Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio sent shockwaves through the race for Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat when he announced his candidacy earlier this week, a real attention getter with the spotlight on the battle over saving Barack Obama’s DACA program.
The controversial ex-lawman has long been one of the most hated figures to the left, and that anger only increased following Donald Trump’s pardoning of him over a conviction based on the Obama regime’s use of the federal government to persecute political foes.
The seat that will be up for grabs is that of feckless Never Trumper Jeff Flake, a man whose popularity rating hovers somewhere between foot fungus and a colonoscopy in his home state. Flake’s outspoken criticism of Trump backfired, and unlike fellow Arizonan John McCain, he doesn’t enjoy the widespread support of the fawning media.
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But Arpaio is going to be facing stiff competition within his own party, and given that the Democrats are going to turn the next two elections into all-out gender warfare, it could be that the best shot at the GOP retaining the Arizona seat could rest with a woman.
That woman could be the military veteran Rep. Martha McSally, who announced her candidacy on Friday in a video that shows that she too is a no-nonsense outsider — and one who has combat experience.
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Martha McSally Is Ready To Take On Joe Arpaio For Jeff Flake’s Senate Seat https://t.co/sWgE6NGgbv via @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/y0rr5Gj2jF
— Henry Rodgers (@henryrodgersdc) January 12, 2018
Via the Daily Caller, “Martha McSally Is Ready To Take On Joe Arpaio For Jeff Flake’s Senate Seat”:
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Arizona Republican Rep. Martha McSally officially announced her bid for U.S. Senate in a video released Friday morning.
The two-term Arizona congresswoman described herself as the opposite of an establishment candidate in her announcement video, where she spoke about securing the border and also strongly advocated for religious freedom, saying she would not bow down to Sharia law. McSally also told GOP politicians to “grow a pair of ovaries.”
“Like our president, I’m tired of PC politicians and their BS excuses,” McSally said in the video. “I’m a fighter pilot and I talk like one. That’s why I told Washington Republicans to grow a pair of ovaries and get the job done,” she continued. “After taking out terrorists in combat, the liberals in the Senate won’t scare me one bit.”
In the announcement video, McSally also featured comments from President Donald Trump, who called her “the real deal” and “tough.”
WATCH THE VIDEO:
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The former Air Force Colonel comes across as one tough cookie and is the first woman fighter pilot to ever fly a combat mission. She also successfully sued the Defense Department over being forced to wear Muslim women’s clothing while serving in Saudi Arabia and emphatically states that she has a zero-tolerance stance toward the imposition of Sharia Law.
McSally does, however, have her critics who suggest that she is more of an establishment type than Arpaio, claiming that despite her tough talk on radical Islam, she is more accommodating on illegal immigration.
From the Fox News report “McSally launches Senate campaign in Arizona, says GOP should ‘grow a pair of ovaries’”:
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McSally, 51, enters a dynamic Republican primary field that features a nationally celebrated immigration hardliner, 85-year-old former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was pardoned by Trump himself last year after intentionally defying a judge’s order to stop traffic patrols that targeted immigrants. The primary also includes former state Sen. Kelli Ward, an outspoken Trump advocate who was an early favorite of now-disgraced former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
Despite the aggressive rhetoric in her announcement video, some of McSally’s conservative critics dismiss her as an establishment favorite whose record doesn’t match the tough talk in her announcement.
She refused to endorse Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign. “That’s just not how leaders carry themselves,” she said at the time.
Yet she has tacked right in recent months and aligned herself with Trump as the 2018 campaign season neared.
McSally co-sponsored an immigration plan released by House conservatives this week that would reduce legal immigration levels by 25 percent, block federal grants to “sanctuary cities” and restrict the number of relatives that immigrants already in the U.S. can bring here. The bill, which is unlikely to survive the GOP-controlled Senate, also provides temporary legal status for young immigrants enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.
Dr. Kelli Ward will also be competing for the right to face the Democratic challenger for the Senate seat.
