You have to hand it to Congresswoman Martha McSally: Faced with the possibility that she would look cowardly for refusing to hold an open-topic town hall, she figured out a way to outmaneuver local constituents who were hoping to tarnish her carefully polished image of a fighter who is standing up to Washington.

And so today, McSally will be having a town hall in Sahuarita and a group of her more critical constituents will be hosting their own “McSally Take a Stand” town hall in Tucson.

As the Weekly has reported earlier, pressure has been growing on McSally to do an open-topic town hall. McSally has steered away from such events, preferring to do town halls via conference call or appear at workplaces like IBM or Raytheon (where people who might challenge her would be inhibited by the presence of their bosses) or at senior centers.

McSally’s reluctance to do a traditional town hall is understandable, given the way that Tea Party activists used them during the Obama administration to challenge Democratic congressmen and the way that Democrats have flipped the script and are now using them to challenge Republican members of Congress as they prepare to repeal the Affordable Care Act, eliminate insurance protections for citizens with pre-existing health conditions, allow coal-mine operators to dump waste into streams, deliver ginormous tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, create a new tax on imports (including those that keep the Southern Arizona economy churning), destroy Planned Parenthood, transform Medicare into a voucher system, round up as many undocumented immigrants as their private prisons can hold, undermine NATO and the European Union, and otherwise pursue the Trump-Ryan-McConnell agenda while they control the White House and Congress.

Various constituents have met with members of McSally’s staff, including District Director C.J. Karamargin (a former local newspaper reporter and communications director for Gabby Giffords when she held the seat that McSally now has), to request a town hall. Karamargin had the job of telling them that it either wasn’t going to happen or that something might be in the works.

But after a bunch of protestors showed up at McSally’s office to deliver petitions requesting a town hall, McSally herself quietly asked a handful of the leaders up to her office to discuss the idea of town hall. Accounts of the meeting vary, but several of those women who were in the meeting say that McSally shifted from sympathetic to condescending in her conversation with them. At the end of the meeting, McSally said she’d try to work with them to schedule some kind of town hall.
As a result, the women involved agreed to hold off on their plan to host the “McSally Take a Stand” town hall without McSally, where they would discuss various issues and try to suss out McSally’s stance on them—which can be challenging, given that McSally will often sidestep controversial details, such as what exactly the “replace” portion of the plan to repeal-and-replace Obamacare involves.

At the same time, McSally did a town hall via conference call and said that she wasn’t attending the McSally Take a Stand town hall because it amounted to “political theater” and a “political ambush.”

The organizers of the McSally Take a Stand town hall insist that they wanted a civil exchange and not a contentious event, as some town halls around the country have become.

Marion Chubon, the founder of McSally Take a Stand, says she was looking for a way “to engage with (McSally) in a meaningful way.”

Chubon said her group “truly is motivated by civil discourse and having her represent us. This wasn’t a trap.”

Chubon says she’s not a professional political activist; she’s a 49-year-old local mom who has a crafting business and her previous political activity consisted on walking her neighborhood on behalf of Gabby Giffords.

She decided to get more involved in politics after Trump’s election.

“Honestly, I can’t believe that anyone thinks what’s happening in Washington is OK,” Chubon says. “I understand there are political machinations at work but it is lunacy up there. She is a leader of our community and we need her to reassure us she’s taking care of us.”

As a Jewish woman, Chubon is particularly concerned about Trump strategist Steve Bannon. “My son is 14 and terrified about this administration,” she says. “After the election, and after I had assured him that there was no way this man could become president, I had to have some answers for my child.”

Likewise, Kristen Randall, who has launched a local branch of the national Indivisible movement, is new to the political scene. Randall, 34, is a registered Republican; the hydrology scientist grew up in a Republican family in New York, but says she discovered a much more conservative breed of Republican when she moved to Arizona.

“I was an informed voter but never really engaged,” Randall says. “I see my party really changing and moving in an extreme direction and I wanted Martha McSally to tell us, what is the temperature in Washington, D.C?”

When Karamargin continued to give them the run-around, Chubon, Randall and their allies moved forward with their McSally Take a Stand town hall. And the next day, McSally announced that she would be having her own town hall: On the same day, but down in Sahuarita, a few hours earlier than the McSally Take a Stand town hall.

Chubon says she had to laugh out loud when she saw what McSally had done.

“Doesn’t it feel like political theater and an ambush?” Chubon asks. “I’m disappointed in the lack of transparency. It didn’t seem like (McSally’s staff) were talking to us in good faith. It felt like it they were misleading us.”

Randall likewise says she also feels like McSally is the one directing the political theater performance, especially since McSally’s staff didn’t let her know McSally was planning a separate town hall, even though she had been trying to work with them.

“I feel kind of snubbed,” she says. “We are very specifically looking to engage with our members of Congress. I’m not a strategist, but I feel like she’s been getting this bad press because of my group and Marion’s group have been pushing this narrative about her not having a town hall. So I feel like this was a trap.”

