Although the June 12 Congressional District 8 special election will decide her replacement, we’ve seen very little of Gabby Giffords’ presence in the race between Democrat Ron Barber and Republican Jesse Kelly.
Sure, Giffords asked Barber to seek the seek and she and her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, both have endorsed Barber for this run and the Congressional District 2 race in the fall. She and Mark Kelly (no relation to Jesse Kelly) have helped Barber with a fundraising pitch. And the Arizona Democratic Party sent out a mailer in recent weeks reinforcing Giffords’ endorsement.
But as the race hits the final stretch, we’re seeing more of Giffords. We had the announcement yesterday that she’d be coming to town for a concert and rally at the Rialto Theatre this Saturday, June 9. And today, the House Majority PAC, a super PAC that aids Democrats, unleashed a new ad recapping some of Jesse Kelly’s more radical positions—eliminating corporate taxes and the minimum wage—as well as reminding viewers of what Kelly said about Giffords in the last election.
Jesse Kelly said those things about Giffords before she was shot (you can see the entire speech by Kelly here; it’s a much more angry Jesse Kelly than we’ve seen on the campaign trail in 2012). But some people still hold a grudge against him for his rhetoric in that campaign, as Tom Zoellner wrote about in a recent Tucson Weekly:
Kelly went after Giffords with an odd sense of vengeance, and his campaign painted her as a brainless puppet of Nancy Pelosi and the president. Violent images were part of his rhetoric. He helpfully compared Mexican border-crossers to Islamic terrorists and said government employees were “putrid” and had no love of their country. “Send a warrior to Congress” was his tagline.
He notoriously encouraged supporters to shoot an M16 with him to raise money for her defeat. He led Republicans in chants of “Gabby’s gotta go!” during a Tea Party rally at Hi Corbett Field.
Kelly said this at a candidate forum, in reference to two previous campaigns in which the discussion had been respectful: “Gabrielle Giffords, your time’s coming, because you’ve had patty-cake played with you twice. We play to win. We play to win on this campaign. … We’re coming.”
I worked on that campaign for Gabrielle and will never forget the way she was personally vilified in the months leading up to the massacre—the way that it became acceptable to talk about her as though she was a traitor to her country and somebody less than human. Gabrielle had seen her office windows smashed several months before, and wondered out loud during the election if the partisan ugliness might persuade some nut to take a gun to one of her events and shoot her.
This article appears in May 31 – Jun 6, 2012.
After this part of the Gabby speech he went on to say that “we need to do whatever it takes to remove her from office, to make her unemployed”.
I guess he got his wish…
Then we can talk about his “fire a fully auto M-16” comments when talking about Gabby.
Jesse Kelly, like his neo-Nazi friends is completely distasteful and dirty.
I will NEVER vote for a Republican again. As a retired U.S. Navy
Petty officer, I am ashamed that that Jesse Kelly claims to have
been a Marine.
Her shooter is a Lib.
What did, “fire a fully auto M-16”, have ANYTHING to do with Gabby getting shot, we want proof please.
I personally like Gabby, but she let me down on a business deal, and she voted in lockstep with Nancy, “We need to pass the bill to see what’s in it Pelousy”. Sorry UNACCEPTABLE!
What a sick SOB. If he had any integrity, he would drop his campaign in favor of Ron Barber who has done wonders for hundreds of veterans who needed help with medical care and benefits, an area where Kelly is completely lacking in expertise.
Kelly brings nothing to the table; no experience, no education, no accomplishments. Just feeding off of the government trough with recovery money from the federal government while at the same time he complains that the program even exists. Hypocrite!
Kelly is a carpetbagger with no grasp on any meaningful policies. He is a disgrace to the legacy of the Republican Party of Arizona (of course that goes without saying for the current class. McCain was the last moderate until he wigged out). He thinks he can remake himself during this campaign and think we will ever forgive him for his vicious attacks in 2010. Never. Regardless of how this election turns out, his campaign legacy against Gabby Giffords will haunt him.
In party line votes, Gabby voted against the party line 60% of the time in 2010, this would be the opposite of ‘lockstep’, 2. Her shooter became a right wing extremist i.e. skinhead several months before the shooting. Get your facts straight folks, as Yogi said, “Look it up”.
He is not a “small businessman who creates jobs”- His FATHER is a businessman who used the Obama stimulus money he opposes to create jobs while feathering his own nest.
He is didn’t have the intelligence or work ethic needed to get a college degree. He’s a drop-out.
He’s a puppet for radical right wing out of state interests
He wants to eliminate the Social Security and Medicare benefits you have paid for
He wants corporations to pay no taxes
He wants to eliminate the minimum wage.
Jesse Kelly is a liar.
but he likes his grandpa