Kristen Sinema is no Bernie Sanders.
Kyrsten. But agreed 
.
Some pointless anagrams:
- Minty Sneakers
- Amnesty Sinker
- Sanskrit Enemy
- My Sins Retaken
- Try Sink Enemas
(They were somehow more appropriate when I misspelled her name with an I.)
The Democrats ran a candidate against King in 2012. Maine has a long history of popular independents running and sometimes it really costs the Democrats (because they mostly lean Democrat), but King, a former Governor of Maine (he was an Independant back then as well) wiped the floor in 2012. In 2012, the Democrat only got 13.3% and in 2018, the Democrats ran a candidate again, who got 10.5%. King got over 50% of the vote in both contests.
I’m really not sure that this is good advice.
I tried one, but went back to doing them in the bathtub.
My Strine snake. She may not be strine but certainly venomous like most critters there.
Maybe that was the case when Bernie was in the House but in 2006, 2012 and 2018 Bernie won the Democratic primary for Senate from Vermont but declined the nomination and ran as an independent. There was no Democrat on the ballot in the general election in any of those years.
More than likely you are correct but I could see her changing over and caucusing with the GOP just to stick it to the Democrats. I don’t see how she doesn’t run in '24. But she loses pretty much no matter how she aligns herself.
Yes, I acknowledged that in a different post but who knows what Sinema is thinking. It’s possible she believes she could win a 3-way race or that the Ds will talk Gallegos out of running if she plays nice. Having said that I see no way that happens. But Sinema isn’t doing things in a way that make sense to me so who knows.
That might be assuming more vindictiveness than exists. Sinema is not a natural fit with the modern GOP. She voted to impeach Trump twice and is pro-abortion rights and gay rights - she is 10x more liberal than, say, Liz Cheney. I dislike her on a political level, but I don’t know that she has any real interest in screwing the DP out of spite. If she really wanted to do that she’d have hopped to the other side.
I think she is just selfishly maneuvering to try to stay in power, which is profoundly unattractive. But she has a slim future manipulating/siding with the Democrats, none with the GOP.
Mrs Inky Senate?
Sneaky In Terms?
Tie My Rankness?
Ms Skinny Eater?
An Independent senator in AZ that caucus and (mostly) votes with the Democrats seems like the optimal situation for the Dems. They get the vote when needed while picking up some moderates at election time – maybe some disgruntled McCain voters.
She may not be the optimal individual for this role, but she’s already in the seat. I don’t see the Dems running a candidate against her. I assume in this day of SuperPACs there are legit ways to steer fundraising to her campaign.
I think she missed a chance to build a better national brand when the Senate was tied – Manchin snatched that role. Maybe this is an indication that she is weak on execution.
What am I missing?
Who actually decides whether the Democrats nominate a candidate or not? The State party central committee, I guess. But even if they decide not to, isn’t it likely that some progressive would run as an independent and put them right back in the 3 way race scenario?
I generally agree with Kolak’s analysis that she is screwed in '24.
538 raised an idea so crazy it hadn’t even occurred to me, that this might be a setup for an independent Presidential run in 2024. I don’t see that going anywhere, either.
She can’t win, not as a Democrat, not as an independent, and not as a Republican. She’s burned way too many bridges. Democrats hate her, and it won’t take more than a small percentage to derail her chances. She’ll be slaughtered. Barring just a massive turnaround in favorability, which would entail actually making Democrats happy for the next two years (i.e. voting for every Democratic priority), she has not a shred of a chance.
She’s a shitty politician who can’t win reelection, and Democrats better work their butts off to get a good candidate for this winnable seat.
AZ Democrats DESPISE her because of how she has behaved while in the Senate. And she’s a complete attention hog.
iiandyiii basically covered the rest.
I wrote her a couple letters and unlike McSally, she never deigned to answer.
5/29/2021
My name is [redacted] and I live in Mesa, [zip code]. I read with dismay and disgust today your failure to vote on HR3233. As a Democrat you do not have the excuse, as flimsy as it is, that the wingnut branch of your party will turn on you in the next primary. The two senators from Georgia, who won by the skin of their teeth and have a lot more to fear than you do, managed to be on the floor and vote while you did not.
