Associate solitary reporter Susanna Sherman is our very best investigative reporter, the best in the West. In fact, she is a world-famous sleuth, and was at one time on the shortlist to run Interpol.
As a result, she knows everything worth knowing, including where all US politicians and former politicians have homes or have had homes recently. Thus, she knows that former part-time Alaska governor Sarah Palin and her husband had a home in Scottsdale, Arizona, until 2016.
Sherman also knows that former Vice President Dan Quayle lives in Phoenix, where he is an investment banker. The cold winters in Indiana must have been too challenging for Dan.
For over a year, the late Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) battled brain cancer. He died on Saturday.
That means that Arizona’s Republican governor, Doug Ducey, will appoint his successor, to serve the unexpired portion of the war hero’s Senate term.
When Sen. McCain ran for president against his fellow senator, Barack Obama, in 2008, he was heavily pressured by the hard-right elements of his party to select Palin as his running mate. At that time, only Alaskans knew about her. And picking Sarah cost McCain bigtime.
It wasn’t a good match. Palin resisted being prepped by the RNC and the McCain campaign, to answer tough questions, and she couldn’t hold a candle to Joe Biden in their one debate. When McCain graciously conceded defeat to Obama, he wouldn’t allow Palin to share the stage with him in Phoenix, though he did praise her as a rising star in the GOP.
Then Palin became the adored heroine of the Tea Party and resigned as governor of Alaska. She and her husband bought a home in Scottsdale because it gets too cold in the winter in Alaska.
Early in his unlikely campaign in 2016, Donald Trump managed to snag an endorsement from Palin.
A man with precious little if any moral decency, during his campaign, Trump infamously dissed McCain for having been captured by the North Vietnamese during our unwise war in Vietnam. Sen. McCain, who was the Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was tortured for five and a half years in the “Hanoi Hilton."
Though many on the Dem and even on the GOP side often disagreed with Sen. McCain, he was well-respected as a man of courage and integrity. He voted against the Trump-McConnell-Ryan attempt to gut the Affordable Care Act.
Knowing that he was near death, Sen. McCain made it clear that at his funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral, he absolutely and totally did not want Trump to be in attendance. That’s a big blow to the megalomaniac who owns Mar-a-Lago and spends way too much time there and at Bedminster.
ASR Sherman and associate solitary reporter Jay Munson, who is based in Tucson, spoke with Gov. Ducey moments ago. Gov. Ducey has appropriately kept mum during Sen. McCain’s final illness, out of respect for the McCain family, as to whom he will appoint to succeed the late senator.
“Don’t you dare tell a soul,” Ducey told Sherman and Munson. “But many Arizonans love Sarah, and she used to live here. I’m sure she’d love to come back to even swankier digs here in our wonderful state.”
“I like to upset the apple cart just a bit,” Ducey continued. “Sarah would absolutely be a great senator!"
“Or maybe I should appoint Dan Quayle... he was President George H.W. Bush’s veep, and he lives in Phoenix, where he has a huge potatoe farm. Wouldn’t he be just as great as Sarah?"
When Sherman and Munson texted their colleague, associate solitary reporter Melissa Smith, who covers Congress for us, about what Gov. Ducey had told them, Smith called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who holds a 51-49 majority in the Senate, to inform him about Ducey’s Dilemma.
McConnell promptly told Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, his number three, “Damn it to Hell! For sure, we’re gonna lose the Senate in November!"