... And we're all hanging out on Mills Street.
Former President Donald Trump rallied in Mesa1 last night in front of his typical crowd of fans and alongside a slate of candidates who’ve pledged allegiance to him and the MAGA movement.
In previous years, you sometimes saw moderate Republicans like Gov. Doug Ducey at Trump’s events. These days, those moderates would be booed out of a rally. Instead, Sunday’s stage featured the MAGA slate of candidates — Kari Lake, Mark Finchem, Blake Masters, Abe Hamadeh, Debbie Lesko and Andy Biggs.
The speakers talked about a stolen election and invited cheers for arresting undefined people (and Hunter Biden) for unspecified crimes. They laid out how they think America is in a tense, precarious place, something both sides of the Republican in-fighting agree on, though for entirely different reasons.
Trump loves Arizona — even though he lost the state in 2020. He’s returned several times since. And he’s molded the state party and its candidates this year in his image.
“The new Republican Party is truly a party for all Arizonans,” Lake said at the rally. “It is an inclusive party, it’s the most inclusive party in the history of politics.”
That message of inclusiveness doesn’t track with reality (or Lake’s comments echoing Trump about immigrants being criminals and rapists). But it’s not only Democrats who don’t fit with today’s Arizona GOP: Fellow Republicans, many staunchly conservative, have been called RINOs and derided by the likes of Lake and other MAGA leaders.
The rally comes just a few days after Wyoming U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, ousted by her party’s voters, came to Arizona to warn voters against supporting Lake and Finchem because they pose a serious threat to democracy. And on Sunday morning, a group of some Republicans and former Republicans rallied for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs instead of going to the Trump rally.
Cheney and other Republicans on the wrong side of the MAGA movement are conservatives without a party. They’ve been ostracized by voters in primary elections, pushed out and censured by party leaders. That’s why the list of Republicans who publicly repudiate Trump’s election lies remains relatively short.
The local examples of Republicans who’ve spoken out about election lies include GOP House Speaker Rusty Bowers, State Rep. Joel John, Maricopa County’s elected officials and several former elected officials. It’s a pretty short list, though. The party as a whole, and the elected officials who crave another term, shy away from denying Trump and his acolytes.
November will show whether the MAGA branch of the party can actually win elections in a purple state. And Republicans crossing the aisle, fearful of what an anti-democracy slate of candidates could bring to the state, could be a deciding factor.
A non-MAGA Republican might not bring out the crowds to rallies like Trump can. But the thousands who show up are still a small fraction of the millions of Arizona voters. He’s preaching to a choir that’s remained steady despite his losses.
That choir alone isn’t enough to win statewide elections. But it remains to be seen how many Republicans will hold their noses and vote for candidates whose rhetoric worries them simply because of the party label.
On again: The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled Friday that the 1864 total abortion ban can’t be enforced until an appeal to the court of a Pima County case runs its course, effectively making abortion legal again until 15 weeks gestation. The court said staying the case made sense “given the acute need of healthcare providers, prosecuting agencies, and the public for legal clarity as to the application of our criminal laws.” Some providers, including Planned Parenthood, resumed abortions. And hundreds rallied at the Arizona Capitol this weekend in favor of abortion rights.
UA needs to provide answers: A University of Arizona professor was shot and killed on campus, allegedly by a former student, last week. Tom Meixner was the head of the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences. The Arizona Daily Star’s Tim Steller holds the university accountable for failing to protect Meixner from that former student, who was expelled and had harassed faculty in the department who had tried to get more protection. You can support Meixner’s family at this GoFundMe link.
The grift was always a grift: The Arizona Republican Party did not use funds collected from donors to cover costs of the Arizona Senate’s audit, despite issuing fundraising appeals saying it was, the Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez report. Privately, AZGOP Chair Kelli Ward was texting people at the same time the party was fundraising off the audit to say the party wasn’t raising money for the audit. The Post also has some more info on the RNC lawsuit against Maricopa County over poll workers’ party affiliation.
“You can’t sue Maricopa County for refusing to hire a volunteer to work in a nursing home if a volunteer refuses to follow the nursing home’s anti-covid-19 protocol,” Tom Liddy, the civil services division chief for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office told the Post.
Actions have consequences: An Iowa man was arrested for threatening Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman, as well as an AG’s office employee, over the 2020 election, the Justice Department announced last week. The man left a voicemail for Hickman where he said he would be lynched and hanged and die. Hickman called the call a “serious threat to me and my family.” Hickman joins Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who have also gotten threats related to the 2020 election that led to charges for those who threatened them.
