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As I watch the wide range of reactions to the passing of John McCain, it seems like a good idea to remind people that we ought to function on three levels in a case like this...

Politically - Maybe you loved McCain and his maverick ways, maybe you were big on amnesty, or loved his support for the surge in Iraq when few thought it would succeed...  Whatever your political feelings are about McCain, NOW IS NOT THE TIME...  If you disliked his politics, this isn’t the time, and if you loved his politics, it isn't fair to start a political debate where anyone who disagrees with you out loud is shamed for saying bad things at a time like this.  This isn't the time for politics, period...

Personally - Maybe you thought he was great, you appreciated his service, you honored his POW sacrifices, etc.  Maybe you thought he was mean or vindictive to those who opposed him, maybe you still feel for his first wife and kids, whatever...  NOW IS NOT THE TIME if you have bad things to say...  If you have good things to say about the man, then you should...  For everyone else, it is about being decent and respectful and it is about the kind of person you are, no matter what kind of person you thought McCain was...  At some point in time we will all pass, so how will you want that experience to be for your children and surviving family members?  Would you want them to enjoy moments of peace and goodness, or be interrupted by negative attacks?

As a Christian - Every one of us, no matter our feelings about Senator McCain, ought to be praying for his family at this difficult time, and remember that that family includes a remarkable lady, Roberta McCain, his mother, who is 106 years old and still going strong!  It is never easy for a parent to bury a child even if that child was almost 82 years old...  More than that, we ought to be praying for McCain himself, because every Christian is hopeful that everyone, regardless of their circumstances or history, will find their way to salvation and to the Lord.  It doesn't matter what your disagreements are with someone, it doesn't matter what crimes a person has committed, if we're being good Christians, then our prayers are that Senator McCain found peace with his soul cleansed of sin through the forgiveness of our Lord, and that he is on his way to heaven.

If you're hoping or praying for anything else, then you're doing it wrong...

In two weeks or so the Republican primary for U.S. Senate will be over, although judging by the millions of dollars being spent to boost McSally and to attack Kelli Ward, it may already be all but over. So it is a good time to write a series of thoughts I have been allowing to ferment over the last several months.

Actually, going all the way back to when many conservative figures were considering jumping into this primary after Jeff Flake dropped out. At the time there seemed to be a consensus that a solid conservative would clear the field, that Kelli Ward was not considered heavyweight enough to do so, and that in the absence of a heavyweight conservative, the establishment would find a more liberal candidate to support, with Martha McSally’s name most frequently mentioned.

I may not have a complete list, but President Trump himself encouraged Robert Graham, Jeff DeWit and others to run.  Other solid names like Matt Salmon, David Schweikert, and Paul Gosar were also circulated.  And make no mistake, each of these individuals seriously considered the race.

In advance, let me say that I’ve filled out my ballot for Kelli Ward and I know her fairly well. So when I’m writing that we needed a stronger candidate it doesn’t come from any animosity towards Kelli.  But some candidates are only ever going to get pounded by the media, they’re going to be held to a double standard designed to embarrass them publicly, and they’re going to be starved out by the establishment.  And if they do win a primary, they’ll be abandoned by many of their party’s donors and supporters, who would prefer a Democrat to someone like Kelli.  Outside of the occasional social media error none of that is Kelli’s fault per se, but she ran against John McCain and in the eyes of the establishment that remains an unforgiveable sin here in Arizona.  The establishment will never support her, for anything.  And in a competitive year like 2018, that is a real problem if you’re trying to keep the Senate seat in the GOP column.

The rest of the names on that list would not have had that problem.  Each of them would have raised a phenomenal sum of money, most of them would have the implicit if not explicit backing of the President, and they would have been able to begin focusing on the general election almost right away. Most importantly, they would have given Arizona a legitimate shot at having a conservative United States Senator.  It is even possible that they might have kept Sinema from the contest in the first place.

Which is why I, like so many other conservatives, am so frustrated at the lot of them. Each of them understood the need that Arizona and our country had, each of them must have recognized the incredible advantage they would have, running such a race with White House support, yet each of them took a pass. For some it was a family-related decision or a business related-decision, which has some merit and earns some forgiveness.  The others simply lacked the courage or were far too comfortable where they were and had no desire to risk it for any greater good. Those are not acceptable reasons, and when the time comes that some of those same individuals decide they are ready to seek higher office, and they come to the grassroots to seek our support, inevitably claiming that they feel “called” to a greater mission, we will remember that they were not there for us when we needed them, and we will remember why.  If their reason was family-related they can expect a certain amount of grace.  If it was something else, they should not.

The end result of their collective failure to step up will likely be a general election matchup between Martha McSally and Kyrsten Sinema, with the ultimate loser being Arizona and a nation that simply cannot afford to continue on its current path of fiscal irresponsibility, a slowly eroding international stature, a decaying military, and a seemingly irreversible cultural slide. In short, our choice will be which of the two candidates will preside over a slower national decline. The conservatives who could have saved us from this have let us down. And we should remember that in the future when they come back to us seeking our support to further their personal ambitions.

One final note:  Between the time these thoughts first started to filter and now, the one person who redeemed himself was Representative Paul Gosar.  Everyone on this list recognized that Martha McSally would be a step to the left relative to John McCain or Jeff Flake, and none of them were willing to put themselves in harm’s way to stop it. At least Congressman Gosar, recognizing that Kelli Ward was trying to do the right thing and that McSally was the wrong choice, had the courage to step up publicly and support her. Frankly, if everyone on this list had done so early on, it would have had a very substantial impact on the primary itself.

It would have also been nice to see a group of conservatives rally around another conservative without being so scared of the consequences. Remember that they would not have been all alone in supporting Ward, who has been endorsed by Senator Rand Paul and other notables, including Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and more.  What minimal amount of bravery is required for a purported conservative to stand with Paul, Hannity, and Ingraham?  If Congressman Gosar determines at some future date that he is finally ready to seek higher office, I will not have any hesitation in supporting him, because he alone has shown some measure of courage.  And saving our country will require a great deal of courage.

Nothing in this post should be construed as any sort of an attack on Sen. John McCain. In fact, we can assume he may be unaware of what is going on, which is to a large degree the real problem.

Anyone who is familiar with the cruel disease he is suffering from knows certain medical facts and statistics very well. Articles that came out when Sen. McCain and his family first announced his disease last July, indicated a 95% mortality rate within 13 months of the primary glioblastoma diagnosis.  If you know anyone who has been down this path with this disease then you are aware of the mental degradation when it comes to the patient’s speech and cognitive abilities, especially towards the later months. Pain levels require sedation, often complete sedation.  The severe physical limitations a patient would be suffering in the disease’s late stages are often exceeded by the mental limitations. That is why each and every one of us should include Sen. McCain in our prayers -- that the good Lord gives him comfort and peace and brings the same to his family.

There are those in Arizona who are unhappy their Senator is absent and not voting on their behalf. With the United States Senate so closely divided, McCain’s absence is the same as a NO vote on everything before the Senate that requires 51 or 60 votes to pass. That matters a great deal on major legislation and potentially could be a huge deal if we end up with a Supreme Court vacancy.  Nevertheless, it is not unusual for elected officials with health problems to hang on to their seats while they recover.  Mark Kirk was a US Senator from Illinois who suffered a stroke during his first year in office and was absent for a lengthy period during his recovery, and that is but one example.  There are those who will tsk tsk any discussion of the fact that recovery is not a realistic outcome for McCain, because his lifetime of service and his status as a genuine American hero has largely earned him the right to keep his seat no matter how important an active Senator might be to the state or country.

The real problem, more accurately the likely scandal that is largely being ignored both by those close to the Senator, by virtually the entire media, and by Washington DC as a whole, is that Senator McCain is simultaneously invisible from the public for obvious reasons, while remarkably active in terms of public statements and policy positions. Again, if you know people who have suffered from this disease, you know full well that in their later months, none of them would likely be participating in philosophical or political policy debates. None of them would likely be drafting policy positions for press releases.

Which leaves two important questions:

Who is speaking for Senator John McCain?

Why is the media allowing this to go unchallenged?

Outside of a few close political friends of the senator--each of whom dutifully remarks how the senator is battling bravely and that they look forward to his return to public life--no credible unbiased person has spent any time with the Senator in quite a long while. No member of the media has recorded for public consumption any interview, either video or audio, in an equally long time. If Senator McCain is not well enough to do the job, Arizonans are largely fine with his office sitting vacant while these final months pass by.  We do not expect him to show up and vote, to hold press conferences, to conduct town halls, to do media interviews, or to issue press releases.

Except “he” is issuing press releases, many of which end up on the front page of major newspapers, especially if they are critical of President Donald Trump.  And virtually no one in the media is asking “Who is actually writing these press statements?”

The Senator is even more prolific on Twitter, where he routinely constructs 280 character statements on everything from foreign policy to the Mueller investigation to committee work. He retweets lengthy and weighty articles that he thinks we should all be reading.  In fact he rarely misses a day without tweeting something and most days tweets or retweets multiple items.

Except everyone recognizes that he’s obviously not actually doing all of these things…  He’s not spending several hours each day reading all of the publications to decide which stories are “must reads” for the rest of us, while keeping up on the inner workings of various Senate Committees, and tracking Myanmar, events in the South China Sea, and trade tariffs.

Even if the statements reflect the Senator’s likely feelings, and I believe they often do, they are quoting a man who we have little reason to believe is making such a quote, or they are written in the first person, when experience tells us that he almost certainly does not have that capability.  Do most elected officials have staff help post social media content? Absolutely. But the elected officials get to decide what is said or written.

If Senator McCain is actually spending long periods of time with staff members by phone or video conference, or in person at his home, and he is describing or dictating what he wants that day’s press release to say, then he can certainly do a five-minute radio interview so that the public can hear from him and share the joy in his much improved health status.

Yet that interview has not happened, we all know why, and we’re all okay with it.

To be clear, if Senator McCain’s office was simply silent during this difficult time, most Arizonans would be more than willing to leave his chair in the US Senate empty as a tribute to his lifetime of service.  He has earned the right to be left in peace.

The problem is that it is a near certainty that some unelected person is now speaking for our Senator and using his name to attempt to steer domestic and foreign policy in this country, and the media is largely complicit in this attempt.

This is unacceptable, those committing this fraud should be punished or fired, the people of Arizona should get to know who specifically has hijacked the office of their senior Senator, and the media that has played along should be embarrassed.  We are all very aware of how differently they would be covering these actions if the elected official were one of their usual conservative targets.

And for those in the media who have ignored this obvious farce for this long because of your affection for the man, if you really wanted to protect him and his legacy, you would want to know who has likely stolen his identity and is putting words into his mouth. Nothing we’ve ever known about the Maverick would lead you to believe he would be happy with someone speaking on his behalf in the first person, using his name.  The Senator deserves better than this, as does Arizona and the United States.