Kyrsten Sinema: astute, naive, maverick...or something else? You decide.
(A note to loyal readers: It’s been two weeks since my last posting--not because I’m out of ideas or energy, but because The Resistant Grandmother was working on refinancing my home, paying my taxes, and figuring out more health insurance and pension issues. When you’re a mom and pop operation without the pop, there’s only so much time. Thanks for your patience. Back to the blank screen...yikes!)
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Kyrsten Sinema: astute, naive, maverick...or something else? Political genius or handmaiden to Republican dark interests? Depending on your political inclinations, Kyrsten Sinema could be described as either, or both.
There exists at least one other possibility: she’s a savvy political maverick like former Arizona Senator John McCain, known and loved even by Democrats for his straight talk and patriotic code, “to serve a greater cause other than ourselves.” Sinema herself declared to staffers McCain was her role model shortly after being elected in 2018.
In this way she fits perfectly with Arizona’s Old West zeitgeist of being your own man--or woman--who calls it as she sees it. Someone who’s beholden to nothing or no one, out there, working for the little guy. And if that means goin’ up against your own party once and awhile, well, so be it.
But it’s clear that self-image is no more real than Clint Eastwood’s “Blondie” (the man with no name) protagonist in the 1966 spaghetti western, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, that iconic piece of Americana created by an Italian writer, producer, director, and music composer. First of all, according to fivethirtyeight.com McCain was a party man--voting with the Republican Party 91 percent of the time. He famously bucked the GOP on its last attempt in 2017 to do away with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), its protection against pre-existing conditions, and lifeline for millions of Americans who needed medical insurance and couldn’t get it anywhere else.
In contrast, Sinema voted with Donald Trump in the 115th, 116th, and 117th Congress 50.4 percent of the time, about twice as often as Democratic senators from Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota. Her McCain lookalike thumbs-down in March in opposition to the $15.00 minimum wage provision differed from McCain’s in that Americans benefited from McCain’s, but not Sinema’s vote.
Moreover, she has become an impediment to the Biden legislative package that would help middle to lower class Americans in a number of areas. In addition to the minimum wage hike, these include assisting access to home ownership, opening doors to community college educations, improving infrastructure in the broadest sense--both physical and social; protecting against climate change; and most importantly, protecting democracy itself as GOP legislatures pass laws to end free and fair elections--laws that can only be overcome by changing or eliminating the filibuster, which she also opposes.
As for the Arizona’s Senator’s “independence,” that’s also hard to assess as Sinema has not yet exactly broken away from her party as much as not show up for it. While her presence over the past four-six weeks was needed to negotiate the Biden package, Sinema instead met with high-end donors in undisclosed locations at the Capital, then flew off to Phoenix for a spa retreat with more big donors, and then within a week took off for Europe to gladhand well-heeled Americans there for more cash. In that way Sinema’s independence from Democrats mirrored her growing dependence on big donors, on record for their opposition to the Biden bill.
Sinema’s casual attitude toward life-saving legislation puzzles Arizonans who worked in 2018 to elect her as the first Democrat to represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate since Dennis Deconcini in 1977. Three years ago, she described herself as the candidate for middle class and disadvantaged families resembling her own who struggled in near-poverty during her childhood.
But in the last three years, Sinema has been burning past promises, ties and alliances faster than the brush fires that plagued her state last summer.
In an October interview in the Daily Beast, Matt Grodsky, former communications director of the Democratic Party of Arizona, said the Senator’s former network of allies has virtually disappeared due to inattention and a seeming preference for wealthier, well-connected constituents.
“(Sinema) had a big network of people who liked her--establishment Democrats, Progressives--everyone marvelled at her ability to win. But a lot of people who have considered her a friend or confidant or someone she’d go to for donor support or political support, she won’t talk to anymore.”
Going alone...
According to Chris Herstam, a former colleague from the Republican side of the aisle in the Arizona Senate but now a Democratic commentator in Phoenix, “My hunch is she has given up on her previous network because she doesn't think she needs it. I think she envisions herself as an independent that raises an enormous amount of money, puts most of that money into outstanding political television commercials, and (believes) she can get elected on her own.”
Poised to lose
But getting elected on her own appears to be an increasingly higher hill for Sinema. According to an Oct. 8-10 Data for Progress survey of Democrats and those Independents who registered as Democrats in the September 2021 voter file, only 19 percent approve of the job Sinema’s doing, compared to 47 percent for Biden and 58 percent for Arizona’s other Democratic senator Mark Kelly, a fellow moderate who has unquestionably supported the Biden agenda.
