“Proud product of the ‘meth lab of democracy'” would be a pretty sweet bumper sticker, actually. Here she is in 2010 expressing her pride in her own unique way:

New Video:

Arizona Democratic Senate Candidate @kyrstensinema Warning People: Be Careful! Your State Can Turn Into Arizona Pretty Quickly.

Video Date: July, 2010#WhyDoesSinemaHateArizona pic.twitter.com/8Lqoe6r8uc

— Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) October 18, 2018

And here she is much more recently, in March of this year, showin’ off the love with … whatever that facial expression is:

NEW VIDEO: @kyrstensinema can't hide her disgust of Arizona in March 2018. pic.twitter.com/hZX6Ot8pgn

— Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) October 18, 2018

All of this has left me conflicted. Can I, the right-wing product of a deep-blue state governed by degenerates and currently led by a nasty imbecile, properly throw stones at a Democrat for disliking her own home state’s politics?

I think I can, because New York politics objectively sucks. It’s not a right-left issue.

Anyway, here’s Sinema straining as hard as she can to shed her partisan affiliation before facing voters in a purplish-red state. You trust a staunch progressive who’s lately repositioned herself in the center for electoral purposes to be independent ‘n stuff on big votes like Supreme Court confirmations, don’t you?

Asked on Arizona radio station KTAR if she was a “proud Democrat,” Sinema responded, “Gosh, it’s hard to say proud. I don’t know that — I’m not sure that people are even proud of parties anymore, because I feel like the parties are not doing a good job. So I would say that I’m a proud Arizonian. That’s something I’m very proud of. And I’m proud of the work that I have done in Washington, DC, and the work I’ve done in the state Senate and the statehouse before going to Congress. But I’m not particularly proud of the parties.”…

Asked by the radio hosts if she had intentionally left out a mention of being a Democrat in her ads, Sinema responded, “That’s right.”

She continued, “Because I am an independent voice for Arizona and I want folks to — when they see my ads or hear from me or when I’m talking to them and listening to them — I want them to think about who I am as their elected official and as their public servant.”

The Sinema game plan is straightforward. Say what you gotta say to get elected this time, then hope that changing demographics catch up to you in 2024 and allow you to be a bit truer to your progressive self when you stand for reelection. It’s so crazy it just might work. In fact, remember that in-progress Upshot poll of Arizona that I mentioned in this post last night? When I wrote that, Martha McSally led Sinema 49/45. After a few more hours of polling it’s now … 47/46. The drumbeat of clips of Sinema calling Arizona “crazy” or grimacing at the mention of the state’s name as if someone just farted are fun and all for activists like you and me but the evidence that they’ve hurt Sinema is very thin. Only one poll recently shows McSally solidly ahead (by six points) and that poll increasingly looks like an outlier. I think Arizona’s going to be a pure toss-up on election night.

Here’s Sinema trying to explain why she makes a stinkface when mentioning Arizona.

Sinema, on Wednesday night, on the video clips of her referring to “crazy” in Arizona—> pic.twitter.com/a3ZbcOW9Jn

— Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) October 18, 2018