We still don’t know whether Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., will seek a second term next year. What we do know is that she has spent a lot of time rubbing elbows with the wealthy donors whose support she’d count on if she did.
Those fetes are crucial, particularly because of her decision in December to leave the Democratic Party and become an independent. She still officially caucuses with Senate Democrats, despite Republicans’ blatant overtures to cross over. But a new article by Politico’s Jonathan Martin shows that while Sinema has worked tirelessly to cultivate a bipartisan, above-the-fray mien in public, behind the scenes she has been busy burning bridges in a way that will leave her not just independent but isolated.
The column is filled with tidbits about Sinema’s behavior behind closed doors at Republican-heavy events, where she has opted to “belittle her Democratic colleagues, shower her GOP allies with praise and, in one case, quite literally give the middle finger to President Joe Biden’s White House.”
Behind the scenes, Sinema has been busy burning bridges in a way that will leave her not just independent but isolated.
Among the many snide comments attributed to Sinema are digs at Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and her pro-filibuster buddy Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. (she feels she has “better tax policy ideas” than he does). The barb most people have latched onto is about the weekly Democratic caucus lunches, which she’d already rarely attended even before she went solo:
“Those lunches were ridiculous,” she told a small group of Republican lobbyists at a reception in Washington this year in explaining why she had stopped attending her caucus’ weekly luncheons in the Capitol, according to an attendee.
First off, she explained, she was no longer a Democrat. “I’m not caucusing with the Democrats, I’m formally aligned with the Democrats for committee purposes,” Sinema said. “But apart from that I am not a part…
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