According to the survey’s analysis, “At present, the only path Sinema has to win the primary appears to be by too many candidates running and splitting the vote. The survey presented at least four other leading primary candidates for Sinema’s job with Congressman Ruben Gallego from Arizona’s 7th district heading the list with a current 15 point preferability lead over incumbent Sinema.
Republicans
Some outside the Democratic circle make the case that Sinema’s obstructionist tactics, instead of dooming her, may actually be paying off. They see her center-right politics and lack of fealty to the Democratic base as a potential advantage in winning votes in what is still a red state in many respects.
That may be right if one is inclined to believe some Arizona Republican power figures. In an October Daily Beast interview, Marcus Dell’Artino, an Arizona political strategist who formerly worked for the late GOP Sen. John McCain, referred to Sinema as a big threat to the Republican Party. Calling her a “rational, thoughtful political leader,” Dell’Artino described Sinema as “rightly appealing to her purple-state constituents, even if she is ruffling their feathers.
The dog ate her homework
Dell’Artino went on to praise Sinema as “doing her homework,” and having a “long-term vision”-- a characterization belied by Sinema’s first and only meeting just recently with House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal to better understand the economics of Biden’s package. It was only after that meeting that Sinema offered the Democrats a limited list of “go/no go” items she would commit to support.
As for “long term vision,” Dell’Artino may be reading different news accounts from the rest of us, in that Sinema has been often criticized for making up her policies as she goes along to the point where colleagues and constituents no longer know where she stands on major issues. Votes against authorizing the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices and against raising the minimum wage after initially supporting them represent two examples of Sinema’s pinball-like stances.
Dell’Artino’s final shot was aimed at the Arizona Democratic Party, describing it as an organization beneath Sinema’s personal political acumen and therefore not deserving of her loyalty to it or former Arizona allies. “(She’s) seen the inner workings of the state Democratic Party, and she sees, for her, she probably has a better way or a smarter strategy—which, clearly, has worked.”
Democrats on a roll, except in the state house
You might expect an Arizona Republican strategist to intentionally pooh-pooh his opposing party’s effectiveness by refusing to acknowledge the gains Arizona Democrats have made in the last two decades. For example, of the nine congressional seats, five are held by Democrats. And for the first time, the state voted for two Democrats as U.S. Senators and voted Democrat for Joe Biden-- the first time Arizonans did not vote Republican in a presidential election since Bill Clinton in 1996.
Still, Arizona remains ruby red at the state level, with a Republican governor and now alt-right legislature, reflecting the Trumpification of the Republican Party in the state and country.
According to Bloomberg.com, recent demographic changes suggest the old-white male, non-college educated, or establishment Republican party is dying out as migration from other states including California is increasing Democratic vote margins. For example, 60 percent of Arizona’s voters (about 4.5 million) live in Maricopa County which incudes greater Phoenix, one of the fastest-growing counties in the nation and one that voted decidedly for Biden.
Moreover, older white male retirees without a college degree whose mail-in ballots broke strongly for Trump have dipped by 5 percent just since 2018. White women with college degrees who voted in 2016 for Trump over Clinton notably voted for Joe Biden by a sizable 60 percent margin four years later.
Growing Latinx power
According to the population reference bureau, the Latinx population has grown by 350 percent since 2010 and represents 24 percent of eligible voters. Skewing young and progressive, this group gave Joe Biden 70 percent of the Latinx vote.
Ballotpedia reports that also in 2020 local ballot propositions heavily backed by organized labor succeeded, including one that will increase public school funding through higher taxes on the top 4 percent of working earners in the state.
In a way, Arizona represents a current paradox in American politics in that Democrats are making inroads in formerly deep-red states while state legislatures remain firmly locked in the GOP’s grip. Political figures like Sinema, who earned her stripes working in an all-red Arizona may find it hard to switch from old beliefs that bi-partisanship gets work done to post-Trump GOP injunctions forbidding cooperation for fear of Trump’s wrath.
Conversely, Sinema may not be in tune with more calloused Democrats who believe their party must use its majorities to pass legislation while they have them rather than “wasting time” seeking bi-partisanship that will not come. Ironically, Sinema’s current political mindset seems forged by her years toiling in Arizona’s dry Democratic vineyards while, since then, her state has been lurching leftward. It is with this growing, leftward-leaning, distrustful-of-Republicans Democratic cohort with whom Sinema seems most out of touch.
Republican overtures
Some of Sinema’s U.S. Senate Republican friends, such as Texas senator Ted Cruz, have reportedly asked why, given her unreliable fealty to the Democratic agenda, she doesn’t just doesn’t become a Republican? Reportedly, Sinema’s answer was, “I just couldn’t,” which may be interpreted as a deep-seated realization that the GOP just doesn’t give a damn about the kind of families she grew up in--then or now.
