Wendy Rogers Rhetorical Analysis

Marcela Romero

Dr. Kathryn A. DePalo

Women in Politics

10th November 2014

Arizona-9th District: Kyrsten Sinema vs. Wendy Rogers Elections 2014

After the 2010 Census results Arizona’ ninth congressional district was created, having its first representative in the 113th Congress Kyrsten Sinema, a democratic leader. In 2014 elections, House Representative Sinema was seeking re-election against her Republican opponent Wendy Rogers, an air force veteran and small business owner. Incumbent Kyrsten Sinema focuses her primary policies of concern on “women’s issues” and her democratic political ideology and her opponent Wendy Rogers based her issues on republican political “masculine issues”. The candidate Wendy Rogers had two major faux pas that

cost her the seat on the 2014 Congressional elections giving Sinema’s more strength and popularity. Although, this political raise was expected to be a tight race according to the Arizonian political identity leaning more Republican, Kyrsten Sinema won the majority of the votes achieving her re-election for two more years as a member of the United States House of Representatives.
The incumbent Kyrsten Sinema is a Democratic political leader, who rise from the bottom of society to become the first United States House Representative of the ninth district in Arizona. Sinema was born in Tucson Arizona and suffer extreme poverty, coming from a homeless family that lived in an abandoned gas station for two years. She overcame her family’s economic situation and earned a full academic scholarship to study her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Social Work. Years later she earned her Juris Doctorate and PhD in justice studies from Arizona State University. She had work as a social worker in Phoenix and as a private practice attorney. Kyrsten Sinema began her political career as a member of the Green Party, years later she joined the Democratic Party winning the Arizona House of Representatives District fifteenth from 2005 until 2010 when she won the Arizona State Senate. She resigned her State Senate position in 2012 in order to run for Congress. In January 2013 she took her position of Arizona’s ninth district representative and became the first openly bisexual member of Congress (Lucy Burns Institute).
On the other hand, Wendy Rogers is a Republican affiliate, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and small business owner in Arizona, who wanted to defeat the incumbent Sinema. Rogers’ life has being marked by her twenty years of service in the Air Force, becoming one of the first hundred women pilots and fifth generation military officer. She earned her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in Social Work at the Michigan State University and University of Alabama respectively, and a second master’s degree in National Security Studies in Political Science (WendyRogers.org). She retired from the Air Force in 1996 and started her family home inspection business. Wendy Rogers is a Republican member affiliated for over thirty-eight years, with a not very successful political career. She ran in 2010 election for Arizona State Senate District seventeenth but was defeated by her democrat opponent David Schapira. In 2012 elections, Rogers ran for the U.S. House to represent Arizona’s 9th District but was defeated in the Republican primary by Vernon Parker (Lucy Burns Institute).
Every candidate has primary policy concerns usually link to their political ideology or gender and the Arizona’s ninth district U.S. House of Representative raise was not the exception. The incumbent Kyrsten Sinema reinforced the support to her previous 2012 campaign policy concerns, making a perfect example of her affinity in “women’s issues” and political beliefs. She emphasized in issues that are normally more appealing to women such as health care for veterans, seniors and families, education, and the protection of Social Security and Medicare. Also, she stipulates her continuous fight for basic women’s health care coverage like birth control, the protection of women from abuse and equal pay among gender. More appealing to her political party, Sinema address the issue of many undocumented residents living in the country and her support for same sex marriage. Moreover, Kyrsten Sinema also touches issues related to economy such as her support to increase the minimum wage and tax breaks to companies that create high-tech and high-wage jobs (Kyrsten Sinema for Congress).
In the same way, her opponent Wendy Rogers expressed the issues that guided her candidacy based on her political ideology which make them to be leaner to a more masculine perspective. She expressed her concerns with national security and terrorist threats that could be solve by more military investment, the security of borders in order to protect the American sovereignty and opposing to illegal immigrants and any type of amnesty to legalize them. The IRS and the Tax Code need to be eradicate with a new tax reform that makes it simpler, gives economic growth and does not favor a specific class. Rogers supported the siting of new domestic oil refiners, investment in nuclear energy and solar and wind power. Wendy Rogers touches some “women issues” such as the need to improve the quality of education by giving more resources, rather than extra money and preserve Social Security. She states the need for more jobs and her repellence to Obama Care, however, she does not bring to the table any solutions or better choices in these matters. She is a very conservative candidate characterized by her stands for pro-life, against abortion and against same sex marriage (WendyRogers.org).
One of the most important ways to gain votes in a political campaign is by the use of media such as television advertisement, press releases and social media; and the race between Sinema and Rogers intended to achieve that goal but also attack the opponent. Kysten Sinema took a very neutral stand just focused on her issues and concerns in her ads. On her website, Sinema has five ads that resemble her path towards reelection and her strong stand in her main issues most of them linked to “women’s issues” such as equal pay, equal access to contraceptives, equal health care cost and protection to Social Security and Medicare. She also shows the broad support she have received from bipartisan groups among her district, her accountability by denying her own salary and to support cuts on congressional benefits. The most dramatic advertisement in her campaign express her fighting for the Veterans Affairs a reform, showing the story of Daniel a young military veteran with traumatic brain injury and stress disorder which committed suicide after not receiving the right help at the Phoenix VA. This is the only ad where she is portrait with one of her family members, her brother who is a Marine. Incumbent Kyrsten Sinema does not have any ads against her adversary, even in own her Facebook page, she always try to post articles, videos or information about her campaign and encourage people to vote for her.
In contrast, Wendy Rogers’ ads were a mixture of attacking Sinema’s job, and imposing Wendy Rogers as the best representative in Washington.

