McSally’s immigration flip will flop

Will the real Martha McSally please stand up?

Actually, never mind. That’s not likely to be the question by this fall. By then it’ll be this: Does anybody much care?

Once upon a time, McSally seemed to be a moderate Republican unwilling to bend to the baser instincts of her party’s hard-right wing.

She didn’t endorse Donald Trump for president and for much of his first year in office, she didn’t sound terribly happy with his leadership.

“That’s just not how leaders carry themselves,” she once said of Trump’s comments about Latinos, women, veterans and others.

Then Sen. Jeff Flake dropped a bombshell, announcing he wouldn’t be running for a second term, and suddenly McSally was slathering on the praise for the president she didn’t endorse.

These days, it’s hard to recognize the Republican congresswoman who represents a swing district won by Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Last year, McSally co-sponsored the Recognizing America’s Children Act, a bill that would offer a 10-year path to citizenship to qualified immigrants brought here illegally as children.

Last week, McSally asked for and received unanimous consent to remove herself as a co-sponsor of that bill.

It seems “America’s Children” no longer deserve a shot at citizenship. Ever.

Instead, McSally has now signed onto the Securing America’s Future Act, a bill that would allow DACA recipients to apply for “contingent non-immigrant status,” which is good for three years and renewable. This, in exchange for reducing legal immigration by 25 percent, ending chain migration, fully funding Trump’s border wall and penalizing sanctuary cities, among other things.

“With a potential vote coming up on several bills related to this issue, Congresswoman McSally wanted to clarify which legislative solution she backs wholeheartedly,” her spokeswoman, Kelly Schibi, explained in a statement. Oh, it’s clear, all right. McSally is facing an Aug. 28 primary that includes a pair of hard-right candidates, Kelli Ward and Joe Arpaio. McSally flipped so she wouldn’t flop. Her about-face will play well in the primary ...

... And likely will doom the Republican Party’s chance of hanging onto Arizona’s Senate seat in November.

Once upon a time, I thought Martha McSally was Democrat Kyrsten Sinema’s worst nightmare — a mainstream Republican who could appeal to voters sick to death of partisan trench warfare, a moderate candidate who could survive a blue wave and glide into the Senate.

I still think she’s the Republican Party’s best chance of holding onto the seat.

Best chance headed — with every painfully obvious pander to the party’s right wing — toward no chance.