And so the disparity between the girl who grew up poor and then turned to politics in early adulthood confounds those viewing Sinema’s enigmatic inability to envision, develop, present, and act on a coherent political vision to help American families and children like she was.
Making Hay
Donald Trump’s influence on the Republican party has metastasized beyond anyone’s predictions in the 2017-18 timeframe. As Trump’s grip has continued long after his November defeat and the Big Lie that Biden didn’t win and Trump did has burned into the party like a branding iron on a Texas steer, both Sinema and Manchin’s belief in bi-partisanship’s still possible seems like a fool’s errand with Sinema and Manchin as the fools.
Republican voter suppression, the two person per State Senate structure and population gains in Texas and other sunbelt states make for good odds the GOP can retake one or both houses of Congress. And then, Republicans will again pass their legislative packages that put thumbs on the scale for the very rich.
Back to the future
Former Obama strategist Chai Komanduri said on MSNBC that Sinema’s moderate to center-right stance, even in Arizona, “may have made sense in the 1980s, but doesn’t make sense now.”
Komanduri added that today Democrats must back the sitting Democratic president in their states rather than play it cool in a faux-McCain act of independence.
“You can’t have a brand in your state different from the Biden brand like John McCain, that’s a fallacy,” he said.
Komanduri described another failing of Sinema’s approach: the bad optics from repeatedly hitting up wealthy donors, especially so far away from her 2024 re-election. He said Democrats are now doing their most productive fund-raising online, where candidates perceived to be too moderate don’t do as well. The implication is that if Sinema were to throw off her moderate cloak and stand up for her party, she might effectively fundraise with her fellow Democrats online.
Komanduri and others wonder whether Sinema developed her independent streak because she once was a Green Party activist. “My experience is that the Green Party attracts people who are non-conformist by temperament.”
Whether it’s the Green Party or other, earlier influences that form a person’s personality and social skills, is debatable. But childhoods marked by separation, deprivation, anger, and insecurity--coming earlier in life and reinforced by time--may act as the strongest influences on those behavioral dispositions that call the shots in a person’s life and career.
To explore further, The Resistant Grandmother (TRG) reached back to a number of references garnered during a varied career as news reporter, corporate manager, and teacher, especially those involving the social sciences, group and child development, as well as lessons learned the hard way raising a wonderful son as a single mom.
Onions can make you cry
Raising children is not easy under the best of circumstances, but peeling away the onion-like layers of Sinema’s challenging childhood reveals a deeply moving narrative that leaves you wondering how Sinema and her family survived it all, and at what price?
It’s a story that should be hard to condense for all its tragedy and drama, but Sinema’s story has been condensed for what little we really know from carefully-kept -personal accounts, the dearth of historical records, and the apparent reluctance of many key players to be forthcoming.
But available online news accounts report that Sinema’s biological mother Marilyn and father Dan Sinema divorced when she was 7 or 8. And the split was apparently so contentious that Dan Sinema and his wife Marilyn both formed new nuclear families with new spouses without much if any further contact, even for the children who, it appears, either did not see their biological father again or, if so, not for many years.
Apparently--again, there’s not much information to draw upon--Dan and Marilyn Sinema’s marriage came apart when he lost his job during the (Reagan) recession of the early 1980s. Shortly thereafter, Dan Sinema was disbarred for “ethical” reasons, a notice that was published in local papers. The family lost a car to repossession and their house to foreclosure. At some point, Marilyn met someone else, Andy Howard, a teacher; divorced Dan Sinema; and left with Howard and her three children to begin a new life out of state.
Their destination was the Florida Panhandle and Andy Howard’s home town of Defuniak Springs, pop. (today) about 6,000. According to news accounts verified with Sinema’s parents by the New York Times and Washington Post, Howard had been promised a job that had fallen through by the time they reached Florida.
(Speaking from my own experience in education, I can confirm that teachers are reluctant to leave their positions during recessions, so the job market can shrink down to almost nothing and stay that way indefinitely even well past a recession’s end.)
The newly configured family needed a roof over its head which depended on steady employment. The Howard family had an abandoned gas station on their property and made it available until the family could get on its feet.
The Howards gave Andy’s family access to amenities such as bathrooms with showers, hot meals, and other support, according to one one of the few Howard family members who spoke to newspapers. After three years of only temporary employment as a computer teacher, Andy Howard obtained a full-time position with the Walton County school system, and with the help of the local Mormon Church, was able to get a mortgage and move his family into a small house.
