Sunday, July 24, 2016

Keeping Up with Kelly Townsend

Kelly Townsend is usually a pretty reliable conservative vote and one who will stick to her principles and show respect to her fellow colleagues and constituents no matter what.

Until recently.

Townsend, feeling heat for turning on her fellow conservatives for helping to pass KidsCare out of the Arizona House of Representatives at the end of this last Arizona legislative session, has attempted to unload blame and misdirection to an easy target - Andy Biggs, running in one of the most competitive primaries across Arizona for Arizona's Fifth Congressional District to replace retiring Congressman Matt Salmon.

(If you remember, Andy Biggs stood courageously against the passage of this program during the last legislative session.)

Townsend has become unleashed and unhinged - mainly on her Twitter account - as she rants and rails against Andy Biggs on an almost daily basis. Townsend is also a known Justin Olson supporter.

One of the most bizarre series of tweets, though, came when Townsend took her beef to an LD 16 constituent Deborah Geesling. Geesling is a warrior and advocate for the mentally ill, going to great and exhaustive lengths to lobby both at a state and a federal level for the protection and safe keeping of those who cannot as easily help themselves.

Mrs. Geesling rightly called out Representative Townsend for her outright slanderous statements directed towards Andy Biggs on social media. A Twitter debate broke out, where Townsend burst out with a tweet that she would later come to regret very much (the tweet appears to have been deleted by Townsend):


Mrs. Geesling has all the right in the world to express shock and dismay over what transpired on Twitter. It is reprehensible and utterly classless for a legislator of any body or jurisdiction to knowingly turn his or her political barbs and irrational anger to a constituent in a public forum - in the way that Representative Townsend did on Twitter on July 21st.

July 21st showed the people of LD 16 that Representative Kelly Townsend has forgotten to whom she answers to and serves. She apparently has been in the legislature too long and becoming too content with establishment legislators who serve only themselves and their interests.

Kelly Townsend should, at the very least, apologize for lashing out in anger to her constituent Deborah Geesling. Perhaps a beer summit should be proposed and accepted by both parties to mend fences?

(More to come on the Kelly Townsend fiascos.)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very dissapointing.

Anonymous said...

Kelly has moved sharply to the left. She votes for every welfare program that comes up on the board. She's gone big government liberal.

Unknown said...

What you don't mention is Biggs attaclomg Townsend from the podium at our LD16 meeting. He was supposed to be there doing his stump speech and it turned ugly. You should also note that Biggs and Townnsend haven't seen eye to eye on many things. He's used delaying tactics against her bills to attempt to influence her votes. Nobody may be clean in this but Biggs deserves blame for this as well.

Anonymous said...

I saw a vague tweet last week and was curious what happened. Thanks for being on top of it!

Anonymous said...

Question: If Mrs. Geesling was so victimized by Kelly Townsend mentioning her son, why did she repost the tweet, exposing her son a second time?

Perhaps Mrs. Geesling is actually guilty of exactly what she accuses Rep. Townsend of, using the mentally ill for political weaponry. Furthermore, why isn't Mrs. Geesling taking care of her own son? Isn't that what Republicans do? Isn't it the pot calling the kettle black to mention Townsend's support of restoring KidsCare, of which most Republicans voted yes on the first time around (hardcore conservative republicans, we might add).

Looks like Mrs. Geesling is a wannabe political hack hoping to reward Andy Biggs for helping her with her bills. Maybe she should help her own son first.

LittleCupid said...

Anonymous brings up a good point I had not thought of. How can any mother use her children as a political pawn, especially if that child is seriously mentally ill? As an advocate for SMI, I must question the true motives of Deborah Geesling by reposting this photo of the tweet. I also question whether or not this post was written by her in the first place. Does her son approve of her using him like this? What about her husband?

I understand her being initially angry at Kelly Townsend, but look at Mrs. Townsend's tweet - She is not attacking the son, she is asking a legitimate question. Politics is ugly and people run as fast as they can away from it because of people like Deborah Geesling. Maybe it should be Deborah Quisling.

Kelly Townsend said...

This is a rude comment and this needs to stop. Folks, move on from this.