If anything is true of the state of national politics, it’s that it can be contentious and controversial.
“I didn’t drive all the way up here to be civil,” moderator Mike Broomhead, host on Phoenix’s KFYI 550 AM radio station, said in his welcome to Arizona candidates for U.S Senate — former Arizona State Sen. Kelli Ward and radio host Clair Van Steenwyk, and incumbent U.S. Sen. John McCain’s representative Mark Buce.
The debate took place Saturday, Aug. 13, at Cottonwood’s American Heritage Academy.
From the outset, Ward took potshots at McCain: “He simply is not the conservative he claims to be,” she said. Many members of the crowd held signs in support of Ward — one side featuring an endorsement, the other featuring a hashtag rebuke of McCain, #afraid2debate, for not appearing in person.
Buce said that McCain’s schedule had not allowed him to appear in person. A friend of McCain’s, Buce said that the senator had asked him to appear and try to represent his views to the audience.
“We’ve been electing violators of laws into politics for decades,” Van Steenwyk said in his introductory comments, beginning a trend that would continue throughout the debate: Criticizing the senator currently in office and calling for a change of direction.
Broomhead asked the candidates what they thought of the United States’ current foreign policy.
Ward criticized the country’s military intercession in “13 countries in recent history,” lamenting the “vacuum that was created in the Middle East” by intervention endorsed by the President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and McCain.
Van Steenwyk said that invading countries and creating wars to sell arms, supporting the military-industrial complex, is wrong.
“These are dangerous times,” Buce said, criticizing Obama’s “policy of restraint” as weak. According to Buce, Russia banned only one major political figure in recent history: McCain.
“Why?” he asked. “Because they know John McCain is a threat.”
Asked what they would do to increase border security, all three candidates endorsed the building of a wall along Arizona’s southern border. Ward and Van Steenwyk said that they would cut off benefits to people residing illegally in the state. Van Steenwyk called for deportation of all “illegals,” their U.S.-born children included.
Each candidate endorsed fiscally conservative solutions for the economy, including an overall reduction of taxes and budget cuts across the board. Van Steenwyk suggested a government hiring freeze for the next four years.
In addition, each candidate called for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act — exclusively referred to by the candidates as “Obamacare” — and endorsed a free-market system for acquiring health care services.
Ward and Buce praised Arizona for prioritizing school choice, saying that it allows parents the freedom to choose what schools fit their children’s needs. Van Steenwyk called for the closing of the Department of Education — a suggestion that drew cheers from the crowd — saying that federal moneys do not provide enough money to fund schools, but only enough to control them.
Asked how McCain would insure veteran access to health care services, Buce responded, “The VA is in crisis,” and added that providing veterans with a “choice card” to gain broader access to health care facilities and services would be a top priority for the senator.
Ward said that the Veteran Affairs Office had become an “extreme example of socialized medicine” and also endorsed a choice-card plan.
“The problem with the VA is that it’s run by idiots,” Van Steenwyk said, and called for the Defense Department to take over veteran health care. Additionally, the candidate criticized the president’s “social experiment” that allowed homosexuals to serve openly in the military — a move that Van Steenwyk claimed amounted to allowing “sodomy and bestiality.”
Van Steenwyk openly endorsed Republican nominee for president Donald Trump. Ward spoke positively of Trump but did not offer an official endorsement.
“Sen. McCain has endorsed the nominee of the party,” Buce said. “So, he will be supporting Trump.”