Beyond the story of the abandoned gas station and whether it did or did not have electricity and running water, only a few remaining fragments readily exist about Sinema’s childhood, with many puzzle pieces still missing, especially about the other members of Sinema’s immediate family. What little coverage exists raises more questions, especially about Sinema’s siblings--an older brother, younger sister, and a younger brother who has appeared recently but is not mentioned in earlier accounts.
For example, Sinema’s older brother Paul Caldwell, a policeman for many years in Tucson, has a different last name from Sinema’s biological father (Sinema), stepfather (Howard), and mother’s maiden name (Wiley). Available online information also did not mention a young brother “Sterling,” who showed up on Sinema’s Twitter feed announcing how proud she was of recognition Sterling earned while in the Navy. No last name was referenced and I could not find one while searching online.
Missing Sister
Web accounts mentioned Sinema had a younger singer who moved with the family to Florida, but no first name is included in those findings. A search for “Sinema younger sister” yielded only a link to a story about an Arizona num with a different last name from Sinema, Howard, or Wiley. The story did not contain a reference to the nun (a.k.a. “sister”) being related to Sinema in any way.
Estranged parents?
Sinema’s family mysteries extend to her parents as Andy and Marilyn, aside from a conversation here and there with reporters on the electricity and water issues at the gas station, don’t seem to be a presence in the Arizona senator’s life.
Famously, Sinema attended her January 2019 Senate swearing-in ceremony alone, clad in a signature sleeveless dress with a prominent print, sparkly stilettos, and curly hairdo. No parents, siblings, or friends were in attendance and Sinema took the oath on a copy of the Constitution, rather than a family bible, an item that’s traditional but not required.
One of Sinema’s maternal aunts, Sandy Wiley, turned up online with statement confirming the Howard family’s hardship in their earliest years in Florida, saying:
“These were very difficult times for her family. I am so proud of her. She never let this challenge hold her back. Instead, it drove her to help others who are struggling.”
Is she?
The Arizona Senator’s Oct. 21 talk with House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal seems to have broken Sinema’s impasse...a little, but not fully at the time of this writing.
In a brief news conference on the steps of the Capitol after their meeting, Neal reported beginning their conversation saying, “‘Kyrsten, this has got to pass,’” and she said, ‘I couldn’t agree more,’” Neal said.
Still protecting the rich
So far the only issues Sinema’s OK with are the child tax credits, an expansion of paid medical leave, and a shift to renewable fuels...not exactly a full-throated version of helping “others who are struggling,” in her aunt's words.
Sinema objects to the package’s modest tax increases to corporations and wealthy interests--the kind who have been donating generously to her campaign coffers.
Bases are loaded, two out...
In answer to a question as to whether Sinema understands the urgency behind her deliberations, Neal said:
“I did point out that this was the ninth inning. I mean, when are you going to vet these issues?” Neal asked rhetorically in the interview he gave on the Capitol steps.
He added, “She said to me, ‘We agree on this, this has got to happen.' That gives us an opening,” apparently not yet having received an answer to how Sinema will vet the remaining issues she dislikes.
An opening is closing
To The Resistant Grandmother, it seems the “opening” Neal hopes for should have happened in the first inning, third inning, or at least, before the seventh inning stretch...but not at this late date.
But Sinema approaches her job with personal conviction in her own “rightness”--she’s right and others aren’t. And this close-minded, overly confident approach to decision-making can slow things down by not reaching out to others enough, early on:
“It’s not effective to pressure me on anything. Because I am a thoughtful person who takes a lot of time, deliberately, to make decisions. Once I’ve made a decision, I feel very comfortable with it. And it doesn’t matter what other people think.”
“Perhaps you’d be happier…”
If Sinema were working in a corporate or academic environment, a refusal to work collegially and efficiently with others might tee up a sequential process of reprimands, monitored or “guided” team effectiveness training, and ultimate dismissal if all else failed.
A Purdue University exploration of workplace dysfunction called “counterproductive work behavior” (CWBs), focused less on limited examples of workplace dysfunction such as petty theft, alcohol and drug use, and absenteeism and more on broader dysfunctional employee personality traits such as narcissism (grandiosity and a willingness to exploit others); psychopathy (serial lying, manipulation and anxiety; low or absence of empathy or guilt; and impulsivity); and machiavellianism (excitement toward manipulation and cruelty). Such personal characteristics may be associated with theft, absenteeism, etc. but can be traced to larger behavior issues not previously understood. Identifying such traits early enough in a person’s employment history can raise the odds of being treated and addressed.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2011.01220.
