#az-05

[tomorrowusa]

A Trump-backed Arizona candidate faces tough House primary after sex scandals

Mark Lamb, a Trump-endorsed former sheriff running in Arizona’s 5th District, is trying to fend off a challenger pointing to Lamb’s alleged

Trump is backing a candidate for US House in Arizona who is plagued by sex scandals. Sort of a "birds of a feather" thing. The Trump candidate in the AZ-05 GOP primary is Mark Lamb. He's being challenged by a rich guy named Daniel Keenan who is targeting Lamb's scandals in ads. Keenan has no shortage of material for his ads.

A multi-part Arizona Republic investigation found that Lamb allegedly engaged in a yearslong pattern of sending sexual images and instigating intimate encounters between him, his wife and others. One woman involved, Jillian Stannard, alleged Lamb encouraged her husband to have sex with other women, including Lamb’s wife. She also alleged that Lamb threatened her, saying there would be consequences, when Stannard raised concerns to leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which both Lamb and Stannard were members. Screenshots the Republic obtained of messages with another woman, Tammy Peacock, suggest Lamb — then a sitting county sheriff — threatened to leverage Arizona’s revenge porn law against her. In a statement, Lamb spokesperson Ed Morabito said “these allegations are false and come from long-discredited political opponents.” Reached for comment on Wednesday, Stannard said her allegations reported by the Republic are “accurate and true.” Peacock passed away in 2021. “A guy that goes around and says, ‘God, family freedom,’ is sending pictures of himself and nude pictures of his wife, encouraging his friends and his employees to have sexual relations with his wife,’” Keenan said in an interview this week of the allegations, repeating similar attacks he’s made in campaign advertising. “That’s not ‘God, family freedom.’ That shows you’re morally broke.”

Keep in mind that this is a deep red district. There is little chance a Democrat could win here regardless of the GOP primary winner. Though a loss by Lamb would reflect badly on Trump who endorsed him twice.

There is some evidence that the pitch to voters is landing. An internal poll from Keenan’s campaign obtained by POLITICO shows Keenan leading Lamb 42 percent to 40 percent, narrowly within the poll’s margin of error. The campaign’s earlier polling from late June had shown Lamb leading 43 percent to 35 percent.

The Arizona primary takes place on Tuesday July 21st.

[tsarinajissa]

Congressman Biggs just claimed lifetime caps on health care reform only apply to people in high risk pools. So he's planning on kicking everyone off small business plans and grad student insurance?!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Like a political zombie-hydra, birtherism reared its ugly head twice this past weekend.

First, after Rick Perry met with birther-aficionado Donald Trump, the Texas governor told Parade Magazine “I don’t know” whether President Obama’s birth certificate is authentic. (View Obama’s authentic birth certificate for yourself here.)

Now, Tea Party freshman Rep. Dave Schweikert (R-AZ) joins the fray. Schweikert was asked about Obama’s birth certificate at a Republican convention in Las Vegas on Friday, but rather than simply telling the audience member that Obama is a natural-born U.S. citizen, Schweikert proceeded to coddle the birther, never once suggesting that the man’s assertion was incorrect. Instead, the congressman declared that Republicans like him wanted to have an “intellectually sound debate,” but that Democratic consultants had cynically hijacked the issue for political gain. Schweikert ended by telling the birther that “we may ultimately be right” about the birth certificate issue:

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Since we have both members of each house here, why can’t you guys write up a thing to call him up to testify whether or not the birth certificate is valid? If the birth certificate isn’t valid, the one on the website isn’t valid, that would be a crime, that would be a high crime, and would be worthy of impeachment as well as punishment. [...]

SCHWEIKERT: I’ve got to walk you through something. This one burns in my soul. We need to win in 2012. We need to save our country. [...] Understand, why are some of the left-wing political consultants absolutely giddy every time this question comes up? They use it against us, even though you want to have an intellectually sound debate and discussion, the people that now decide our elections are this little 10, 20 percent in the middle that swing back and forth and they’re not necessarily comfortable because they think Republicans are mean, but they don’t think the Democrats have a sense of how to do things.

We are trying to convince them we are honorable and going to follow the Constitution and do what’s necessary. I’m sorry, but when we get off on some of the things that scare those independents — we may ultimately be right – you may be the one where you tell a great story, but understand, you are giving up the 2012 election.