Name: Opinion | What is Arizona’s GOP doing to recover from defeat? Attacking Cindy McCain.
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Opinion | What is Arizona’s GOP doing to recover from defeat? Attacking Cindy McCain.

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ADIf you were holding out hope that Trumpism might end with Trump (oh, my sweet summer child), please allow me to present Exhibit A: the Republican Party of Arizona.You might think the state party would be chastened. Republicans in the state just lost a second Senate seat, leaving them without a Republican senator for the first time . (In a dubious first, the party’s nominee, Trump-tongued Martha McSally, managed to lose both seats in back-to-back elections.) The state also went for Joe Biden, for only the second time in 72 years.Next, two prominent officials in the Arizona GOP, Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, became ringleaders of a plot to overturn the election results. They have been of last week’s protest that turned into a deadly invasion of the U.S. Capitol.ADADSo what is the Arizona Republican Party doing to recover? Why, it’s attacking John McCain’s widow.The party just rolled out a “” against Cindy McCain. Childish and bizarre, it attacks the wife of Arizona’s late (Republican) senator for having “a past riddled with drug abuse.” (She admitted three to a previous pain-medication addiction.)It admonishes her for supporting “leftist causes such as gay marriage.” It scolds her for endorsing Biden, “in direct opposition to … the Constitution.” It upbraids her for objecting to Trump’s “criticism of her husband” — and then it repeats such slander, saying the late senator, a war hero and POW, committed “serious wrongdoing during his military service.”ADThe text then says Republicans will “officially censure her” at their “Jan. 23, 2020 Mandatory Meeting.” (I’m still writing 2020 on my censure resolutions, too.)ADThe state party is apparently one-upping the Maricopa County GOP, which on Saturday Jeff Flake (Arizona’s last elected Republican senator, who retired after denouncing Trump) but was prevented by parliamentary reasons from adding Cindy McCain to the resolution.This follows announcing that “we’re never going back to the party of [Mitt] Romney, Flake and McCain.” Thus, in one clause, did the Arizona GOP disavow both the last two Republican presidential nominees before Trump and the state’s last two elected Republican senators.ADWhat next? A resolution denouncing Barry Goldwater as a socialist? Labeling as antifa?The self-destructive madness can be of Kelli Ward (R-Wackadoodle) as state GOP chairwoman. Under the leadership of Ward — a two-time loser of Republican Senate primaries, one against McCain — the party embraced election conspiracy theories: It called for the state legislature to “DE-CERTIFY the false results,” and when the state’s Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, an erstwhile Trump ally, defended the count, Ward tweeted that — shut the hell up.ADCindy McCain reacted mildly to the party’s attack, she’s “a proud lifelong Republican” who supports “candidates who put country over party.”ADTV personality Meghan McCain was less tolerant of the latest attack on her parents. “This is THE REAL problem facing the Arizona GOP, my mom!” she . “A few days after a domestic terror attack led by maniac Trump supporters.”There had been a strain of McCain antipathy within the Arizona party well , who served in the First Bone Spurs Division during Vietnam and attacked McCain’s heroism for years, even posthumously. Meanwhile, a younger, multiracial electorate has been gradually turning against Republicans in the state, as in Texas, Georgia and North Carolina.But ruin accelerated with the takeover of the party by pro-Trump extremists. (Ward famously suggested in 2018 that the McCain family his imminent death because the “narrative” would be “negative to me.”) Republican operatives in 2019 were so concerned about Ward’s competence — justifiably so, given the 2020 results — that they tried to circumvent the state party.ADADTrump is now spending his final days in office fomenting insurrection and . But the Arizona GOP debacle, and the obsession with demonizing a revered, deceased leader, show the lasting damage Trump has done to the party. In place of McCain, the faces of the state party are now Gosar and Biggs, who along with Alabama’s Rep. Mo Brooks allegedly organized last week’s protest-turned-riot.“I was the person who came up with the Jan. 6 idea with Congressman Gosar, Congressman Mo Brooks and then Congressman Andy Biggs,” “Stop the Steal” Ali Alexander in a pre-event video. “We four schemed up of putting max pressure on Congress while they were voting so that … we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body hearing our loud roar from outside.”Instead, they sacked the Capitol, and — the latest and surest sign that the party ennobled by John McCain’s patriotism has become the refuge of scoundrels.ADADSign up to .Read more:0 CommentsThe most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.By signing up you agree to our and The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.By signing up you agree to our and

ADIf you were holding out hope that Trumpism might end with Trump (oh, my sweet summer child), please allow me to present Exhibit A: the Republican Party of Arizona.You might think the state party would be chastened. Republicans in the state just lost a second Senate seat, leaving them without a Republican senator for the first time . (In a dubious first, the party’s nominee, Trump-tongued Martha McSally, managed to lose both seats in back-to-back elections.) The state also went for Joe Biden, for only the second time in 72 years.Next, two prominent officials in the Arizona GOP, Reps. Andy...

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Dana Milbank

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Opinion | What is Arizona’s GOP doing to recover from defeat? Attacking Cindy McCain.

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