Signs have been piling up that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema might not run for another term, sparing us all a three-way Arizona Senate race in which her ego battled it out for supremacy against Democratic Rep.
Signs have been piling up that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema might not run for another term, sparing us all a three-way Arizona Senate race in which her ego battled it out for supremacy against Democratic Rep.
It’s pretty clear in the article that she’s not talking about cashing in politically via a role as a Fox News contributor or hitting up the right wing lecture circuit to criticize Democrats for the rest of her life. She specifically talked about using her Senate experience and Washington connections to land a cushy private sector job on a corporate board or to become a University president. Both of which pay substantially higher than the salary of a US Senator and are pretty well worn paths for ex-Senators. She could not care less about staying relevant publicly. She’s already got what she wanted out of her time in the Senate.
But you need to maintain connections over time to get those kinds of jobs. She will have only one term as Senator to build up that Rolodex and gain political favors. I don’t see why any major company would want to keep her on past being a reward for what she did for them in the Senate. Hell, she’s burned bridges with large parts of her own party for voting against Democratic legislation.
I feel like she would find a lot of closed doors if she tried cashing in on her political influence because her influence has only been in saying no.
The quid doesn’t always precede the quo. She’s done the favors, it’s time to collect the board memberships and consultant retainers.
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If she is getting a position as payoff, that isn’t going to last for long. She isn’t going to get a multi-decade job for six years in the Senate.
After all, they are going to need to pay off the next people.
You can always create another bullshit board position.
You can, but why?
She’s not going to bring prestige to the board given her age and relative lack of experience.
Her political connections are shallow given that she’s left her party and her career has been being the 50th vote.
You can hire her as payback, but those positions usually only last a few years unless the politician helped the group for decades or that person can transition to one of the first two roles.
Her value is going to rapidly diminish over time.
I suspect that, as the headline said, she’s grabbing what cash she can. Maybe she’ll be ousted in a few years, in the meantime she’s making 6-7 figures, and can retire comfortably with the 10 or so years of Congressional pay and corporate board pay. She gets her favors paid back with a nice little nest egg for her to disappear with.
She has six years of pay at $174,000 per year, which is ok but isn’t something you can retire on in 10 years.
Maybe she gets that in her post-Senate career, but I doubt it will be enough to fully retire on, especially with her inflated lifestyle.