So both town halls are going on today: McSally’s town hall, moderated by Green Valley News Editor Dan Shearer, will take place at 4 p.m. at The Good Shepherd United Church of Christ, 17750 S. La Canada Drive. (The venue holds about 300 people and doors open at 3 p.m. It’s scheduled to be livestreamed at gvnews.com if you can’t make the drive to Sahuarita.

Meanwhile, the McSally Take a Stand town hall is still a go as well, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at St. Francis in the Foothills, 4625 E. River Road. You can watch it on Facebook Live via the McSally Take a Stand Facebook page.

Whether you think McSally has made a brilliant maneuver or has been too clever by half depends on your political perspective, but it’s clear that the congresswoman is aware that representing a competitive district in the Age of Trump will require a great deal of subterfuge and careful strategy.

This article appears in Feb 23 – Mar 1, 2017.

Getting hassled by The Man Mild-mannered reporter

43 replies on “Political Theater: McSally Schedules Town Hall Just in Time To Scramble Critics”

  6. There are two types of politicians today — and Im not talking about Republicans and Democrats.

    There are those who are keeping their heads low and their asses covered hoping to ride out the next four years, and there are those who are grabbing for all the power they can get while the getting is good.

    Either way you look at it, neither type is looking to do anything for anyone but themselves. Of course, what do you expect, the not-so-new paradigm in politics is you can say anything you want to get elected and then do what you damn well please once the office is yours. People need to stop listening to politicians and pay attention to what they have done in the past and who they have served.

    “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
    — Abraham Lincoln (1809 -1865)

  7. I think Ms. Chubon is being disingenuous here. Speaking with a member of Pantsuit Nation Tucson, I was told the intent of the “McSally Take a Stand” movement is to “force her to take a stand against Donald Trump.” Somehow that doesn’t square with the stated intent in this article of trying to “suss out McSally’s stance on issues.”

  8. McSally refused to arrange a debate with Matt Heinz before the 2016 election and today is holding a town hall in Sahuarita which is a strongly Republican area. I appreciate “Tucson Weeley” for directing us to coverage of her event on gvnews.com and McSally Take a Stand on their Facebook page. I will watch both. I am a senior citizen dependent on taking a bus from the eastside of Tucson. Than you, “Tucson Weekly.”

  9. ” destroy Planned Parenthood, ” ???

    Really Mr Nintzel? Really? Who gave you that bit of misinformation, a fake news channel?

    How can you destroy a non profit that receives tens of millions from individual donors that receive tax breaks for donating?

    http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/contrib.php?cmte=Planned+Parenthood

    Please do at least as much research as me, or what’s the point? Even the Episcopal health Foundation is funding abortions.

  11. Thanks so much for this article. It is sad that our representative refuses to face us and refuses to answer unscreened questions.

  12. That’s a great point Matt in AZ. If you had a chance what were you going to ask her? Why don’t we list them all here, and see if anybody knows the answers?

  15. Gee, McSally didn’t let some liberals set up her town hall. Stop the presses!
    And, my gosh, we’re actually enforcing our immigration laws like every other country on earth. It’s the 4th reich!!
    If that woman’s son is terrified, it’s because of all the ridiculous hyperbole from the press.

  16. Really sick and tired of the left wing loonies trying to change the results. You had the failures of Obama for 8 years now suck it up and let the country get back on track.

  18. I am so please to see the dislikes being registered for my first post and the “Marshy” post. Shows that I am on the right track. What is a Jim Nintzel, certainly not a journalist. Yo Jim time to get your head our of the bucket. Really interested in the constant comment that Lying Hillary really won the election. No she won California by over 3 M votes but lost the rest of the country. California wants to leave. Great idea let them go, you loonies go too, take all of the illegals with you and especially the celebs who promised to leave but recanted once again. Looking forward to massive dislikes I remain your favorite Marshy!

  19. Dude. Do you really think you can hide under a different alias? Your obsession with dislikes and remedial writing style give you away every time. What next, are you going to tell me to get a deck of cards and deal with it? SAD!

  20. Say what? I’m not sad, I’m happy seeing all of you looneys trying to negate the truth. As to a different alias, sorry this is the only one I use and this is my first day writing to this rag. Get a deck of cards and deal with it (gee I like that one, will have to remember it). How about this one Piss Off Peabo. Oh yes you to AC/DC!

  23. @Peabo

    They’re so damned obvious, aren’t they? The hysterical part is that they actually believe they’re being clever. But they’re really just a few tiny fish in an even tinier pond, desperately hoping for ‘like’ clicks to validate their pathetic existence (most of which are from themselves and their various alternate aliases). It would be funny, if it weren’t indeed so very sad…

  24. Who does McSally represent anyway? The voters of Arizona CD2? Or the entities pouring “yuuuge” sums of money into her campaign coffers? I would say the donors. How is it in YOUR best interest to lose your health care coverage? Breathe polluted air and drink toxic water because industries don’t want to clean up their own messes? Or, not stand up to drumpf by voting to block the formation of a bipartisan committee to investigate Russian meddling in our elections?
    I read her votes in the Sunday edition of the Arizona Daily Star. It’s not pretty if you’re an ordinary American citizen.

