Gabby Giffords has found herself in the center of a minor controversy in Congressman Ron Barber’s race for reelection against GOP challenger Martha McSally.
The Washington Post reported last week that McSally told a Tucson crowd that she thought she had a shot at unseating Barber because she’s more like Giffords than Barber is:
“We are rugged individuals,” she says at an event in Tucson. “We elect unique people to represent us in this district—Mo Udall, Jim Kolbe, Gabby Giffords. I resemble Gabby Giffords more than the man who worked for her, although I am grateful for his service.”
That brought the following response from Gabby’s husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly:
Let me tell you about Gabby Giffords. In Congress, Gabby was always straightforward with her constituents even when it wasn’t politically convenient. She was well-informed, well-read, and prepared to tackle the tough questions of the day, and she was not shy about standing up to her party’s leadership.
Martha McSally is no Gabby Giffords. Time and time again, she has refused to give a straight answer when asked directly about the most important issues facing Southern Arizona. When someone points out how she changed her position on an issue from August to October, McSally complains that politics isn’t fair. But when she talks to the tea party, she toes their line, spouting their policies on everything from health care to women’s rights and Social Security.
Gabby and I are proud to support Ron Barber. Ron has been serving the people of this community for his entire life and in his short time in Congress he has already proven himself to be a strong voice for middle class families, seniors, veterans and women.
Martha McSally may share Gabby’s gender, but Ron Barber shares Gabby’s values.
This outrageous quote proves what Gabby and I have known all along – Ron must win this election.
This article appears in Oct 25-31, 2012.
Rock on Mark, Gabby AND Ron Barber!
Gabby = Pelosi light. Is that what we want? Pelosi lighter?
The bottom line is, you can’t believe anything any candidate says befrore they are elected. IF they were honest people, they wouldn’t be in politics.
Gabby had one of the most moderate voting records in Congress. Look it up. Stack up every US Representative from most liberal voting record to most conservative voting record and you’ll find her smack dab in the center. Seriously. Much to my chagrin, actually.
She was not, what some people who don’t like Democrats do – use a woman as their ‘whipping boy” – Nancy Pelosi – “Pelosi light.”
People who throw around that term use it indiscriminately to describe any Democrat. Well, I have news for those people. I WISH Gabby had been “Pelosi-light”! I greatly admire Nancy Pelosi. She will go down as one of, if no the most, effective Speakers of the House in history. More legislation was passed during her two years as Speaker than ever before. This is also a reflection on the success of President Obama before the obstructionism of the tea party election wave of 2010.
John Boehner, by comparison, may be the weakest and most ineffectual Speaker ever. He has no control over his caucus. I believe he truly wants to compromise on some issues but the radical element of his party won’t be led by him and refuses any effort to compromise. I actually feel sorry for the guy. I believe in a lot of ways he wants to do what’s best for the country, just as Nancy Pelosi does (and did as Speaker).
I notice that it’s always Congresswoman Pelosi who is the demonized Democrat; in blogs, comments and commercial ads.
I am the president of a women’s Democratic club. We currently have an open case with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department because we are being harassed through the mail with letters containing pictures of —-Nancy Pelosi, adorned with exquisite prose…using the “W”, “B” and “C” words as well as diagrams and arrows to anatomical parts with just as “appropriate” language. I also received a phone call at my residence from a very, very angry man accusing me of being responsible for every perceived wrong done to his party by my party – from signs being removed (from an illegal area) to redistricting. I guess he didn’t realize that caller ID would inform me that he was calling from the Republican Club in Green Valley. Their president refused to identify him to me so I could report him to the Deputy.
So I have a message to all of you old misogynist Republican men. Dial it back and discuss the issues on their merits and stop the rhetoric. Invoking the name of Nancy Pelosi as some sort of bogey-man just doesn’t cut it. It makes you look ignorant, impotent and incapable of arguing the merits of the debate.
Discuss and debate Martha McSally’s positions. How are they like Giffords, based on fact and how are they different, based on fact. Instead of referring to Giffords as “Pelosi-light”, be informed and look at her record. She has one to stand on. Throwing out one-liners because you aren’t educated or don’t follow politics until it’s election season doesn’t forgive you for using inaccurate platitudes.
AWashington Post writer produced a puff piece on McSally, which might have come directly from her campaign. The colonel rushed back to Tucson, where she has only lived while on active duty, and jumped headfirst into the special election to fill Gabrielle Giffords’ vacated seat. She traveled further by far to get into the race than did the eventual Republican primary winner, Sergeant Jesse Kelly, formerly of USMC. At 5’3″ she’s 18 ” shorter than Jesse but a whole lot smarter and a lot more articulate. I think of her as the ideal generic Congressional candidate for the ideal generic Congressional district, if that exists. But she isn’t really a Tucsonan or a southern Arizonan, not her fault, she’s been on active duty in the USAF all of her adult life save the past two years. However, when she retired after 22 years she didn’t come to Tucson but went in the other direction, to teach in Germany. Interestingly, if she was teaching about the Arab spring, she wasn’t doing it as an academic expert on the Arab world but why should that matter? She’s a fast learner. When Colonel McCally mentions others who have served the district she leave out two names, Steward Udall who preceded his brother Mo, and Jim McNulty who succeeded Mo and was defeated by Jim Kolbe. And all of these people had in common that they had decades of living in the district before serving it in Congress. I’d say that gender is not only the most significant commonality between Gabrielle Giffords and Martha McSally; it’s the only obvious one. And Congressman Ron Barber follows in the footsteps of his five most recent predecessors as a longtime resident of Tucson; he’s lived, been educated and worked in Tucson longer than Colonel McSally has been here on planet earth.
Oh Gabby! You are the opitomy (sic) of grace and class. Your empathy for others and your energy exudes from you and leaves its mark on others. You can’t help it. It’s just who you are. Gabby…you are an Angel on Earth. You’ve so much further to go, still have so much time to spread your wings. Ron Barber knows this, knows his district, knows his constituents, and mostly…gives a damn! Never once did I waver when it came to Ron accepting the task of taking over for you and then running for your seat permanently. Go get ’em Ron!