Thursday 28th March 2024

Home » Frontpage » Currently Reading:

Contrary To Media Spin . . . Lesko’s Win In Arizona Was No Landslide, But Comfortable

April 28, 2018 Frontpage No Comments

By DEXTER DUGGAN

PHOENIX — With a weakness for asking the wrong questions, those who devise media narratives mislead themselves as well as the unwary among news consumers. A current example is hoping to demonstrate national disapproval of Donald Trump through the fate of other Republicans in elections.
Trump himself isn’t on the ballot right now, so pundits taking pulses designate GOP candidates as his surrogates. Examining the entrails of hopefuls’ fates with the voters is to serve as the gut check of Trump.
However, from the beginning of his presidential candidacy, Trump was the image of rejection of the familiar-ways GOP establishment. On topics like trade, Republican talking points might well be think-tank abstractions, but Trump could see actually suffering U.S. workers being left behind by bad deals.
With Trump’s favorability polling well above that of Congress, might many voters be sending a negative message instead to self-hobbled Republican congressional honchos like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell?
And with Speaker Ryan having announced he’s leaving Congress only when his current term ends, is his face of failure the example that the GOP wants on voters’ minds this November?
It’s the legislative labyrinths on Capitol Hill that failed to tear out Obamacare by the roots, continued shoveling mountains of tax money to dominant abortionist Planned Parenthood, and tied Trump’s hands on border security.
Which conservatives want to endorse a Republican majority like that? But are they ready to commit suicide by staying home and letting Democrats re-take one or both congressional chambers?
Under threats of government collapse, the president signs into law the messy money sausages the GOP-majority Congress has ground out, but the ingredients may not be what he’d have cooked.
The latest special-election result coming out of the kitchen was in Arizona’s Eighth Congressional District on April 24, on the west side of the Phoenix metropolitan area. This was to fill a vacancy created when veteran GOP Cong. Trent Franks resigned in December following accusations that some female staffers felt pressured by his search for a surrogate mother to bear a child for him and his wife.
The Eighth is a strongly conservative district, so winning the GOP nomination there might well be considered a foregone victory against whomever the Democrats run. Twelve Republicans saw their opportunity, jumping into the special-election primary jungle. Touting one’s credentials as a pro-lifer was a standard candidate brag.
Conservative Debbie Lesko, a former member of both the Arizona House and Senate, emerged the winner with a little over one-third of the vote, then headed toward the general election against Democrat leftist Hiral Tipirneni.
Phoenix-based radio talk host James T. Harris on KFYI (550 AM) told listeners on April 24 that the eyes of the nation were watching the Arizona election. But Harris’ guest Constantin Querard, a GOP political consultant, recalled that the party’s primary had been a rough one.
Still, the well-known “Seeing Red AZ” conservative blog forecast on voting day that Lesko would win “by at least 10 points.” She didn’t.
Lesko was the easily projected winner after polls closed, but it was no sweep. The following evening the Arizona Secretary of State’s office showed Lesko victorious with 52.4 percent of the vote, and Tipirneni with 47.6 percent — the Dem losing by just under five percent.
It was a comfortable win for Lesko, but far from a landslide. On the other hand, media cross-eyed wishful thinking was more than obvious when a local radio news report in mid-morning on April 25 said Lesko won by only a “razor-thin” margin.
Some prominent members of the conservative U.S. House Freedom Caucus had endorsed Lesko in the primary, and Lesko returned the favor after winning the general by saying she’d join that caucus upon entering Congress.
When The Wanderer recalled political consultant Querard’s radio comment about the rough primary election, Querard told this newspaper on April 25: “Rough primaries can cost you some votes in the general, but this was largely the result of the current national environment. CD8 didn’t really want to elect a pro-Pelosi, pro-open borders, pro-abortion, pro-Obamacare candidate. They’re just fed up and wanted to send a message.”
Meanwhile, Rob Haney, a retired chairman of the Phoenix-based Maricopa County Republican Party, told The Wanderer that Lesko didn’t come across as a strong Trump supporter.
Lesko “minimized Trump discussions as if she feared it would hurt her,” Haney said. “Republican Party leadership throughout the country are appeasers as opposed to fighters. Lesko followed the establishment campaign example. She was fortunate she had such an overwhelming Republican-majority voting district to drag her across the finish line.”