  25. What are the failures of Obama? There is no measure that indicates that he was a failure. The unemployment rate went down (as it has always been measured), for the first time in decades there was some growth in pay, and almost every national crime statistic trended down over his two terms.
    The states that were not showing progress were those governed by Republicans. Illegal immigration has fallen substantially. He would have been even more successful if he had not had an obstructionist Congress for six years.

  26. We live in Representative McSally’s district. I hope she keeps having town hall meetings not because they are easy but because, if she wants to “represent” us in Washington, DC, they should be considered essential these days. I also was immediately amazed that she would use the word “ambush,” given what happened to the former district Rep., Gabrielle Giffords.

  27. Marsh. Peabrain thinks I’m you. As usual he’s wrong. After all these years why would I all of a sudden change my name. Besides I can prove I’m not Marsh.. He went after AZ/DC who I buried the hachet with months ago. Peabrain. It really does fit.

  28. Per the first comment in this thread, McSally flew an A-10 over a decimated Iraq, with bombs and rockets enforcing sanctions that most observers believe ended up hurting the Iraqi people far more than Saddam and his regime. She then took part in the attack on Afghanistan “Operation Enduring Freedom” — the military is so good at cooking up patriotic slogans — that energized the Taliban and pretty much returned that nation to today’s barbarity, conflict, corruption, and poverty. I know, it was her job.

    Whatever heroism you can find in that, good on you.

    I was more interested in her position on development in our region that remains dependent on a small state university, an airbase hosting obsolete bombers, a missile-maker, and slight tourism. Our region’s greatest coup was getting located in Tucson a local HQ for a company that serves the Canadian mining firms laying waste the surrounding hinterlands (in fact, Sahuarita and Green Valley are probably goners).

    When the Maricopa Mafia’s right-wing Goldwater institute was invited into our “home” by the nutty Supervisor Miller, legally creating problems (for now) the World View project and Tucson’s potential breakthrough as a “spaceport,” McSally uttered nary a word. That would have taken courage, too.

    Perhaps one day our region will have another real _Representative_ besides Raul.

  29. Teacher 55. Here goes.
    Under Obummer we had the lowest labor participation rate since the 70’s. 95 million out of the labor force.
    Economic recovery worst since the 40’s.
    Lowest home ownership rate since 51 years.
    11 million people now on food stamps.
    43 families now live in poverty. To be continued.

  30. 1 of 6 men are either unemployed or in jail.
    When he drew a line in the sand in Syria, Basher Al Assad gassed his people anyway and Obummer did nothing.
    He overthrew Quaddafi, leaving a hotbed for ISIS.
    He called ISIS the J.V. team. They proved to be a little tougher than that.
    Obummer care, I won’t even go there.
    Yep, Obummer was a great president. And remember for 2 years he had a bullet proof majority, so don’t blame the Republicans.

  32. Dislike. Dislike. Dislike. Not one of you chickenshits could offer a single challenge to any one of the points I made. I’d dislike it too if I drank the Kool-Aid and it turned out to be rat piss!!

  33. He didnt add more to the debt than all the past presidents combined if you adjust the debt increases by every president for inflation. You cant logically compare spending in the single thousands of dollars spent 200 years ago to today.

  34. That’s according to the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury, but what do they know? Whether or not it was more than all U.S. presidents combined is a moot point. He did what he did. At least you had the cojones to challenge me,

  38. I notice you couldn’t defend Obummer with any facts. All you know how to do is hide behind a dozen fake names and insult people,
    . Big whoop.

  39. How about the fact the the home ownership rate was low because Bush’s buddies threw millions out of their homes when they couldn’t find jobs… seriously, economic recovery was better under W? That’s when he and his pals took the entire world economy down. And Gahdaffi was a mistake? What about the longest running war ever that Obama inherited from Cheney and the gang? And that other little war that was actually justified… in Afghanistan… and who took out Georde Sr’s buddy, Bin Laden? with actual police work instead of invading two more countries that were not connected… your hatred of Obama is irrational, based on the facts…

  41. She’ll never do a town hall in Tucson because she knows her voting record does not represent the views of the majority of people here. Trump lost Pima County by 57,000 votes yet McSally’s voting record is 100% support for every Trump position.

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congr…

    Yes, she’s a political coward. She is just another hack politician who votes with her party and not for her constituents.

  42. McSally is one of the brightest out there, but as far as being able to talk to people, take in what they are saying, she is severely lacking. We’ve had representatives of both parties who held office for a long time, and they seemed to love talking to the local people about upcoming legislation and voted across the aisle on some things that matter. I don’t appreciate her straight ticket votes in Washington.

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