Sinema is fine making liberal heads explode
TEMPE, ARIZ. >> When Kyrsten Sinema ran for Senate in 2018, she could not have been more clear. The Democrat did not call herself a Democrat but rather an “Arizona independent.”
She refused to endorse her party’s liberal candidate for governor. Her advertising suggested a strong aversion to partisanship.
“Arizonans deserve a senator who just solves problems,” she said in a TV spot, swatting at both parties. “Not in a Republican way or Democratic way. … It will only work if we can work across the aisle.”
Funny thing: It seems as though Sinema actually meant it.
Along with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, the freshman lawmaker has formed a human barricade blocking congressional passage of President Biden’s $3.5 trillion social welfare and climate change legislation.
Liberals insist that bill must pass before they approve a more conventional $1 trillion bricksand-mortar infrastructure bill, which enjoys bipartisan support. Anyone surprised by Sinema’s stance hasn’t paid attention.
“I am confused by people’s confusion,” said Stacy Pearson, a Democratic strategist who helped Sinema win her first House race in 2012 in a highly competitive district here in the Phoenix suburbs.
“This is exactly what she told Arizona she would do,” said Stan Barnes, a former Republican state lawmaker.
The result is something rare, if not wholly unique in today’s unremittingly partisan political environment. Sinema outrages many of her fellow Democrats — already there are efforts underway to line up a 2024 primary challenger — and has forged an unusual fan base among Republicans.
Indeed, polling in Arizona shows Sinema more popular with segments of the GOP, notably suburban women, than she is with some Democrats.
It is all very reminiscent of another senator who willfully broke with his party and derided those political purists who tried to hold him to account. Confounding members on both sides of the aisle, John McCain delighted in defying expectations.
Democrats complain that Sinema has failed to publicly detail what she needs to support Biden’s signature legislation, beyond saying $3.5 trillion is too much.
It can be maddening. Her shameless fundraising while negotiations are underway puts off a bad odor. At times the imageconscious Sinema seems to be enjoying the bright lights a bit much.
Politically, however, her positioning makes sense.
There is a misapprehension that Arizona has suddenly become a blue state after Sinema won, Democrat Mark Kelly was elected to the Senate in 2020 and Biden beat Trump to capture the state’s 11 electoral votes. It is not.
The governor is a Republican. Voter registration is split roughly onethird each among Democrats, Republicans and independents. Until Sinema came along, no Democrat had been elected to the Senate in three decades.
Trump made that victory possible along with Biden’s win by alienating huge numbers of GOP voters who defected to the Democrats. Even then, both races were close.
For all the talk of what Sinema owes Biden as a member of his party, it could be said the president is in Sinema’s debt for his slender Arizona victory. She showed wary Republicans that there really was such a thing as a not-scary, pragmatically moderate Democrat.
“Arizona is naturally a center-right state,” said Barnes, Sinema’s Republican admirer. “She knows her electorate, she knows her voters and she’s reflecting that in every move she makes.”
Sinema began her political career as a left-leaning Green Party activist, which raises an obvious question: Does she genuinely believe, in her heart of hearts, in the centrist positions she’s staked and the contrarian buck-the-party reputation she’s building as her political hallmark? Only she knows for sure.