Jan Brewer’s Record

There’s every reason to expect Lesko will be a conservative pro-lifer on Capitol Hill, but she didn’t help her campaign with some local conservatives by publicly tying herself with former GOP Gov. Jan Brewer as a prominent supporter.
Brewer was a moderate conservative Arizona secretary of state who’d moved into the governor’s office ex-officio in 2009 after Democrat Gov. Janet Napolitano resigned in order to become Barack Obama’s secretary of Homeland Security.
Brainy GOP conservative Dean Martin, the state treasurer, looked to be on track to defeat Brewer in the primary when the governor’s office next went on the ballot in 2010. However, that April Brewer signed into law SB 1070, the popular bill against illegal immigration, after she hadn’t revealed her intentions before the measure hit her desk.
Her popularity soared, Martin dropped his plans to oppose the governor, and she easily defeated Democrat Terry Goddard that November.
Approving SB 1070 vaulted Brewer to national attention and gave her the image of a strong conservative. But Brewer seriously undercut that reputation in at least a couple of disastrous incidents.
In 2013 Brewer rammed through Medicaid expansion in a shocking overnight legislative session, with the support of Democrats and against determined Republican opposition. There were memorable videos of GOP House members in their chamber late at night denouncing her surprise tactics. The hospital lobby wanted the expansion.
The following year, 2014, Brewer shocked conservatives when she vetoed a religious-liberty bill after big-business organs lobbied her on behalf of gender confusion. The bill had no trouble passing through the legislature, then the LGBT lobby and its media supporters staged a controversy over potential “denial of service.”
The UK Guardian’s story about Lesko’s April 24 victory forgot all this, or wasn’t even aware, as reporter Lauren Gambino referred to Brewer as “the former Arizona hardline Republican governor.” That story also misspelled Tipirneni’s name as “Tiperneni.”
However, in 2012 Brewer had helped out Lesko, then Arizona House majority whip, by signing Lesko’s conscience bill for religious employers even though Sen. John McCain told a national television audience that Brewer should veto it.
Lesko sponsored the bill to allow employers to decline to fund abortifacients and contraception in employee health-insurance coverage. Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union pounced with a withering national attack against Arizona, making such false charges as that women could be fired from their jobs for using contraception.
When NBC television interviewer David Gregory asked McCain about the bill on March 18, 2012, the senator didn’t bother to explain the situation but dashed away in fear from the notion that he favored a “war on women.”
McCain said, “I am confident that that legislation will not reach the governor’s desk. And if it did, it would be vetoed.”
The senator hadn’t made Lesko’s task any easier, but the bill reached Brewer’s desk after it was amended to allow conscience protections only for religious employers.
Brewer’s office issued a May 11, 2012, news release affirming the bill was limited in scope.
“HB 2625 moderately expands the definition of a ‘religiously affiliated employer’ to include any employer whose articles of incorporation explicitly state a religiously motivated purpose, and whose religious beliefs play a fundamental role in its function,” the news release said. “It is anticipated that there are few employers who will qualify for this exemption under the bill.”
The Wanderer reported on this controversy in its 2012 issues dated for April 5, April 12, and May 24.
As for the question of whether Paul Ryan should step aside as House speaker now so a fresh GOP face could take his place, political consultant Querard recalled for The Wanderer that Democrats in the 1990s had made conservative GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich a regular target of their hostility.
“House speakers are always fodder for attacks when their party is unpopular,” Querard said. “Now it’s tough to use (Ryan) because he’s leaving. . . . But there was a time when the GOP was unpopular and Gingrich was the star of most Dem commercials. It’s a speaker thing.”

Speaker Jordan?