Big debate: Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly and Republican contender Blake Masters (and Libertarian candidate Marc Victor) faced off in a debate on Thursday night, with Kelly hitting Masters on Social Security and abortion and Masters taking jabs at Kelly on border security and inflation (and Victor saying both major parties have failed). Watch the full debate here, or read the Republic’s takeaways here.
Speaking of Masters: Dozens of his former classmates at Tucson’s Green Fields Country Day School wrote a letter saying Masters’ “extremist ideology” would lead Arizona “down a dark, dystopian path,” the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers reports. They describe the younger Masters as a kind and ambitious student, but say they don’t recognize who he’s become. (The letter also ran in the opinion section of Masters’ hometown paper, the Daily Star.)
We don’t think they like each other: At a Hispanic Chambers of Commerce town hall forum, Kari Lake sat in the front row waiting for Katie Hobbs to speak, a violation of the forum’s rules that said she should be in a holding room to separate the candidates, NBC News reports. Some believed Lake was trying to rattle Hobbs and pull off a stunt to goad Hobbs into a debate. Lake’s campaign surrogate who joined her at the event was Mexican telenovela star Eduardo Verástegui. Meanwhile, on Sunday’s “Face the Nation” on CBS, the gubernatorial contenders appeared in separate segments to share their visions for Arizona on issues like the border, abortion and elections.
Probably why he doesn’t do interviews much anymore: In a testy interview with KTAR’s “Gaydos and Chad,” Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem claimed he wasn’t an Oath Keeper (he called himself an Oath Keeper before), said he still “has questions” about the 2020 election and repeatedly gets mad at the interviewers for asking him pointed questions. He said he’s winning the election and that makes people terrified of him, to which Gaydos replied:
“I’m terrified of you, there’s no question about it … I would just never vote for you. I don’t trust you enough to count balls and strikes at my softball game, let alone votes.”
The deep state stunt: Separately, Grid reports that Finchem’s claims about Google’s “deep state algorithm” hiding his campaign website from search results actually is the result of his web developer accidentally or purposefully not properly indexing his website because it’s coded to specifically direct search engines not to include it in search results.
Kari’s Arizona: In an ad about Lake’s border policy that talks about deploying National Guard to the border, Lake includes stock footage of “Russian soldiers marching in a victory parade,” HuffPost reports. And the Atlantic’s Elaine Godfrey details how Lake is made in Trump’s image, but that she’s “much better at this than Trump’s other emulators.” Even if Lake loses the governor’s race, she’s likely here to stay as a new face of the MAGA movement and potential Trump running mate, Godfrey writes.
What the current governor is up to: Gov. Doug Ducey gets some kudos (and a drawing of him in a boat with a bunch of kids) for the state’s voucher expansion in the right-leaning Washington Examiner. And his administration staged some more shipping containers to be placed on the border soon.
It’s socialism until Gosar wants it: CNN runs through the Republican lawmakers who called Joe Biden infrastructure plan “socialism” who then asked for spending from the plan for their districts. One of them is Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, who wrote three letters asking for projects in his district. Biden then spoke about those lawmakers’ hypocrisy, mispronouncing Gosar’s name.
Animal accountability news: The Tucson Wildlife Center, which rehabilitates animals, has been flagged in records from Arizona Game & Fish and by former workers for “compromised care, lacking protocols, and a negative work environment,” the Daily Star’s Patty Machelor reports. The complaints include unnecessarily euthanizing some animals and otherwise not taking care of animals in a way that sets them up for success.
The Republican Party of Arizona attempted to dunk on local leaders for not solving homelessness by saying, “Have you walked down Mills Street in Tempe lately…” It looks like the AZGOP account finally deleted the tweet, but there are plenty of screenshots (and jokes).
Real locals caught the problem right away. None of us have walked down the nonexistent Mills Street, instead opting for a stroll on Mill Avenue.
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The site of that rally, Bell Bank Park, which was financed by state bonds, has been losing money since it opened, and may have to refinance, the Republic’s Richard Ruelas reports.
Spotted yesterday on a Lexus SUV at the palatial Fry's Marketplace in Marana (Tangerine & Hornydale): "Roe Roe Roe Your Vote" Slick, artful and homemade. To which I would add:
Make These CONTROL FREAKS pey on election dey.
Shout out to AARP (#Old people getting it done). This month’s issue included a state-by-state break down of who is running for which office. I was excited to see all the write in candidates for offices I thought were uncontested. (And if I’m being completely honest, a little frightened by some too!) check out aarp.org/electionguides