Bullying research has also become prevalent due to its importance in schools, where bullied children often suffer tragic consequences at their own or the bully's hand. “Shame” as a by-product is linked to bullying and recent studies link antisocial personality types Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, such as those plagued by the broken relationships, distancing, lack of empathy, and ego-centrism that may result.
As a by-product of bullying, “shame” too became a favorite topic of study. Children with shame become vulnerable to developing one or more antisocial personality types by triggering a number of unhealthy compensations, such as broken relationships, distancing, lack of empathy, and ego-centricism that plague childhood-born personality aberrations.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5769808/
Whether acknowledged or not, chances are the future Senator was likely to have been teased, shunned or bullied at some point for her homelessness (the abandoned gas station would qualify), near-poverty, parents’ divorce, and father’s disbarment for ethical reasons--news which might have made its way to Florida as it was published in the local Arizona papers and may have been shared in Mormon circles.
It’s odd...
To The Resistant Grandmother the question whether Sinema’s childhood has affected her judgment and ability to get along is at least worth asking. It’s odd Sinema has focused so much time and energy in the last few months worrying about qualifications for her next triathlon, preparations for the Boston Marathon (which she passed up due to a broken foot), and non-stop fund-raising in the middle of a consequential legislative crisis for an election that is three years away. All reflect a lack of seriousness both about her job and the unique precariousness of the time.
So, what is “up” with Kyrsten Sinema? TRG weighs in…
Clearly, there’s a disconnect between the three possible options describing Sinema that began this posting.
No, not “astute”
Is Sinema an astute, strategic politician playing three-dimensional chess while we mere mortals can only sit by and wonder at her political acumen? No, for several reasons.
First, Sinema seems unable to read the urgency of the moment--both for herself and the nation. Her little-girl insistence on playing by her own rules while ignoring her Arizona constituents’ calls she represent their interests on negotiating down drug prices, raising the minimum wage, helping to pass the Biden agenda, and carve out or do away with the filibuster have set off a firestorm in her home state with promises to primary and replace her in 2024 when her term is up.
For Americans in general, who by extension have become her constituents because Sinema is one of two Democratic holdouts, the anger is just as palpable. Sinema’s opponents believe we see something Sinema does not: that her obstinacy threatens the viability of the country, both in giving Republicans a checkered flag to destroy free and fair elections and awarding the opposing party with a better chance of winning back both houses of Congress and the presidency if our 2022 running platform turns out to be weak tea.
“Naive” Doesn’t capture it, either...
Here, we’re getting warmer. But to the TRG “naivete” doesn’t capture the depth of Sinema’s problems either.
To this (now retired) high school English teacher, “naive” conjures up images of Huckleberry Finn, Candide, and David Copperfield, characters like others who set out on a troubled quest for identity, and end up wiser and more confident from their journey.
Sinema’s bildungsroman from the abandoned gas station to the halls of Congress may have made her more confident, but not wiser. At 45 and with 20 years of experience in politics, she fails to understand the significance of her responsibilities as a public servant both to Arizona and a nation living on a knife’s edge partly of her doing.
Maverick? No.
The most famous political maverick both in the nation’s consciousness and Sinema’s is John McCain. But comparisons to the former prisoner of war and trusted partner of fellow senators and global allies, again, don’t add up.
McCain’s prisoner of war history, integrity as a presidential candidate who famously assured a GOP rally-goer that Obama was a “decent man,” and renegade only when casting a vote with Democrats when there was a greater obligation to the health and welfare of the American people stands in stark contrast to Sinema’s ego-centric, un-informed approach to the job.
McCain’s credo, “serving a cause greater than ourselves,” hasn’t registered with Sinema who pads her campaign coffers and serves the filibuster over the national interest. It seems not to concern Sinema or she just doesn’t “get” how the arcane tradition stands in the way of overturning the multitude of anti-democratic laws belching out of red state legislatures like unregulated emissions that also must be curbed..
That Sinema’s not putting in enough time, energy, or collaboration to get the job done has by now constructed a powerful indictment against entertaining any similarities with McCain.
The drama of a troubled past, present, and future
Instead, to TRG Sinema appears a tragic figure from a troubled childhood--one inclined to see herself, not her constituents or the nation, as a primary focus of attention.
A lifetime of shedding formerly close relationships, a partiality to “go-it-alone” when others are counting on you, a lack of empathy for constituents both local and national, and the kind of hard shell that comes from overcoming so much, so soon suggest Sinema has not emerged from her past in quite the way this moment in history requires she must.
As to how all of this ends up...stay involved, and stay tuned.
Call Kyrsten Sinema and urge her to get rid of the filibuster at:
202-224-4521