Last week’s hardcopy issue of The Wanderer, dated for April 26, raised the possibility that Ohio GOP Cong. Jim Jordan could be a principled replacement for Ryan during this election year. (See page one article, “With Paul Ryan Stepping Down, What’s Best Time to Step into His Shoes and Sock GOP Foes?”)
However, when this newspaper contacted Jordan’s office on April 23 to raise that possibility, his communications director, Melika Willoughby, responded with a video of Jordan being interviewed earlier that same day by liberal Chris Cuomo on CNN’s New Day program.
Jordan told Cuomo that he thinks it’s “a good thing” for Ryan to remain speaker this year, but he’d consider the speakership later. The important issue now, Jordan added, is what the GOP can get done in Congress, or it might not maintain its majority.
Unlike the stereotypical Republican who’s afraid of dominant media, Jordan sparred amiably with Cuomo and commented forthrightly, including attacking the recent omnibus spending bill negotiated by Ryan and McConnell along with Democrat congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer.
“I opposed that bill. That bill was terrible. . . . And the process was terrible as well,” Jordan said.

Share Button

2019 The Wanderer Printing Co.

Vatican and USCCB leave transgender policy texts unpublished

While U.S. bishops have made headlines for releasing policies addressing gender identity and pastoral ministry, guidelines on the subject have been drafted but not published by both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office, leaving diocesan bishops to…Continue Reading

Biden says Pope Francis told him to continue receiving communion, amid scrutiny over pro-abortion policies

President Biden said that Pope Francis, during their meeting Friday in Vatican City, told him that he should continue to receive communion, amid heightened scrutiny of the Catholic president’s pro-abortion policies.  The president, following the approximately 90-minute-long meeting, a key…Continue Reading

Federal judge rules in favor of Gov. DeSantis’ mask mandate ban

MIAMI (LifeSiteNews) – A federal judge this week handed Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis another legal victory on his mask mandate ban for schools. On Wednesday, Judge K. Michael Moore of the Southern District of Florida denied a petition from…Continue Reading

The Eucharist should not be received unworthily, says Nigerian cardinal

Priests have a duty to remind Catholics not to receive the Eucharist in a state of serious sin and to make confession easily available, a Nigerian cardinal said at the International Eucharistic Congress on Thursday. “It is still the doctrine…Continue Reading

Donald Trump takes a swipe at Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him

Donald Trump complained about Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him in 2020. The former president made the comments in a conference call featuring religious leaders. The move could be seen to shore up his religious conservative base…Continue Reading

Y Gov. Kathy Hochul Admits Andrew Cuomo Covered Up COVID Deaths, 12,000 More Died Than Reported

When it comes to protecting people from COVID, Andrew Cuomo is already the worst governor in America. New York has the second highest death rate per capita, in part because he signed an executive order putting COVID patients in nursing…Continue Reading

Prayers For Cardinal Burke . . . U.S. Cardinal Burke says he has tested positive for COVID-19

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke said he has tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. In an Aug. 10 tweet, he wrote: “Praised be Jesus Christ! I wish to inform you that I have recently…Continue Reading

Democrats Block Amendment Banning Late-Term Abortions, Stopping Abortions Up to Birth

Senate Democrats have blocked an amendment that would ban abortions on babies older than 20 weeks. During consideration of the multi-trillion spending package, pro-life Louisiana Senator John Kennedy filed an amendment to ban late-term abortions, but Democrats steadfastly support killing…Continue Reading

Transgender student wins as U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs bathroom appeal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to a transgender former public high school student who waged a six-year legal battle against a Virginia county school board that had barred him from using the bathroom corresponding…Continue Reading

New York priest accused by security guard of assault confirms charges have now been dropped

NEW YORK, June 17, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A New York priest has made his first public statement regarding the dismissal of charges against him.  Today Father George W. Rutler reached out to LifeSiteNews and other media today with the following…Continue Reading

21,000 sign petition protesting US Catholic bishops vote on Biden, abortion

More than 21,000 people have signed a letter calling for U.S. Catholic bishops to cancel a planned vote on whether President Biden should receive communion.  Biden, a Catholic, supports abortion rights and has long come under attack from some Catholics over that…Continue Reading

