by M. Chubon
May 21, 2018
Lea Marquez Peterson was on MSNBC Sunday and it feels like deja vu. Martha McSally used to also appear on news programs other than Fox, until she went full radical immigrant hater to appear more Trump-like in her run for Senate. Lea is the the favored GOP front runner to replace Martha in Arizona’s CD2 and this segment was about the dwindling number of Republican women in Congress. In MSNBC logic, why not have a fake Moderate show up and make fake Moderate statements unchecked?
We sent our Candidate Questionnaire to Lea in January. She has not filled it out. So we have to parse out her positions based on statements. This sounds so familiar.
She says she is hearing from constituents because she is a new candidate and runs a Chamber of Commerce. Not sure what that means, but ok, Lea. She blew off the last GOP Candidate Forum, and appears to be taking a page from the book of “How to stay under the radar” written by the creators of Martha McSally.
But here are a few positions we can add to the Questionnaire we are filling out for her:
- She thinks John McCain deserves respect.
- “Border Security and National Security is top of mind for so many folks” – when the GOP is pushing the divisiveness to rile up a racist base without statistics to back up a “border crisis” sure it becomes top of mind. But healthcare, Social Security & Medicare, the economy, school safety, and immigration reform are the actual issues at the top of mind for CD2 voters regardless of party.
- Border wall, increased Border Patrol and Immigration reform … components of border security that we need to tackle.
- When asked if she wants Trump to campaign for her she doesn’t directly answer the question and says that it would be an honor to have the President in our District. But she mentions the A-10.
- When asked about Arpaio she plays dumb like she doesn’t know about him. We see two issues here. It is an insulting tactic to be a strong, business oriented woman playing dumb. Second, as the President and CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, she has no comment on the Sheriff who was accused and convicted of racially profiling and in turn terrorizing the Latino community? We realize the Chamber does not tackle social issues, but it begs the question: should it? Can you advocate for Hispanic businesses without advocating for the Latino community as a whole? Or is your kind of advocacy reserved for the most wealthy among you?
- She supports a discharge petition to force a discussion on the floor of Congress to find a solution for DACA. She doesn’t say what her solution would be.
- When asked about Trump calling immigrants “animals” she responds “there certainly have been some comments I have been concerned about…however, this comment … he was referring to the gang members that have been coming from Mexico…so in terms of the thing he said most recently, I don’t believe it was racist.” Holy crap, Kasie Hunt! You missed a HUGE opportunity to pull that thread and ask, what comments she does believe are racist. And, MS-13 is an El Salvador gang that originated in Los Angeles. But who needs facts?
The interview, like so many we have suffered through, was a standard lob of softball questions, and then allowing the non answers and misleading statements to stand. Kasie Hunt obvisously is like so many other journalists who are at best not able to do background on the people they interview or at worst, looking for the headline. But she missed the opportunity for an even better headline on multiple questions.
Many of the tactics used by Lea mimic the same tactics that led CD2 voters to believe that Martha McSally was a moderate and that her interests align with the interests of the entire district, not just her donors or her career. She is even using the same language. We fear that we are seeing a Martha, v 2.0 and CD2 deserves better. In the words of the Who, “we won’t be fooled again.”
Stay tuned for the following upcoming pieces on Lea:
- A breakdown of Lea’s donors and how they overlap with the special interests of donors of Martha McSally’s.
- Lea’s “Pro Small Business” fact checked
- Lea’s checkered past with the Latino community
watch it here: