Blake Masters Crushes Mark Kelly in Arizona Senate Debate
Arizona senatorial candidates Blake Masters (R), Mark Kelly (D), and a Libertarian named Marc Victor, took the stage for a one-hour debate on Thursday, October 6th. As the closing arguments ended, any reasonable person would conclude that Masters was the strongest candidate with the best solutions for the myriad of problems facing Arizona and America. If he loses, residents of Arizona will have to accept the grim reality that they’ve been overwhelmed by the swarm of California progressives fleeing the cesspool they created in their own state.
The moderator, Ted Simmons, exercised restraint and impartiality through the better part of the debate. His questions covered the most important issues Americans are focused on, and the candidates were given sufficient opportunity to explain their positions in detail. In hindsight, there was really no reason to include Victor, who has no chance to win the election. I’m sure most voters would have preferred to use that time to hear more from Masters and Kelly.
Masters Took Command Early
From the opening of the debate, Masters came across as articulate, personable and keenly aware of the many serious problems average Americans are dealing with daily. During the portion of the debate that focused on the state of our wretched economy, Kelly repeatedly tried to push Masters into defending his advocacy for privatizing a portion of social security for younger workers. However, Masters wisely didn’t take the bait. Instead, he successfully tied Kelly to Biden as though they were joined at the hip, and saddled Kelly with the claim of reckless spending that needlessly injected trillions of dollars into the economy, increasing the money supply and stoking the inflationary flames that now consume and diminish our purchasing power.
Perhaps Masters best moment of the debate came when the discussion turned to border security, where he forced Kelly to defend Biden’s ineffective policies that created open borders, the fentanyl crisis and preferential treatment for illegal aliens. Masters’ incredulity peaked when he described how aliens are given envelopes full of cash and lodged in Scottsdale hotels while ordinary families struggle to put food on the table. At one point, he asked Kelly, “So, you’re doing everything in your power to solve the border crisis?” Kelly fell into the trap by previously boasting about his commitment to border security, so he was easy prey when Masters pounced and suggested Kelly resign because his efforts have been an abysmal failure.
Throughout the debate, Kelly’s responses were mostly defensive, weak and ineffectual. On both the economy and the border, he attempted to distance himself from Biden, but Masters would have none of it and repeatedly reminded him of his voting record, which has been 100 percent in lockstep with Biden. Masters even offered tepid praise for Kristen Sinema, who he said he could work with in the Senate.
On abortion, a supposed topic of strength for Kelly, Masters described abortion up until birth, a position Kelly advocates, as radical and barbaric. Masters thoroughly articulated his support of a ban on abortion at 15 weeks (except for rape and incest), which came across as fair and measured. Choosing to terminate a pregnancy is one of the most difficult decisions a woman will ever make, and it is not unreasonable to expect someone seeking an abortion to do so before the fetus develops a heartbeat, brain function and central nervous system activity. At the end of the segment, Masters emerged looking like the more moderate and thoughtful candidate seeking a consensus compromise on this divisive issue.
The only disappointing aspect of Masters performance came on the issue of election integrity, which one would have assumed would be a great strength. He seemed uncomfortable with the topic and argued as though he was afraid of challenging the Democrat orthodoxy that relentlessly describes the 2020 election in Arizona as the “most secure election in history,” which most knowledgeable voters know is utter nonsense.
Instead of using the opportunity to raise awareness of serious breaches in the process that led to data dumps, EMS database tampering and impossible mail-in ballot return rates in Pima County, Masters focused exclusively on the impact of big tech and media suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story. If he wanted to go national, it would have been more effective to dive into the fake Russia collusion scandal, the FISA court manipulation and the alleged development of the phony Trump dossier inside the FBI.
Blake Masters is the Better Candidate
I imagine that the debate was the first time many Arizonans had the opportunity to watch Blake Masters speak and express his positions in detail. Let’s hope his exceptional performance blunted the relentless barrage of Kelly’s negative ads that blanket the airwaves in Arizona every day. Blake Masters won the debate, and frankly, it wasn’t even close. After the last two years of utter incompetence that Mark Kelly supported every step of the way, maybe ordinary Arizonans, devastated by the Democrats radical socialist agenda, will turn out and flip this Senate seat in November.