Bishop Gorman seeks candidates to fill two full time AP level teaching positions for the 2021-2022 school year in the subject areas of Calculus/Statistics and Physics

Bishop Thomas K. Gorman Regional Catholic School is a college preparatory school located in Tyler, Texas. It is an educational ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Tyler led by Bishop Joseph Strickland. The sixth through twelfth grade school provides a…Continue Reading

Untitled 5 Untitled 2

Attention Readers:

  Welcome to our website. Readers who are familiar with The Wanderer know we have been providing Catholic news and orthodox commentary for 150 years in our weekly print edition.


  Our daily version offers only some of what we publish weekly in print. To take advantage of everything The Wanderer publishes, we encourage you to su
bscribe to our flagship weekly print edition, which is mailed every Friday or, if you want to view it in its entirety online, you can subscribe to the E-edition, which is a replica of the print edition.
 
  Our daily edition includes: a selection of material from recent issues of our print edition, news stories updated daily from renowned news sources, access to archives from The Wanderer from the past 10 years, available at a minimum charge (this will be expanded as time goes on). Also: regularly updated features where we go back in time and highlight various columns and news items covered in The Wanderer over the past 150 years. And: a comments section in which your remarks are encouraged, both good and bad, including suggestions.
 
  We encourage you to become a daily visitor to our site. If you appreciate our site, tell your friends. As Catholics we must band together to rediscover our faith and share it with the world if we are to effectively counter a society whose moral culture seems to have no boundaries and a government whose rapidly extending reach threatens to extinguish the rights of people of faith to practice their religion (witness the HHS mandate). Now more than ever, vehicles like The Wanderer are needed for clarification and guidance on the issues of the day.

Catholic, conservative, orthodox, and loyal to the Magisterium have been this journal’s hallmarks for five generations. God willing, our message will continue well into this century and beyond.

Joseph Matt
President, The Wanderer Printing Co.

Untitled 1

Catechism

Today . . .

Abortion Advocates No Longer Consider It “A Necessary Evil,” They Celebrate Killing Babies

Last week, Kamala Harris became the first vice president in U.S. history to make a public visit to an abortion clinic. Though the Democratic party’s support for abortion is nothing new, Harris’ Planned Parenthood appearance does illustrate how that support has become a flagrant celebration of abortion as a public and personal good, essential to both “freedom” and to “healthcare.” At the appearance, Harris proclaimed,  It is only right and fair that people have access…Continue Reading

Wisconsin Supreme Court says Catholic charity group cannot claim religious tax exemption

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a major Catholic charity group’s activities were not “primarily” religious under state law, stripping the group of a key tax break and ordering it to pay into the state unemployment system. Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB) last year argued that the state had improperly removed its designation as a religious organization.  The charity filed a lawsuit after the state said it did not qualify to be considered as an organization…Continue Reading

Walgreens and CVS Will Start Selling Abortion Pills That Kill Babies

The two largest pharmacies in America will start selling abortion pills this month that end the lives of unborn children by starting them to death. Walgreens and CVS will both sell the abortion pills despite the fact that they kill a developing human being and have killed at least dozens of women and injured tens of thousands more. They plan to initially roll out abortion drug sales in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, California…Continue Reading

Cardinal Burke announces novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe for ‘crises of our age’

VATICAN CITY (PerMariam) — Raymond Cardinal Burke has announced the start of a global, nine-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, calling on Catholics to beseech Mary’s intercession on the Church and the world in the face of the “crises of our age.” In a new endeavour published online over the weekend, Cardinal Burke announced a novena beginning in March, and culminating on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12.

