Kyrsten Sinema- That Most Loathsome Of Political Creatures
When you're in it for the money, everyone knows it, but you lack the honesty to admit it
Perhaps the most detestable quality to be found in any political creature is self-interest. No matter how much we might cling to the idea that public servants are in it for the “public service,” too many start that way but are quickly seduced by money. Given the large amounts of money circulating in Washington, it’s not surprising- everyone has their price, right? But it’s sad when a Congressman or Senator makes no effort to camouflage their attachment to special interests.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) has long made it clear that her commitment has been to the interests of corporations and billionaires and not the people of Arizona who sent her to the Senate in the first place. As a result, she’s consistently frustrated the efforts of President Biden and Democratic leaders looking to implement their agenda. Now she’s delivered another blow to Democrats by announcing that she’s leaving the party and registering as an Independent.
She’s said she wouldn’t caucus with Republicans but isn’t sure which side her desk will be on. On the surface, it appears to be a cry for attention and perhaps help. When you see your role as being a sand in the gears of Congress and you’ve become addicted to the attention that generates, what are your constituents to think?
Remember when Georgia’s runoff gave Democrats 51 seats in the U.S. Senate? Well, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema said not so fast, my friend…. Sinema announced she would change her party registration to independent and no longer identify as a Democrat moving forward. On paper, then, the next Senate’s makeup will be 49 Republicans, 48 Democrats and three independents.
Still, Sinema’s switch doesn’t necessarily change the Senate’s voting math. Sinema told the Arizona Republic she intends to mostly align with the Democrats and keep her committee assignments from that party (which Majority Leader Chuck Schumer confirmed he had agreed to honor). Alongside fellow independent Sens. Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, she appears set to give the party 51 seats when it comes to organizational questions, allowing them to hold majorities on committees.
She announced her decision in an op-ed published in the Arizona Republic:
I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington.
Except that one has to question her methods. Is being a gadfly the best way to fix a broken system? Or is this about best positioning herself for a re-election run in 2024?
And has she stopped to consider that she’s a big reason why Washington is a “broken partisan system?” Of course not, that would require a degree of self-awareness she clearly lacks.
She knows that, given the polls, she’s unlikely to win a Democratic primary. However, if she’s positioned as an independent, she can and almost certainly will siphon votes from a Democratic nominee. That will make it next to impossible for a Democrat to win the seat and probably hand it to a Republican.
Or, and this is probably the bet Sinema is hoping to play, the Arizona Democratic Party can tolerate her as a Democrat candidate and their best shot to keep the seat out of Republican hands. It’s a diabolical, self-interested plan, but that’s Kyrsten Sinema, and right now, it looks like it’s the best plan out there.
Simply put, Sinema’s switch from Democrat to Independent is about one thing- her political survival. Her behavior in the Senate has alienated so many of her colleagues and many Arizonans- not least, the Arizona Democratic Party- that she needs to engineer her path to re-election.
The thing is that she’s devious and intelligent enough to do it. Kyrsten Sinema is perhaps the most loathsome political creature in America today. She’s smart, amoral, entirely self-interested, and doesn’t care who she pisses off. But, when all is said and done, it’s all about her political prospects and continued political survival. She probably doesn’t know that she’s universally loathed and doesn’t care if she is aware.
It’s all about job preservation.
“She’s engaging in the political version of mutually assured destruction,” said Andy Barr, a Democratic consultant and veteran of multiple campaigns in the Copper State. “She’s saying, ‘If you make any move against me, I’ll make sure no Democrat wins.’ The number one thing she’s done is dramatically increase the odds of a Republican winning the seat.”
Some national Democrats privately suggested that Arizona Democrats could decide discretion is the better part of valor, and opt not to run a candidate. But interviews with progressives in the state made it clear the die is cast.
“She is the one that has to decide if she’s going to run. She’s the one that’s put herself at the center of this story,” said Alex Gomez, the executive director of the progressive group LUCHA. “She’s the spoiler. The onus is on her.”
The possibility of a three-way race now hangs over potential Democratic candidates like Rep. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), who had openly considered a challenge to Sinema. Public surveys — albeit ones conducted way too early to have any predictive value — showed Gallego and other Democrats crushing Sinema in a primary….
Gallego may not be the only Democrat with an interest in running. Local Democrats said Tucson Mayor Regina Romero could be a strong candidate, and Rep. Greg Stanton (Ariz.) all but confirmed he has statewide ambitions of his own, sharing a polling image Friday that showed him crushing Sinema in a hypothetical primary.
Even if Sinema isn’t looking at these numbers, it’s difficult to imagine that her internal polling would be significantly different. Unfortunately, she’s blown up any bridges to her state party and her state’s voters. So now she’s looking for ways to manipulate situational politics to her advantage.
