Updated Feb 9, 2012, 4:07 pm
Former fighter pilot Martha McSally is getting into the race to replace U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. McSally said Thursday she's seeking to fill the vacant CD8 seat as a Republican.
McSally, the first woman to fly an Air Force fighter in combat, gained public notice a decade ago by successfully challenging a policy that U.S. servicewomen wear an abaya—a traditional black cloak—while off base in Saudi Arabia. McSally said the practice offended her as a Christian.
"I very strongly feel that I'm called to this office," she said of running for Congress.
"My faith matters to me deeply. I'm stepping out because I really believe I'm called to do it."
"I am a warrior. I am a leader," she said. "I have been given a pioneering spirit that I just can't turn off."
She will run in both the special election to replace the congresswoman, and in the fall election in the newly drawn Congressional District 2, she said.
"We need to have someone representing Southern Arizona in Washington, D.C., now," she said.
"There's no time for placeholders. There's time for action," she said, referring to Giffords aide Ron Barber, who is running in CD8 but hasn't committed to running in CD2 in the fall.
She announced her candidacy on Jon Justice's right-wing morning talk radio show, and held a meeting with supporters at an East Side restaurant in the afternoon.
"I have national and international experience to represent this community in the federal government," she told a group of about 50 people on the patio of Zinburger, 6390 E. Grant Rd. "I understand it, I get it and I'm equipped in order to represent you."
A retired Air Force colonel, McSally was the first woman to command a fighter squadron. An A-10 pilot, she was stationed at Tucson's Davis-Monthan Air Force Base four times, beginning in 1994.
In 1995, the Rhode Island native worked as a national security advisor to U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl while serving with the Air Force.
Until two weeks ago, she was teaching at the George C. Marshall Center in Germany. She spent her last three years in the service stationed in Stuttgart, Germany.
While she retired from the Air Force in 2010, her campaign website was registered to a military Post Office box.
McSally faces state Sen. Frank Antenori, former GOP nominee Jesse Kelly, sportscaster Dave Sitton, and Sierra Vista's John Lervold in the primary election.
3 comments on this story
Just another ANGRY occutard who didn’t get his Obama-cash as promised. Hey I have an idea, dont vote for communists and Left winf extremeists and the country will be in much better shape.
As far as this woman, “with boobs”, goes I am voting for her. But I tend to like my women with boobs. Adam and Eve not adam and steve.
StillWatch said:
“She has her government money, her government healthcare, but the rest of us should go out into the “market” and fend for ourselves.”
All because she devoted over 25 years to the service and protection of our country, for far less pay than she would have made in the private sector, enduring many hardships, and risking her life.
“She is a hypocrite and a shallow thinker.”
People in glass houses!
Giffords resignation leaves us with this tragic collection of wannabes. Here the only woman announced is a beneficiary of government largesse, but mouths the same stupid economic theory the rest of the so-called conservatives mouth. She has her government money, her government healthcare, but the rest of us should go out into the “market” and fend for ourselves. She is a hypocrite and a shallow thinker. She is indistinguishable from Kelly or Antenori. In fact she is Antenori with boobs. I am disgusted.