Texas attorney general targets Catholic nonprofit, alleges it facilitates illegal immigration

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 21, 2024 / 21:15 pm Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is trying to shut down a Catholic nonprofit organization in El Paso based on allegations that the group may be facilitating illegal immigration, harboring immigrants who entered the country illegally, and engaging in human smuggling.  Paxton filed a lawsuit against the nonprofit Annunciation House, which has operated in the state for nearly 50 years. The lawsuit asks the District Court of El Paso…Continue Reading

The King of Kings

Cindy Paslawski We are at the end of the Church year. We began with Advent a year ago, commemorating the time awaiting the coming of the Christ and we are ending these weeks later with a vision of the future, a vision of Christ the King of the Universe on His throne before us all.…Continue Reading

7,000 Pro-Lifers March In London

By STEVEN ERTELT LONDON (LifeNews) — Over the weekend, some seven thousand pro-life people in the UK participated in the March for Life in London to protest abortion.They marched to Parliament Square on Saturday, September 2 under the banner of “Freedom to Live” and had to deal with a handful of radical abortion activists.During the…Continue Reading

An Appeal For Prayer For The Armenian People

By RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE (Editor’s Note: His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke on August 29, 2023, issued this prayer for the Armenian people, noting their unceasing love for Christ, even in the face of persecution.) + + On the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, having a few days ago celebrated the…Continue Reading

Robert Hickson, Founding Member Of Christendom College, Dies At 80

By MAIKE HICKSON FRONT ROYAL, Va. (LifeSiteNews) — Robert David Hickson, Jr., of Front Royal, Va., died at his home on September 2, 2023, at 21:29 p.m. after several months of suffering and after having received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. He was surrounded by friends and family.Robert is survived by me —…Continue Reading

The Real Hero Of “Sound of Freedom”… Says The Film Has Strengthened The Fight Against Child Trafficking

By ANA PAULA MORALES (CNA) —Tim Ballard, a former U.S. Homeland Security agent who risked his life to fight child trafficking, discussed the impact of the movie Sound of Freedom, which is based on his work, in an August 29 interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. “I’ve spent more than 20 years helping…Continue Reading

Advertisement

Our Catholic Faith (Section B of print edition)

Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: This lesson on medical-moral issues is taken from the book Catholicism & Ethics. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well. The email and postal addresses are given at the end of this column. Special Course On Catholicism And Ethics (Pages 53-59)…Continue Reading

Color Politics An Impediment To Faith

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK The USCCB is rightly concerned about racism, as they should be about any sin. In the 2018 statement Open Wide Our Hearts, they affirm the dignity of every human person: “But racism still profoundly affects our culture, and it has no place in the Christian heart. This evil causes great harm to its victims, and…Continue Reading

Trademarks Of The True Messiah

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Charles Pope posted this essay on September 2, and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + In Sunday’s Gospel the Lord firmly sets before us the need for the cross, not as an end in itself, but as the way to glory. Let’s consider the Gospel in three stages.First: The Pattern That…Continue Reading

A Beacon Of Light… The Holy Cross And Jesus’ Unconditional Love

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON Each year on September 14 the Church celebrates the Feast Day of the Exultation of the Holy Cross. The Feast Day of the Triumph of the Holy Cross commemorates the day St. Helen found the True Cross. It is fitting then, that today we should focus on the final moments of Jesus’ life on the…Continue Reading

Our Ways Must Become More Like God’s Ways

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR A) Readings: Isaiah 55:6-9Phil. 1:20c-24, 27aMatt. 20:1-16a In the first reading today, God tells us through the Prophet Isaiah that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially when we look at what the Lord…Continue Reading

The Devil And The Democrats

By FR. DENIS WILDE, OSA States such as Minnesota, California, Maryland, and others, in all cases with Democrat-controlled legislatures, are on a fast track to not only allow unborn babies to be murdered on demand as a woman’s “constitutional right” but also to allow infanticide.Our nation has gotten so used to the moral evil of killing in the womb that…Continue Reading

Crushed But Unbroken . . . The Martyrdom Of St. Margaret Clitherow

By RAY CAVANAUGH The late-1500s were a tough time for Catholics in England, where the Reformation was in full gear. A 1581 law prohibited Catholic religious ceremonies. And a 1584 Act of Parliament mandated that all Catholic priests leave the country or else face execution. Some chose to remain, however, so they could continue serving the faithful.Also taking huge risks…Continue Reading

Advertisement(2)