Flaking out in Arizona

January 15, 2018

The decision by Jeff Flake not to run for reelection as senator in Arizona gives both the GOP and Democrats hope but for different reasons.

Flake hates Trump and he has become a thorn in the GOP is agenda.

Since both senators in the one of the most conservative States oppose the president, Flake's withdrawal clears the way for a candidate more in line with the national agenda.

Flake may have been born in a town called snowflake he is no snowflake.

Conservative groups give him 100% when it comes to voting a conservative agenda.

Normally the strategy for dealing with a maverick senator is to buy him off, invest so much in his reelection campaign that he'll become beholden and will modify his behavior to some degree.

With Flake, however, the hatred of Trump runs so deep Flake might as well be a Democrat and pouring money into his campaign would have done nothing to cool his rage.

The GOP apparently took a different strategy and threatened to support a primary challenger to drive him out of the race.

With Trump on the anti Flake side, this would have been a nasty and expensive primary and left Flake vulnerable for a possible Democratic challenger in November.

Although an arch conservative Flake is no saint.

He has already proven his ability to run a ruthless campaign and his change of heart about term limits shows he can't always be trusted to keep his word. He's just vicious enough even in a primary to survive but clearly has other plans for his war-chest such as a possible run for president in 2020.

So Arizona's second senate seat (the other has McCain also anti Trump) becomes an open seat in the fall and an opportunity for Democrats to steal a seat from the Republicans most thought as relatively safe.

In some ways this will be a repeat of Alabama's Senate special election with every Democrat Super PAC throwing every cent they can spare into the race.

You will even likely see PAC money being spent to add fuel to the Republican primary so as to split the GOP in the state by having one candidate go dirty on others so the party will be weakened by the time the general election comes along.

The two leading GOP candidates are ripe for such a fight,

This includes a space cadet named Kelli Ward whose own staff disowned her and who has been accused by Romney a plagiarizing his primary campaign for president against McCain in her attempt to unseat but came in a GOP Senate primary two years ago.

Ward has also made some dubious claims about Chemtrails which some believe are part of some secret government program designed to inject mind control chemicals in the air or to bolster the ozone layer which some believes is in even worse shape than being let on.

Ward's principal opponent is Sheriff Joe who's well known just taste for illegal immigrants has led to what many claim as outrageous violations of civil rights and who had been pardoned by President Trump when convicted for contempt of the system.

Both Sheriff Joe and Ward support Trump's immigration policies and make them vulnerable to Democratic voter registration of a sizable Latino population growing in Arizona.

But Sheriff Joe – like Hillary Clinton did for the Republicans in 2016 – would become a poster child for the anti-GOP efforts and galvanized Democrats in a way opposing board cannot.

You can expect a repeat of the smear campaign Democrats waged in Alabama (which combined with money and carpet bag politicians making frequent visits) allowed Democrats to steal the seat out from under the noses of the GOP and this even with the strong support of the president for the GOP candidate by the president.

Arizona's open seat will become one of the hottest races in 2018 election season and the most nasty in the primary stoked up by desperate Democrats and will become even nastier in the November election if either of these two Ward or Sheriff Joe is the candidate.