Your spokeswoman has stated that you support the the legislation, have,“said so publicly, and … will be entering into the Congressional record that she would’ve voted yes.” Let me remind you that words are cheap and “would have” counts for nothing. Acta non verba.
Your inaction, along with the votes of the cowards in the Republican party, mean that we may never learn the entire truth of the events of January 6th. January last year I pleaded with then-Senator McSally to do the right thing and vote to convict Trump’s impeachment. She blinked and this week, so did you.
The actions of the Trump administration in general and his Republican enablers in particular have made it quite impossible for me to vote for a Republican ever again. Right now I cannot see myself voting for you either.
1/19/2022
First off, let me say that I am sorry that I ever voted for you as senator. Your speech last week on the voting rights bill and the senate filibuster has to be a disappointment to the fourteen senators who endorsed you in 2018 to say nothing of former Senator Dennis DeConcini, the last Democrat senator from Arizona until you came along.
You decry how, “we look at other Americans who have different views and see the ‘other,’ or even see them as enemies – instead of as fellow countrymen and women who share our core values.” Increasingly this past year I see more and more evidence that a large minority of people in this country do not share the core values of the rest of us.
Twenty-three times out of the fifty-nine Presidential elections this country has had, power was peacefully handed over to the opposing party. This last election that core value was broken with the defeated President claiming that the election had been stolen from him and – far more important – the members of his party also claiming the Big Lie or at best remaining silent about what they know to be untrue. The result was the attack on the Capitol January 6th last year, unprecedented in our history.
In 2016 the then Senate Majority leader refused to even let that body consider a conformation vote on letting Garland replace Scalia on the Supreme Court, letting that seat remain vacant for a year so, he said, that with a Presidential election a mere ten months away, the people should decide which President fills the seat. Yet with the death of Ginsburg 47 days before the 2020 election this same individual pushed through and passed Gorsuch’s confirmation rather than risk the change in the Senate’s majority position.
These are only two of the more egregious examples of individuals or a party not interested in democracy, but rather in acquiring and keeping power by any means necessary; in other words, authoritarians. When you compromise with an authoritarian you wind up in a country “only” somewhat authoritarian. As a veteran I find this intolerable. If I am demonizing them it is because I see demons; only a fool would not.
Since 1972 I have been a member and activist in the Libertarian party, voting for either Democratic or Republican candidates only when there was no Libertarian on the ballot. This changed in 2008 when in the Maricopa county sheriff’s election I voted for Ayala as I saw Arpaio as a threat to what I believed in. As the years have gone by and the Republican party has gone farther and farther off of the rails I have found it more and more difficult to even consider voting for one. If I can compromise my life-long positions to save my city, my county, my state, and my country, so can you.
Wait, wait, wait… She entered into the record how she would have voted, but didn’t actually vote? She does understand how this whole member-of-the-Senate thing works, right? What was she doing instead of voting?
Yep, she’s horrible. Totally in it for the attention and to get her face on television.
I swear, the minute the AZ Democrats endorse someone to run against her she’s going to turn and fuck up every bill Biden tries to get through the Senate just out of spite. Especially if the national party gives whoever it is funding.
They better get cracking on those judicial nominees post haste.
They don’t need her for judges, though. Manchin seems reasonably friendly in terms of judge confirmation.
It’s not clear to me whether or how the Democrats could cancel their primary for Senate even if they wanted to - primary elections are governed by state laws and I can’t find Arizona’s. The way it’s worked for Sanders is that the Democrats in Vermont elect him in their primary – and then he declines their nomination. King in Maine has always had a Democratic opponent, but all the big-name Democrats agree not to run or endorse in the primary, so he’s only had no-name Democratic opponents.
I just can’t imagine Arizona Democrats going down either of these paths. So what does Sinema do when it’s clear that she’s going to have a high-name-recognition, well-funded Democratic opponent?