The real difference between Martha McSally and Kelli Ward isn't what you think

The state of play in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate is best captured by the following: Kelli Ward is attacking Martha McSally. McSally is attacking the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kyrsten Sinema.

It’s not that McSally is taking the primary for granted. It's just that Ward has yet to give McSally cause to direct fire in her direction. Undoubtedly, that’s in part because of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio dividing the immigration restrictionist vote.

Ward’s case against McSally has three principal tenets:

• McSally is backed by the Republican establishment and isn’t a true conservative.
• Ward is the more loyal and reliable supporter of President Donald Trump.
• Ward is tougher on illegal immigration.

The Trump loyalty test 

Ward, a former state legislator, is on firmest ground with the claim to be the more loyal and reliable supporter of Trump.

Ward ran on the Trump agenda in a primary challenge to John McCain in 2016. McSally distanced herself from Trump during the 2016 presidential election.

However, McSally is far from a Never Trumper. She has accepted him as president and, as a member of Congress, has worked closely with his administration on several issues.

On foreign policy and trade, Ward would undoubtedly be a Trump parrot, since she does not seem to have any developed views of her own on those subjects.

McSally is a free-trader. She’s been willing to give Trump some negotiating room to get American businesses better terms of trade. But if he pursues a protectionist agenda too far and too long, at some point she is likely to break from him.

On foreign policy, she is also giving Trump room to maneuver. However, foreign affairs and national security are areas where she’s been developing her own bona fides.  A senator can influence policy in these areas far more than a congresswoman. While trying to work with the administration, McSally will undoubtedly be exercising independent judgment about these matters.

Who's really with Trump on immigration?

Paradoxically, the one issue on which Ward may not be the more reliable Trump ally is on illegal immigration, her signature issue.

Ward is trying to capitalize on some ambivalence McSally has expressed about a physical wall on the totality of the Mexican border. But Trump himself has hinted that his “wall” might not be an actual physical wall on every inch of the border.

The real difference is the willingness to consider some legal status for some illegal residents, particularly "dreamers," people brought here illegally as children.

Ward opposes any legal status for anyone currently in the country illegally, and has broken with Trump when he has indicated a willingness to entertain such from time to time.

McSally has actually worked fairly closely with the Trump administration on illegal immigration. As part of the effort by congressional Republicans to demonstrate their inability to pass anything on immigration, McSally helped cobble together a bill that would have funded Trump’s wall and provided renewable legal status for dreamers. Trump supported the bill, while Ward denounced it.

This is a silly schism

The fight between the so-called GOP establishment and the GOP anti-establishment is one of the sillier political schisms I’ve ever seen.

If Ward and McSally were given plenipotentiary authority, there would not be a material difference in the political economy each would create. This is not a fight between true conservatives and fake ones.

The real difference is over tactics and the commitment to governing.

There is a serious question of whether conservatives are capable or suited to be part of a governing coalition. Modern American conservatism was born as a dissident movement against a dominant liberalism.

Conservatives tend to be more comfortable in opposition. Since World War II, the only period of true conservative governance was during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, during which Reagan’s political persona was the cohesive force.

The art of statecraft, to borrow George Will’s term, is to accomplish what is possible given current political constraints, while simultaneously trying to expand the limits of those constraints.

Ward has given every indication that she will join the GOP faction that prefers inaction to accepting current political constraints, while McSally has shown a commitment to governing within them.

And that’s the most meaningful difference, and choice, in this race.

Reach Robb at robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com.

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