When this age of vicious politics ends, let’s elect more people like Jeff Flake

If you are a Republican, Christine Blasey Ford is a name that lives in infamy.

She is the witness who then-Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein held in her back pocket to spring at the last moment to try to derail the Supreme Court nomination of conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Blasey Ford would testify in 2018 that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party in Bethesda, Md., when they were teenagers in the summer of 1982.

During the Kavanaugh hearing, I found her testimony unconvincing because she could not produce contemporaneous witnesses from that party, while Kavanaugh could and did.

I had not thought about her recently until she appeared on Tuesday on ABC TV’s “The View” to flog her memoir on the Kavanaugh hearings.

Jeff Flake was 1 of 2 who treated her nicely

In one segment, she was asked about the rough treatment she got from Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, who would not make eye contact with her the entire hearing.

“Were you prepared for that?” asked one of her interviewers.

“I was prepared ahead of time that none of the Republicans were going to speak with me and they were going to use an outside interviewer,” she replied. “And, so, I was actually surprised at how kind some of the other Republican senators were who broke that protocol and said hello.”

Asked who those senators were, she responded, Jeff Flake and Ben Sasse.

Setting aside Sasse, a former Nebraska senator who retired to become the president of the University of Florida, let me concentrate on the name we know best in Arizona — Jeff Flake, our former U.S. senator.

One day, our toxic politics will end

To hear the name Jeff Flake again was to recall a time when our politics were more cordial — not exactly friendly, as John McCain was wont to point out — but not the ax fight it is today.

America has been seized by two toxic political ideologies, Donald Trump’s national populism and the Democrats’ critical social justice.

To hear someone such as Blasey Ford describe the kindness of Jeff Flake made me think about the future when this ugly era will finally and mercifully end.

One day our fever will break and Americans will repair our political culture. I believe this because America has proven over and over its remarkable capacity to self-correct.

When that day comes, I hope we elect more leaders like Jeff Flake.

Some Republicans will spit out their coffee reading that, but in my book it is a Flake virtue that he was kind to an antagonist such as Blasey Ford during the high emotions of the Kavanaugh hearings.

When that happens, let's elect more Flakes

I want us to elect people who better than us, and Flake was that.

A person of real character and human decency, Flake was cerebral without being showy. He believed in conservatism on principle, not as a Kabuki dance to flail about and pound the floor.

Flake stood out as a serious person with a deep knowledge of issues, who could describe for you the fine details of policy and distill them into arguments that regular people could approach and understand.

Something we knew as newspaper editors was that Flake was an exceptional writer — a cut above most politicians — reflecting an orderly and intellectual mind.

While others lost their heads in Washington, Flake was guileless and steady, polite to a fault, and shaped by the values he learned growing up in the ranchlands of rural Arizona.

Flake and Giffords were, above all, friends

My strongest memory of Flake was Saturday, Jan. 8, 2011, the day a gunman shot and seriously injured U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others.

I was working the Opinions desk at The Arizona Republic that day as we sent our editorial writer Linda Valdez, who lived in Tucson, to the University of Arizona Medical Center where Giffords’ survival was very much in doubt.

At one point, a national news organization reported that Giffords had died from her gunshot wounds. They later had to retract.

I remember talking to Valdez that day on the phone and to hear her surprise to have found in the hospital crowd none other than Jeff Flake.

Flake and Giffords, reflecting the good nature of both, were Republican and Democrat who had become collaborators.

Valdez would later describe it this way. “It was a moment that transcended politics. We talked briefly. (Flake) said Giffords was a friend. He looked stricken.”

Jeff Flake saw migrants as humans

Another memory from Flake’s days as an Arizona congressman was his compassion for Mexican immigrants.

He understood we had laws in this country that needed to be obeyed, but he also understood the human aspiration to raise one's prospects for yourself and your children.

He saw the migrants in ways many Republicans would not, as human beings and fundamentally good people. He wanted laws and policies that respected their humanity.

A tragedy: That Flake was so disliked when he left office

That wasn’t weakness, that was honorable.

Thus describes the political problem for Flake. Honorable men and women, like himself, could not remain silent as Republicans elected someone of lower character than themselves.

This is what the Democrats don’t understand about Republicans.

Republicans aren't cruel. This is their way forward

The vast majority of them who voted for Donald Trump are better people than he is. They don’t share his values and they are not as vane or cruel or vulgar as Trump.

They elected someone worse than themselves because they were being punched, and they wanted someone to punch back.

Jeff Flake didn’t play that game. He was better than most in his party.

His pushback against the Trump headwinds eventually ended his career in GOP politics. Today he serves as U.S. ambassador to Turkey.

One day I hope he serves as a model for the Republican Party when it begins to reform itself. Some will say he is a sellout, but that isn’t true. He’s a conservative who would not cede his principles to a movement that abandoned conservatism for raw power.

It may take years, but eventually Republicans will find their bearings and start to look for people of good character to lead them.

When they do, they will find no finer example than Jeff Flake, who, when he looked across the aisle, saw not an enemy, but a fellow American.

Phil Boas is an editorial columnist with The Arizona Republic. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Jeff Flake's name-drop on 'The View' points us to better politics