Dem
51
GOP
49
And speaking of faux Democrats turned independents, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) has been talking to her donors about her plans for reelection. It is not clear from the reporting if she talked to her donors individually, or if she chatted with both of them at the same time.
Whatever the case may be, the Senator's plan—which has been titled "Kyrsten's Path to Victory"—is to get the votes of 10% to 20% of Democrats, 60% to 70% of independents and 25% to 35% of Republicans in Arizona. In a three-way race, Sinema's team thinks that will be enough to eke out a victory. The Senator apparently plans to highlight all the legislation passed in the past 18 months, like the infrastructure bill and the gun control legislation, assuming the lion's share of the credit for those bills.
Officially, Sinema still hasn't declared a reelection bid, and her people are insisting that this game plan is not an indication that she's made a decision. OK, maybe not, but it's rather far removed from the Full Sherman. Further, candidates do not generally develop detailed prospectuses of their campaign strategy, much less raise $10 million, if they plan to go gentle into that good... well, lucrative career as a lobbyist or member of corporate boards.
This said, we think there are some pretty big flaws in Sinema's strategic thinking. The first is that the majority of independents, regardless of the state, are not really independent—they are Republicans or Democrats in all but name. Nobody gets elected on the strength, primarily, of independent votes. Sens. Angus King (I-ME) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) win elections because they are the de facto Democratic candidates and they get the lion's share of the Democratic vote. And the first time Sinema ran (as a Democrat, of course), she got 97% of the Democratic vote and 50% of the independents.
Second, it's pretty clear that Arizona isn't really Republican vs. Democrat right now; it's MAGA vs. anti-MAGA. The anti-MAGA voters may be of very different political stripes, but they share a view that people like Kari Lake should not be allowed within a country mile of actual political power. We are skeptical that the anti-MAGA voters are going to split the vote and risk letting Lake win. Instead, they will line up behind whichever candidate, between Sinema and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), seems to be leading in the polls. And thus far, that's Gallego, comfortably.
It is certainly possible that if the polls say Sinema's a surefire loser, she'll drop out and conserve her campaign money and her energy. That said, if she was playing the game by the normal rules, and if she really wanted to keep her job, she wouldn't have become a Democratic apostate. No, she would have kept her head low and (largely) voted the party line, like a good soldier (see: the voting record of Kelly, Mark, D-AZ). So, we can't really claim to understand or to be able to predict Sinema's thought process. (Z)
Besides "99 Luftballons," which went to #2 in 1984, there was also "Sailor (Your Home Is the Sea)" by Lolita, which went to #5 in 1960, and "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco, which went to #1 in 1986.