OPINION:
Few sentiments represent the conservative movement’s temperament just now so much as Edgar Guest’s line that we’d rather see a sermon than hear one—any day. When it comes to Arizona’s GOP primary for Governor, one candidate has lived and shown conservatism her entire life and career, while the other discovered it about a month before declaring her candidacy last year, asking us to trust her now, just after stating in her own video that she was misleading us for years.
In Arizona’s history, we have never had a candidate or potential Governor like Karrin Taylor Robson. She is the ideal consummation of all we and our movement have been arguing and hoping for, for years.
On education, Karrin has worked with our nation’s most important education reformers, including William J. Bennett (Ronald Reagan’s Education Secretary) and Lisa Graham Keegan (Arizona’s Superintendent that made school choice a reality in Arizona). Both have fully endorsed Karrin’s candidacy.
On economics, Karrin has worked with, and also been endorsed by, Stephen Moore, Donald Trump’s economic and tax advisor (and nominee for the Federal Reserve). When it comes to economic growth in our state, Karrin has not only chaired our state’s effort to keep our legislature in Republican hands, she has supported efforts to lower taxes and regulations on small businesses.
In building our state’s ability to propel our students into military or other public services—or just, simply, to teach our children about our history and our county—Karrin conceived and implemented the idea that high school students must pass the same citizenship test in order to graduate from high school that legal immigrants must take to become citizens. This has now become a national project. She has chaired the Joe Foss Institute and she has served on the Civic Leaders Group for the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force and as an Honorary Commander for Luke Air Force Base. Additionally, Karrin and her border policies have been endorsed by Brandon Judd of the National Border Patrol Council and former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.
Karrin has also done yeoman’s work in supporting youth drug and substance abuse prevention and in supporting and counseling unmarried pregnant mothers and their children.
Karrin was baptized in our state’s political conservatism, even before birth—as her mom was knocking on doors for Barry Goldwater when Karrin was in her belly. And Karrin was raised as a Goldwater conservative, until Ronald Reagan was elected president when she then began working for him, becoming a Goldwater/Reagan conservative and Republican. When Donald Trump ran for office, Karrin rolled up her sleeves to raise over one million dollars for his election and re-election. All these efforts have constituted Karrin’s public policy calling cards and volunteer efforts in Arizona.
In my radio profession, talk show hosts are reliant and dependent on the First Amendment. Nowhere is that great and fundamental constitutional protection at more risk than in our universities today. So, Karrin rolled up her sleeves and created a First Amendment project for our students at ASU, U of A, and NAU—a debating competition where students undertake the argument for a position they do not agree with, and then compete against other students and other schools. Karrin has brought in national First Amendment experts to help coach and judge these students, many of whom relate that they changed their positions from left to right after examining the issues fully—a true testament to education and the First Amendment. (And one reason the left is so against free speech and thought).
Her efforts on this front garnered national attention as well, and she earned the annual award from the conservative American Council of Trustees and Alumni. Her speech to them, “Education and Freedom: Hope for a Self-Governing Society,” is a tour de force on academic freedom, constitutional history, and the importance of Western Civilization.
In sum, given all her work in our movement, on behalf of civics and constitutional education of our youth, advising and supporting our military, solidifying our border, and working on behalf of the party of Goldwater, Reagan, and Trump, Karrin Taylor Robson will not only be our state’s most conservative governor in history, but she will also be our best.
It is simply not a close call as to whom conservatives should endorse for our state’s next chief executive—our children and our adults will have no better friend, ally, or leader.
- Seth Leibsohn is a Phoenix-based radio host on 960am/KKNT, author, and a Senior Fellow with the Claremont Institute.
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