Gov. Doug Ducey appointed Martha McSally, answering the prayers of Grant Woods supporters
Opinion: By caving in to the Republican establishment, the governor helped the Democratic front runner.
EJ Montini
Former attorney general Grant Woods, a dear friend and onetime chief of staff of the late Sen. John McCain, tried to convince Gov. Doug Ducey to do what's best for Arizona when it came to appointing someone to fill McCain's seat.
He tweeted:
But instead of doing what's best for Arizona, Ducey did what is best for Ducey. And, unintentionally, what is best for Woods.
He appointed Martha McSally, who failed in her run for the Senate against Kyrsten Sinema.
McSally was the preferred choice of Senate President Mitch McConnell. He's not much interested in Arizona, but only in getting a Republican senator he can control. In McSally, he'll get his wish.
The loser still wins
She lost to Sinema, owing in large part to having transformed herself into a backslapping Donald Trump toady.
How could she be anything different when she is sent to the Senate by Ducey, particularly since she again will need to kneel before the altar of the president and ask for his blessing in 2020? A couple of years with Sen. Martha McSycophant would be a gift to anyone looking to run against her in two years.
ROBERTS:McSally gets the Senate job, but can she keep it?
Woods is a lifelong Republican who switched parties recently, making him the immediate front-runner in the Democratic race for the Senate.
Also, no matter how much they promise to cooperate with one another and work for the good of Arizona, it seems unlikely that Sinema and McSally will be able to work in tandem for the benefit of the state. McSally is totally beholding to McConnell and Trump. And her entire campaign centered around trashing Sinema.
Beholden to Arizona or Washington?
McSally can't risk straying from the Trump fold if she wants all the support she'll need to run for a full term in a couple of years. Not support from you, or any other Arizona voter, but support from McConnell and President Trump.
This isn't particularly good news for Arizona but it's good news for Woods, who actually tried to get Ducey to do the right thing and put country before self-interest.
The governor didn't. He's appointing a politician to McCain's seat even after she'd publicly disrespected the senator when Trump signed the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2019.
The president, when he signed the bill, did not mention McCain’s name.
She snubs McCain, then gets his seat
A petty snub.
He mentioned McSally, but not McCain, even though the senator’s name was on the bill.
Even worse, when McSally was asked about the bill, she did not mention the then-ailing senator’s name either. It may seem like a little thing — not speaking a man’s name — but it said a lot about character.
ALLHANDS:Can McSally and Sinema let bygones be bygones?
McCain’s daughter Meghan tweeted that McSally’s “inability to even mention my father's name when discussing the bill named in his honor is disgraceful (just as it was with Trump) — I had such higher hopes for the next generation of leadership in my home state.”
She was right.
What Meghan McCain said ...
McSally chose to mimic the president rather than mention McCain, trading respect for the senator in order to get the votes of Trump supporters.
McSally had to choose between self-interest and principle, between potentially irritating Trump – whose voters she coveted — or insulting McCain. She chose Trump. And now Ducey chose McSally.
It would be nice if an Arizona politician would, just once, choose Arizona.
Maybe Woods is that guy.
Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.
MORE BY MONTINI: