Somehow, likely due to my frequent letter writing, I have gotten on the contact list for Rep Jeff Flake of Arizona's 6th district. Last night, to my surprise, among the usual evening telemarketing calls was an invitation to join Flake and John McCain for a virtual townhall.
I couldn't resist.
I went through the menu and when prompted "Do you have a question for Sen. McCain or Rep. Flake?" I hurriedly pressed the YES response. I have been slow to make up my mind in past town halls and by the time I had decided on a good question, the opportunity had passed by. This time I was determined to get a good one in. While I waited I thought about the many contradictions and republican pitfalls that I could pose to McCain in this forum. I decided to ask him about his feelings on the soon to expire "Bush" tax cuts and his dramatic change from opposing them in 2001 and 2003 to currently supporting them. I even pulled up some NYT quotes so that he couldn't weasel out or deny his old position.
I spoke with the producer, a pleasant republican functionary and let him know my question. I think I screwed up at this point because I think I let slip that I was aware that McCain had changed his tune on the tax cuts. Even though I was assured that I would get to ask my question, I think I sealed my fate via talking too much to the wrong person.
Being this is Arizona, you can only imagine that a majority of the questions where in regards to immigration, especially with the furor over our, thankfully, injoined "Show Me Your Papers Law" along with a couple of truly crazy birther comments. In all, Arizonans did seem to have some valid concerns, crashing housing markets, unemployment, deficit. Someone even asked my tax cut question but failed to confront McCain on the costs of the last 10 years of cuts and how they relate to our current deficit.
I continued to hang on the line, suffering through the growing stupidity of my fellow zonies, spouting their Fox news headlines, although it was becoming apparent that I would not be speaking to McCain on this day.
No surprises in the "plans" he laid out. McCain clearly stated that with a majority Republicans will work to repeal the Affordable Care act, the Financial reform, and pretty much spend an entire session undoing progress. Replacing it with with what, he did not offer.
Another interesting tidbit was how McCain held up Israel as an shining example of how we could secure our border. He saw that as progress?