3 reasons Ducey won’t acknowledge Biden’s win
Did I miss Gov. Doug Ducey’s offer of congratulation to President-elect Joe Biden?
Perhaps it is unrealistic in these divided times to expect any show of good will or call for unity when the “other guy” wins.
Perhaps it is simply asking too much that the Republican governor of a state that voted for Biden acknowledge that a Democrat has won the highest office in the land.
Perhaps it’s better these days just to develop an acute hearing loss when the people have spoken.
But it seems odd (to me, at least) that Arizona’s governor would decline to offer his best wishes to the man elected to lead this country over the next four years. Odd that he wouldn’t want to offer the next president his support, even if he didn’t offer him his vote.
I can think of only three reasons that Ducey would remain silent on the outcome of the Nov. 3 presidential election:
1. He’s afraid of President Donald Trump.
2. He’s afraid of President Donald Trump’s base.
3. Both.
Ducey has shown definite sycophantic tendencies when it comes to this president.
Who can forget last year, when he emerged from a White House meeting with Trump to announce his support for Trump’s plan to close the U.S.Mexico border? This, just two days after announcing he was opposed to Trump’s plan to close the border with “our No. 1 trading partner, times four.”
Who can forget how Ducey abandoned his plan for a slow reopening of the state in early May just hours before Trump was scheduled to visit the state? Or how he not only condoned Trump’s campaign rallies as the state battled COVID-19, but attended every one?
Who can forgot Ducey’s silence when the integrity of the state’s elections was under fire earlier this month?
Trump may be living in an alternate universe, a place where the only way he could have lost this election was because it was stolen. But is our governor so beholden to Trump that he, too, must travel to Planet Denial? He shouldn’t be.
It’s not like his political fortunes are rising. Where Ducey once had ambitions for higher office, it’s unlikely he could be elected chief ice cream inspector after his handling of COVID-19. Half the state wonders where he left his spine and the rest wonder when he became a dictator.
Even if there was a downside to angering Trump, that ship likely sailed when Ducey couldn’t deliver Arizona. To make matters worse, this is only the third time since 1948 that the state has
supported a Democrat for president.
But most importantly, acknowledging Biden’s win would be a show of leadership at a time when we could surely use some, and that aside, it’s just the right and decent thing to do.
Oh, I know, it took Ducey fully 10 days to acknowledge that Democrat Mark Kelly knocked off his appointee, Sen. Martha McSally.
But we are now 13 days out. What is he waiting for?
Trump has shown he will not go gracefully, crying “RIGGED ELECTION” and launching lawsuit after lawsuit in a flailing attempt to maintain a hold on the White House.
Meanwhile, a broad coalition of top government and industry officials on Thursday flatly pronounced the vote “the most secure in American history.” The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the presidents of the National Association of State Election Directors and the National Association of Secretaries of State say there is “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised”.
In other words, the election is over and all that is left is to ... accept it.
It’s time, Gov. Ducey, to act like the leader of this state and acknowledge Biden’s win. Better yet, offer him support and wish him luck.
Because he — and we willl need it.
all — surely