Some GOP candidates forced to face facts

Two weeks ago, two of the three Republicans running to be Maricopa County attorney couldn’t bring themselves to answer a simple question:

Who won the 2020 presidential election?

Now, suddenly, all three have embraced reality.

Maybe it’s because they’ve watched as Attorney General/Senate candidate Mark Brnovich circled the drain, caving into the crazy and chasing after a Trump endorsement he was never going to get given the far right’s demand for arrests and “perp walks.”

More likely, it’s because the Maricopa County supervisors made it clear that a belief grounded in reality was a condition for any candidate who wants to be appointed interim county attorney — a slot that would give one of them a huge advantage in the coming campaign.

Regardless, it’s a welcome development — one that other Republicans running for office would do well to emulate if they really want to “restore confidence” in Arizona’s elections.

What better way to do it, after all, than to tell the public the truth?

Yet just two weeks ago, Gina Godbehere and Anni Foster dodged and weaved when reporters asked them who won the election.

“I think it’s been resolved as to who the president is,” Foster told 3TV/ CBS5’s Dennis Welch at the time.

Which is, of course, the not the same as saying who won the election.

Godbehere, too, offered up an artful dodge that seemed designed to inject doubt in the election’s outcome.

“I have not seen anything right now to show that he’s not the president,” Godbehere told Welch. “I could tell you that there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. I would like to know some more answers, too.”

Only Republican Rachel Mitchell answered the question.

“Mr. Biden got the most votes in Maricopa County,” Mitchell told Welch. “Based on everything we know, there’s been no finding that Arizona state law was violated by anybody within Maricopa County. Mr. Biden won.”

She would go on this week to be appointed interim Maricopa County attorney. (Coincidence? I don't think so.)

The Republican-run Maricopa County Board of Supervisors have been slandered, villified and even threatened with arrest after refusing to buy into the collective psychosis that Donald Trump was robbed.

So it’s only natural that the supervisors would want a legal representative whose allegiance is to facts and the law rather than the fantasies and phony conspiracies of a certain ex-president and his Arizona lackeys.

So late last week, before making their appointment, they posed the question to the three candidates: Did we err in certifying the 2020 election results?

The unanimous answer was an unequivocal no.

Foster cited “clear evidence that Biden received the most votes in the county,” adding that “countless audits and reviews” have turned up nothing to suggest the election should not have been certified.

“Further, contrary to other interpretations, the recent letter by General Brnovich did not provide any evidence of wrongdoing by the Board or county officers,” she wrote.

(Cue state GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward – who fraudulently claimed that Brnovich found “widespread FRAUD” – in a dead faint. “Perp walks & prosecutions on the way! #ElectionIntegrity,” Ward gleefully tweeted, after Brnovich’s report was released earlier this month.)

Godbehere noted that the election process was observed by representatives from both parties, that sample hand counts matched the machine count of ballots and that there were no complaints alleging widespread fraud that would have changed the outcome of the election.

“Finally, it is important to note that the long-awaited Attorney General’s Report, issued eighteen months after the election, still does not outline evidence of widespread fraud that would have overturned the election,” she wrote.

Mitchell reiterated her earlier statement to reporters, flatly stating that Biden won.

“I deal in evidence, truth, and facts,” she wrote. “In the various ballot reviews, recounts, and completed and interim reports concerning the election, every outcome shows that Maricopa County administered a fair election with no evidence of tampering or fraud.”

Who’d have thought that it would be cause for celebration, to see an entire slate of Republican candidates reject crazy conspiracy theories and take a pass on pandering to the Trump crowd that has duped so many Republicans into believing a lie?

Good for them.

Good for democracy.