Looking back on a wacky year in politics

Crazy as it seems, we have reached the halfway point of 2018.

It’s been a year, thus far, of the surreal and the surprising in Arizona politics. Of a cornered governor and the same old Legislature. Of socialist plots and stunning makeovers. And, of course, the usual assorted spectacles we’ve come to expect.

This, after all, is Arizona, where astonishing things so often seem to happen.

Cue the halftime awards, for some of our more memorable moments:

Best channeling of our inner Howard Beale

Give it up for teachers, who took the streets to announce that they were fed up, finally, with a decade’s worth of neglect and not going to take it anymore. #RedforEd turned this state topsy-turvey, forcing politicians to drop everything and announce that, of course, public schools have always been at the top of their to-do list. Of course, the real trick will be in keeping it there once the fall elections are over.

Slickest turn-on-a-dime spin to save a (political) life

And the prize goes to ... Gov Doug Ducey. During his first three years, Ducey diverted money from public schools and last year actually had the nerve to offer teachers a four-tenths of 1 percent pay raise, calling it “a commitment our teachers can take to the bank.”

Then one day in April, Ducey proposed 20 percent pay raises by 2020. This, as teachers were in revolt and his re-election prospects were in free fall.

Suddenly, Ducey — who a year ago said “there is no pot of gold or cash hiding under a seat cushion” — promised nearly a billion in new school funding by 2020 in a frantic attempt to rebrand himself as the Education Governor. Apparently, there’s gold in them thar sofa cushions after all.

Most flexible gymnastics move

Put your hands together for Congresswoman Martha McSally, who of late has been performing the vaulted back in, full out, double salto flip-flop.

Last year, she was a moderate Republican who kept her distance from President Donald Trump and sponsored the Recognizing America’s Children Act, a bill to give 10-year path to citizenship to DACA students.

These days, she’s glued to the president and no longer interested in Recognizing America’s Children. In May, she asked that her name be removed from the bill and quietly sanitized her YouTube channel — removing a video in which she called for compassion and a pathway to citizenship for DACA

students.

In her quest for a Senate seat, she gets a 9.99 for her (almost) flawless execution of the flip-flop. But can she stick the dismount in November?

Flip-flop runner-up

This one’s all Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema, also on a mission to snag that open Senate seat.

Three years ago, Sinema was one of 25 Democrats who voted against the Iran nuclear agreement. In May, she opposed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement. She was against it until suddenly she was, apparently, for it.

“Removing ourselves from the agreement without a clearly defined strategy does not make our country safer,” she said.

It does, however, make for a smoother ride in the primary with the party’s liberal base, which thinks she’s far too quick to throw in with Republicans.

Most fashionable display of tinfoil headgear

Rep. Maria Syms rocks Reynolds

Wrap.

As tens of thousands of Arizona’s teachers prepared to hit the streets in April, this Paradise Valley Republican warned that a socialist plot was afoot. Teachers, she wrote, were being had by a pair of #RedforEd leaders who “promise more harm than good by politicizing Arizona education in pursuit of their self-proclaimed agenda — a national socialist revolution.”

Oooor, they simply were tired of being among worst-paid teachers in America.

Sneakiest attack aimed at protecting secrets

Who else but the Arizona Legislature?

In the final hour of this year’s session, the Legislature approved a scheme to gut the Citizens Clean Elections Commission — the only state agency trying to do something about the dark money that is pouring into Arizona’s elections.

As a result, voters this fall will be asked to strip the nonpartisan commission of its independence and place it under the control of an obscure state panel packed with Ducey appointees. A panel, by the way, that previously has tried to block Clean Elections from requiring dark money groups to disclose who is bankrolling their campaigns. Coincidental, I’m sure.

Most illuminating interview

Congratulations to Joe Arpaio, who upon filing his signatures to run for the U.S. Senate demonstrated his vast knowledge of the big issues facing America.

When asked how tariffs work: “Let’s talk about something else.”

When asked whether leaving the Iran nuclear deal makes America more or less safe: “You expect me to know everything? I’m not even in the Senate yet.”

Best I-thought-I-liked-him-butnow-he’s-dead-to-me move

Kelli Ward takes this one. Once, she was a proud foot soldier in Steve Bannon’s war against the Republican establishment. Last fall, he was on the stage when she kicked off her campaign for the Senate. But Bannon fell out of favor with Trump in January and Ward tripped over her combat boots as she beat a full-blown retreat from her former star supporter.

“He was never part of my campaign,” Ward explained on CNN. “He was never an adviser. He’s not somebody that I would reach out and talk to in any way, shape or form.”

In other words, Steve Who?

Most eloquent non-apology apology by a legislator who has absolutely no clue why he should be apologizing

Give it up for Prescott’s own Rep. David Stringer, who in June told the Yavapai County Republican Men’s Forum that immigrants pose an “existential threat to America.”

Later he explained to a reporter that he doesn’t think all immigrants pose an “existential threat” to America. Only the non-European ones.

Stringer has attributed the resulting dust-up to a Democratic plot aimed at making him look bad by repeating the words that came out of his mouth. Last week, he showed up at a soul food restaurant in Phoenix to offer this heartfelt apology.

“If there are people in this room who were offended, I am going to apologize for making statements that allowed someone else to excerpt them, misrepresent them to the community,” he said.

Then he explained again that America’s melting pot works best for people of European descent because “they don’t have any accents, they’re indistinguishable.”

Best example of a politician willing to rough it for the good of Arizona

Hands down, ex-Rep. Don Shooter. When last seen at the state Capitol in February, Shooter was executing the perfect mic drop and defiant exit, just moments before his House colleagues gave him the boot for sexually harassing women.

By May, Shooter decided the state of Arizona needs him and so began his campaign to rejoin the Legislature, this time representing Yuma in the Senate. Only problem is, by then he was living with his wife in the home they own near the Biltmore.

But no problem.

Shooter managed to convince the state Supreme Court that he really has been living all along in an apartment in Yuma — one that since February has had no electricity.

Don Shooter, forgoing the comforts of home in order to serve his community.

Was there ever a public servant such as this?