It’s not about representing Arizona. It’s not about doing right by Arizonans. It’s about using her office to increase her wealth and maintaining her position. But, hey, what’s the use of being in the Senate if you can’t pad your bank account?
Just ask Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
When she came to the Senate, Progressives in Arizona felt that Kyrsten Sinema would represent their interests. They were legitimately excited to have her representing them in Washington. Then they learned that Sinema’s Progressivism was little more than a Potemkin village and that she was available to the highest bidder.
Now that Sinema has detonated virtually every metaphorical bridge in Arizona, she’s been reduced to playing chicken with the Arizona Democratic Party. Or perhaps she doesn’t see it as been “reduced” to that at all. Maybe she’s recognized her situation, analyzed her options, and determined that her best option is to hold her state’s party hostage.
What, like they’re going to stand on their morals and allow Sinema’s seat to revert back to Republican control out of disdain for her? They’re going to want to hang onto their hard-won seat. Sinema knows that in the end, they’ll be as pragmatic and calculating as she is. So, regardless of how much they dislike her, and that feeling is substantial, the Arizona Democratic Party will probably hold their collective noses and embrace her. As distasteful as that option is, it may be their best- and only- choice.
The biggest loser of the 2022 election other than Donald Trump was Kyrsten Sinema. The Arizona senator and now-former Democrat desperately needed Democrats, especially fellow senator Mark Kelly, to lose. Only such a setback would make the party desperate enough to tolerate her continued presence. Kelly’s reelection made it certain that Sinema would face, and lose, a primary challenge in two years.
Sinema’s declaration of independence from the party is a ploy to avoid the primary and keep her job. Democrats could still run a candidate against her in the general election, of course, but they would face an extremely difficult prospect of winning. So her calculation in leaving the party is that she can bluff it into sitting out the campaign altogether, endorsing her as the lesser-evil choice against the Republican nominee.
It may work. If it doesn’t, it is because Sinema has underestimated just how much ill will she has generated across the breadth of the Democratic Party by reconceptualizing her role as the personal concierge of the superrich.
While caddying for the oligarch class, Sinema has been camouflaging her subservience as frustration with the state of the two-party system. As she put it in her op-ed, there’s “a disconnect between what everyday Americans want and deserve from our politics, and what political parties are offering.”
And she’s offering herself up as just the politician to step into the breach and begin the process of healing that disconnect. Truthfully, she has little interest in any “disconnect” except insofar as she can manipulate it to keep her job. Because ultimately that’s what all of this is about. She likes being in the Senate, she loves the perks, and she knows that if she plays things right, she can leave a good deal wealthier than when she arrived.
What Sinema is proposing is an ideology that attracts Americans into the center, which is something not many Americans want these days.
The primary disconnect in American politics is that Democrats are to the left of the public on social issues, and Republicans to the right on economic issues. Both parties are pulled to these extremes by activists and donors.
Sinema has somehow managed to combine a Progressive social profile with a far-Right economic agenda- not exactly the sort of thing Arizona Democrats were expecting when they voted her into office in 2018.
In reality, she’s been wildly dishonest about how she’s gone about pursuing that “Progressive” social agenda, which is one of the many reasons she’s angered and tuened off so many Democrats in Washington and Arizona.
She presents herself as an advocate of allowing Medicare to negotiate cheaper prescription-drug prices, a wildly popular proposal. “For Arizonans who’ve supported my work to make health care more affordable and accessible, they should know I will continue that work,” she writes, “as I did when I helped negotiate a historic law allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices while still ensuring robust medical innovation.”
In reality, Sinema fought this proposal all the way to the end, before finally accepting a scaled-back version acceptable to the industry. “We had a senator from Arizona who basically didn’t let us go as far as we needed to go with our negotiations and made us wait two years,” said Joe Manchin.
Kyrsten Sinema has, if nothing else, proven that a female politician can be every bit as devious, dishonest, and conniving as any male. The frustrating part of her machinations is that, as things stand now, she’s in the driver’s seat. She knows that another Democrat in the Arizona race will almost certainly divide the vote on the Left and hand the seat to a Republican.
In the end, the Arizona Democratic Party, and Arizona Progressives, are almost certainly stuck with Sinema, as distasteful as that prospect may seem, because the alternative is even worse.
While she sees herself as a “maverick” personality in the mold of the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sinema has none of McCain’s loyalty and understanding of political reality. She’s loyal only to herself and her own political interests. Everything else is a distant second.
She’ll be back in the Senate taking the Oath of Office on January 20, 2025. It makes me wonder what she’ll do for an encore the next time she’s up for re-election in 2030. How will she manage to hold an entire state party hostage in order to win another term?
I have no idea, but Kyrsten Sinema, who managed to dupe her Progessive supporters into believing she was one of them, will find a way. She’s certainly devious and dishonest enough to pull it off.
Congratulations, Arizona. You’re stuck with her until she’s tired of playing you for suckers.
