Rumors Swirl About Two Republican Retirements In Arizona

RUMORS SWIRL ABOUT TWO REPUBLICAN RETIREMENTS IN ARIZONA

DownWithTyranny!
Friday, February 15, 2008


What's that sound?

John Shadegg, in the midst of a garden variety Republican corruption and money laundering scandal-- nothing big enough to precipitate any feelings of shame, let alone a retirement-- announced last week http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2008/02/and-another-one-bites-and-another-one.html">he wouldn't be running for his House seat again. More than two dozen Republicans, most of them caught in some kind of corruption, have made similar announcements, including Shadegg's prison-bound Arizona colleague Rick Renzi, so no one gave it much thought. However... two bits of information have come up in the last few days that could put Shadegg back on the front pages.

First off are the rampant rumors that McCain is way too old and feeble to handle both a full time campaign and even a part time job in the Senate. He's missed more votes than any senator in recent memory other than Tom Johnson when he was in a coma. There's been widespread speculation that http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/02/what-about-john.html">McCain would step down to try to make something of his doomed presidential run and that Shadegg would somehow be his replacement, although I can't imagine that Governor Napolitano-- though she's legally bound to replace a Republican with another Republican-- would be cooperating on this. Meanwhile speculation in Phoenix and Inside the Beltway is nonstop. McCain was forced to issue a statement that "right now" he has no plans to resign from the Senate, fueling even more speculation.


Now back to Rep. Shadegg-- and here's where the Republican doo-doo hits the fan. Yesterday more than 130 right-wing loons in Congress signed a letter to Shadegg begging him to reconsider. They know popular and well-financed Democrat Bob Lord is likely to win this seat in a suburban district that has turned decidedly moderate since the extreme right-wing Shadegg was first elected. But what they don't know is about the information an Arizona-based Republican operative passed DWT this morning. It's a page (102) from John L. Jackley's book Below The Beltway. Ostensibly it's just another anti-Clinton/anti-Democratic Party hit piece published by far right vanity press Regnery.

The brief part about Shadegg, however, is deadly-- and not to Clinton or any Democrats. It details the adultery, sex, and violence scandal that Shadegg -- and even more so an enraged Mrs. Shadegg -- do not want to come to light and is exactly why he retired and won't be running for re-election to Congress, nor for poor old McCain's Senate seat. Republican officials in Phoenix aren't talking about anything else today but this:



Oy! A fist fight-- with Christensen's wife, naked, in the room! How did they ever all kiss and make up? No wonder Mrs. Shadegg is upset! And didn't Christensen and his wife meet at a Christian Coalition meeting or something?

UPDATE: APPARENTLY THERE'S MORE VIOLENT CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICAN BEHAVIOR HERE THAN I WAS TOLD

Another good source who was already aware of this story just sent me this:

There was more to the Meredith Christensen story in Stephen Marks' book Confessions of a Political Hitman, p.202-203. This describes an incident where Christensen and J.D. Hayworth tried to beat up Shadegg in the anteroom off the House floor. Also Meredith was apparently having affairs with a bunch of other Congressmen, and after they divorced in 1995, she ran for Christensen's CONGRESSIONAL SEAT in 1998 briefly before dropping out.

A bunch?? I wonder if anyone has thought about doing a TV series on the Republican Culture of Corruption.

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2008/02/rumors-swirl-about-two-republican.html