Gabby Giffords Asked By GOP In AZ If She Is Going To Run In 2012

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Dan Rackley

Dan Rackley is a US Naval veteran living in Philadelphia and a contributor to "Will They Ever Trust Us Again?"

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August 19th, 2011 1:15 PM

Gabby Giffords Asked By GOP In AZ If She Is Going To Run In 2012

There’s a long standing truth in American politics that has outlived the founding fathers, will outlive all of you reading this and will probably outlive the folks reading this a hundred years from now. When someone has something you want, that you really want; you will go for the throat. You will post attack ads in the media, you will make up things about your opponent that are not true and you will claim that a fight is unfair even when it isn’t.

Early last year, as everyone knows, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot by Jared Loughner. I’m not going to say allegedly. Why? Well, a whole crowd of people saw him do it. Kind of takes away from the doubt part. But anyway, Congresswoman Giffords has been through a kind of personal hell the past year that I couldn’t imagine. When she showed up in Congress to cast her vote on raising the debt limit, it was looked at as miraculous that someone that got hurt that bad could ever show back up to work. But being a politician, there is always someone that wants her job. With the 2012 election coming up, there’s people bound to be coming out of the woodwork wanting her seat.

One of those people is State Senator Frank Antenori. This week, he’s having what could most delicately be called a polite hissy fit because the Giffords’ camp hasn’t announced whether she is going to run for re-election. He’s saying essentially that if she does decide to run that he’s not going to even bother. Why you ask? Because he feels that there is so much of an outpouring of sympathy for Gabrielle Giffords that she is going to win no matter what. So Frank Antenori is claiming that it would be unfair for him if he decided to run.

Poor Frank, he must have bought into that horrible belief that elections are really popularity contests and not a judging of ideas by the people. If you think you have better ideas, no matter what, run. Whether what happened to Congresswoman Giffords happened or not, your decision to run was going to have to come up anyway. You’re not doing anyone any kind of a service with this attitude of not wanting to run if she runs. Because on one hand, you are flat out insulting Giffords; saying that the only reason she will win is because she got shot. One the other, you are showing your constituents that you have no confidence in yourself as a candidate. I cannot see even if he does decide to run anyone in their right mind donating to his campaign. The guy’s got no confidence in himself. At least John Ashcroft had the guts to continue running against a guy that died.

Of course, when it suits them, even though they tend to be the richer, more well off of the two political parties; the Republican Party will always be the first to shout that something is unfair. Now, it’s one thing if someone says something slanderous about you in a campaign advertisement. What Antenori is doing goes far and beyond the dirty pool of political campaigning. Trying to strong-arm Giffords to announce if she is running or not because he doesn’t think he can win because of a sympathy vote. If she does win, it may be because of that; but she deserves it. The woman got shot in the damn head. But for God’s sake, run against her. At least then you’ll have the dignity of the contest without making it look like you were too scared to be beaten by a handicapped person.