By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — Like various other officeholders, Arizona’s Sen. Jeff Flake grew more comfortable with catering to the Beltway’s political glitterati than his own constituents, away back home.
But he hadn’t been looking too happy recently even in that rarefied East Coast environment, where pleasing The New York Times feels more compelling than staying in touch with homeowners around his district office on East Camelback Road in Phoenix.
Some Flake facial expressions in news photos ranged from distressed to miserable as he twisted in the gales of opinion about whether to confirm President Trump’s selection of Federal Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
Republican Flake already had become so unpopular in the Grand Canyon State that he made the surprise announcement in October 2017 that he wouldn’t even try for a second six-year Senate term in 2018.
An ardent Never Trumper, Flake tried to establish himself as a commanding lecturer on morality and ethics, even while his constituents spotted the sham.
Phoenix conservative talk-radio host Seth Leibsohn (KKNT, 960 AM) told his listeners on September 28 that Flake had hurt his image even with Arizona moderates in 2017 when he continued to fund-raise for his re-election right up to 72 hours before he announced he was withdrawing from the race. Leibsohn mentioned former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice being enlisted in this effort.
As Flake continued to rake in contributions, The Washington Examiner back on October 6, 2017, had posted: “Flake has raised $4 million so far this year, and help is on the way in the weeks ahead. Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) is headed to Arizona this month to headline a fund-raiser for his colleague. Condoleezza Rice . . . is also scheduled to raise (money) for the senator.”
But on October 24, Flake announced his withdrawal.
And as this writer has mentioned more than once, Flake underwent a conversion of convenience for only as long as needed during his first Senate campaign, in 2012, claiming to have seen the error of his ways in his well-known porous-borders record.
“Comprehensive immigration reform is a dead end,” Flake highlighted in yellow on a 2012 campaign mailer under the words “Honest and Thoughtful.” That lasted only as long as it took Flake to win a Senate seat then sign on as a member of the “Gang of Eight” for “comprehensive immigration reform.”
The freshman senator also had received a coveted seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, from whence he works his will now.
Is that furrowed brow these days a sign of pangs of conscience?
Phoenix attorney John Jakubczyk, a former president of Arizona Right to Life, told The Wanderer in an October 1 interview that he doubts whether Flake is happy as a senator.
“I voted for him and I wanted him to do the right things,” Jakubczyk said, adding that he became disappointed with Flake over the course of his Senate term. “…I don’t think he’s done as well as he could have.”
An outraged Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) was rallying Republican senators to stand up for Kavanaugh when Flake undercut him at the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 28 by saying further FBI investigation of Kavanaugh was needed. This added to other delays the committee’s minority Democrats had engineered in hopes of scuttling Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
Referring to Flake’s committee action, Jakubczyk told The Wanderer, “I’ve been quite disappointed in the way that Sen. Flake has approached this situation. While I understand that he wanted everything done thoroughly, I think the presentation that day accomplished that goal.”
Jakubczyk meant that testimony before the committee by Kavanaugh and his original accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, as well as questioning by Arizona sex-crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, should have been sufficient. With significant memory gaps and inconsistencies, Ford said Kavanaugh attempted to rape her when they both were teenagers.
Mitchell subsequently prepared a report saying there wasn’t sufficient evidence to bring a prosecution against Kavanaugh. “A ‘he said, she said’ case is incredibly difficult to prove. But this case is even weaker than that,” Mitchell concluded.
“If he (Flake) reads Rachel Mitchell’s report,” Jakubczyk said, “that should give him the confidence to go forward” with Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
As this story was written on October 2, senators awaited the results of the additional FBI report that Flake pressed for. Flake’s decision reportedly had been influenced by two screaming left-wing women who confronted him in a Capitol Hill elevator.
“I appreciate his concern,” Jakubczyk said, and “taking to heart the screaming, yelling women in the elevator. I think that had an effect on him.”
Citing Flake’s shamefaced elevator surrender, Phoenix conservative talk-radio host James T. Harris (KFYI, 550 AM) said on October 2, “This is Jeff Flake’s legacy, weakness.” The previous day Harris said, “What Jeff Flake has unleashed — unconscionable….The goalposts keep moving.”
Flake had endeared himself as a senator to the dominant establishment by adopting its script — lamenting divisiveness and discord in the nation while ignoring its major source, left-wing agitation.
Just before Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings began on September 4, left-wing establishment Democrats spent a week lauding civility and bipartisanship in connection with memorials for the recently deceased Sen. John McCain. But as soon as Kavanaugh sat down, gut-punching, babbling, screaming Democrats started their assaults.
Conservative researcher Michelle Malkin reported on September 6 that Democrat senators distributed gallery passes, which require good conduct, to radicals so they could rail against Kavanaugh.
Prior to joining the Senate, Flake had served six two-year terms in the U.S. House, deepening some voters’ suspicions of him while violating his own pledge to run for no more than three House terms.
In October 2017 The Wanderer reported one conservative activist’s regret at having worked in Flake’s 2012 Senate campaign. This newspaper caught up with Ron Ludders, chairman of the Arizona Project Tea Party, in north Phoenix, at a September 17 campaign rally against Flake, the week before the senator announced he was dropping out.
The October 26, 2017, hardcopy issue of The Wanderer reported that Ludders said he repeatedly was implored by a national conservative group to back Flake lest a Democrat win the open Senate seat.
“Ludders said he was reluctant to do so,” this newspaper reported, “because of Flake’s spotty record as a Republican congressman, including supporting open borders, but he finally joined the effort to save the seat for the GOP because ‘Flake clearly was on his way to defeat. . . .
“‘Grudgingly, I finally agreed to help Flake, and put my reputation on the line to elect Flake,’ Ludders said,” The Wanderer reported. “‘I had to convince Tea Party leaders around Arizona to grit their teeth and support Flake. He won but never thanked me or anyone else for their sacrifice. Flake will not receive this kind of support this time’.”
As it turned out, Flake realized his record wouldn’t help him to win a second term.
A Self-Admitted Globalist
On October 2 Rob Haney, a retired chairman of the Phoenix-based Maricopa County Republican Party, emailed The Wanderer some details of how Flake had hurt himself.
After recalling Flake violating his pledge to run for only three terms in the U.S. House, and resuming his porous-borders position while joining the Senate’s “Gang of Eight,” Haney said:
“As a proud, self-admitted globalist, Flake backed (Barack) Obama’s normalizing relations with the brutal Communist dictators of Cuba. He became a regular member of Obama’s basketball team and flew to events with Obama, giving him bipartisan support. He also escorted Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland, to Senate meetings in spite of strong Republican Party opposition.
“Flake is now blocking Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, because of his hatred for all things Trump,” Haney said. “Even moderate Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham saw through the stalling lies of the Democrat senators and forcefully called them out for it.
“Sen. Flake epitomizes the definition for his surname,” Haney added. “He appears to be auditioning for a job” with the “mainstream media.”
Conservative GOP political consultant Constantin Querard told The Wanderer on September 30:
“Like many senators, Jeff Flake is hardly a profile in courage. So it was no surprise that he gave the Democrats a temporary victory in exchange for the opportunity to avoid the heat that came with taking what he knew to be the right position in favor of confirmation. Behind the scenes his position was supported and encouraged by Senators Collins and Murkowski for the same reasons.
“They didn’t want to cast the tough vote to confirm and they want the week to grant them a political fig leaf large enough to vote for Kavanagh at the end of the process. If there is a silver lining, it is that a week without the FBI turning up anything major will likely be enough to bring all three votes into the fold and make Kavanagh’s confirmation a done deal,” Querard said.
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