Wendy Rogers’ website had just one ad label “Walk with Wendy” which started by criticizing Kyrsten Sinema’s career, by accusing her of ignoring the needs of the people in the Arizona’s ninth district, and then showing Wendy Rogers as the perfect women that listens to the people. In this ad she expresses her dedication to serve and emphasize in her family that makes her who she is, having her daughter talk about her qualities in the kitchen, a very masculine idea of portraying family in the media but feminized by the scenario. Also, it shows different citizens of different races and ethnicities greeting Wendy Rogers and expressing her characteristics of being a passionate, caring, trustworthy, and a great mom, ready to serve. In her website there also pictures of her career achievements and her family composed by her husband and her two kids. Another ad found online, express the life of Liutenant Wendy Robers, her service for twenty years in the Air Force, making her promoter of security. It discusses her major policy issues such as preserving senior’s retirement, affordability of college, and get America back to work. The most dramatic and controversial ad in Wendy Rogers’ campaign was named “Growing” in which Kyrsten Sinema is attack for not doing her job in congress due to the increase in terrorist threats by voting to give

terrorist constitutional rights and led Guantanamo Base prisoners return to their country. But the most shocking part of the ad is a scene that shows the moments previous the beheading of the American photojournalist James Foley in the hands of ISIS. The Rogers campaign had to modify the ad due to the commotion of the citizens and the negative image that came with it. On her Facebook page, Wendy Rogers try to appeal to the public by posting information about her issues and ads but also shows pictures of Sinema and comments arguing her lack of work and failure in congressional tasks.
Fundraising is the motor of a campaign, and the candidate that raises more money have better opportunities to obtain more voters and win the political seat. The incumbent Kyrsten Sinema raised $3,436,431 against her opposing candidate Wendy Rogers who raised $1,187,061. Kyrsten Sinema had better possibilities raising money due to her years in the position, her political ideology and recognition in the community. Sinema top contributors list include the Democracy Engine, Arizona State University and EMILY’s List among many others. Most of her contributions were made by individual contributions in larger amounts of money and also from Political Action Committees (PACs) and Super PACs. The top industries that supported her with monetary funds were the Democratic and Liberal individuals, lawyers and law firms, leadership PACs, real estate and insurance companies. She spend $3,067,172 during her campaign. In disadvantage with the incumbent, Wendy Rogers could not earn the same amount of money than Sinema which contribute to her lost. Rogers raised $1,187,061 and spent $1,113,927 during her candidacy. Her contributions were made by individual large contributions and some PACs. The top contributors include Macerich Corporation, Wdp Partners and Value in Electing Women PAC, with top industries supporting her such as the retired, real state, leadership PACs and the Republican Conservative communities (The Center for Responsive Politics).
During the campaign between incumbent Kyrsten Sinema and Wendy Rogers two issues created major controversy among media and voters in Arizona which created an undesirable imagine in the Republican opponent.

Wendy Rogers first sparked of negative media started as a result of the social discontent on one of her campaign ads, in which it was feature a part of the clip from the beheading of the American journalist James Foley in hands of ISIS. Rogers received criticism due to the dramatic images, she had to remove the disturbing part and apologize to Mr. Foley’s family in order to continue showing the ad. Wendy Rogers was marked as an unhuman disrespectful woman which give her a total deteriorating face in her political image. This video was meant to criticize Kyrsten Sinema’s actions by voting in favor to set free Guantanamo Bay prisoners and return them to their country, as a result many of them join ISIS one the most recent national terrorist threats (Lucy Burns Institute). But Rogers’ bad publicity did not stop there, she gained public attention by not attending a televised debate between Congressional District ninth candidates with Arizona PBS Channel. This debate was consider to be a very informative exchange of ideas among participants and give them more chances to reach voters. However, Rogers’ spokesman expressed that it is not a norm to attend the debate, and claims that Sinema skipped the event in 2012 (Hendley). Rogers also attacked Kirsten Sinema’s Veteran suicide

ad to be “exploitative, offensive, and in poor taste and revolving that Sinema exploit a soldier’s suicide for her own political gain”. However, she created her own ad using the dramatic footage of an American tragedy such as Mr. Foley’s death and did not argued the same. On the contrary, the incumbent Kyrsten Sinema did not have traces of negative publicity by social media just the comments created against her credibility by her opponent Wendy Rogers.
The incumbent Kyrsten Sinema won the raise for the Congressional district ninth of Arizona with over 12% more votes than her opponent the republican candidate Wendy Rogers.
The success of the incumbent winning her re-election was a mixture of her positive popularity in the region and the emphasis in her gender and political ideology policies of concern. Sinema keeps her leadership as the strongest democratic politician winning 54.1% of the votes against Wendy Rogers who received 42.5% of the votes and the Libertarian candidate Powell Gammill with 3.4% (Lucy Burns Institute). Kyrsten Sinema emphasized her campaign in issues related to “women’s issues” such as more investment in education, reproductive right of abortion, equal pay among gender, women’s protection against abuse, basic health care coverage and security of seniors and veterans. She also stated main issues linked to her political ideology such as the support for same sex marriage, raise the minimum wage and the protection of the Social Security and Medicare systems. Also, Sinema raised more money as a result of her positive image and popularity in her district, she had more possibilities to reach voters in the media and support in fundraisers for being the incumbent. At the same time, the two major mistakes from Wendy Rogers candidacy such as the beheading ad and not attending the televised debate, gave her a negative image very hard to surpass. Sinema got more popularity and strength after Wendy Rogers’ errors, emphasizing her as the best choice to represent the Arizonian people of district ninth in the United States House of Representatives.