CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — An Arizona doctor, originally born and raised in the Mountain State, might have the best chance of any Republican on August 30th at unseating long-time U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) in the Arizona Republican primary.
“I loved growing up in West Virginia,” Dr. Kelli Ward said on the MetroNews-affiliated “The Mike Queen Show” on the AJR News Network. “Born in Fairmont. High school in Bridgeport. Now, amazingly, running for the U.S. Senate. Never thought I’d run for public office, and here I am trying to put this country back on the right track.”
Ward may be an insurgent primary challenger against a U.S. Senator, former major Presidential candidate, and war hero, but she is polling closer than expected against the soon to be 80-year-old McCain. The most recent available polling from Public Policy Polling finds Ward 13 points behind Senator McCain, but with 27 percent of the electorate undecided.
“Everybody knows John McCain’s name,” Dr. Ward said. “It’s not that I’m not a competent, qualified, capable person who could take the reigns and hit the ground running in Washington D.C. That is true. It’s overcoming the difficulty of getting my name identification up to the point where I’m able to win. However, those polls are pretty amazing.”
Dr. Ward is attempting to challenge McCain from the right–claiming that he isn’t conservative enough on issues like immigration and term limits.
“John McCain has touched almost every political life in Arizona,” she said. “He’s touched many across the country and across the world, as well. It is a huge a challenge, but if people aren’t held accountable for the way that they vote then we’re going to keep getting the same thing that we have in Washington D.C.”
The publication National Journal once described Senator McCain as “conservative,” but not “a conservative.” Dr. Ward believes Senator McCain owes a further shift to the right to his constituents.
“It seems he’s forgotten who he actually works for,” she said. “He creates fear in the people who are represented by him, and I don’t think any of our elected representatives should create fear. Actually, the people who elected them–their bosses–should create fear in them.”
Dr. Ward claims that her goal is to work in the U.S. Senate for no longer than it takes to, in her words, “get this country back on the right track” without exceeding her idea of what it means to become a career politician.
“I think that I have got some skills and some talents and some abilities–some things that I have been blessed with that I would love to share for a short period of time, because I also believe in term limits–with the people of the state of Arizona and with the people of this country so we can get this country back on the right track,” she said.
In addition to her time at Bridgeport High School, where she was valedictorian in 1987, Dr. Ward also graduated from Duke University, eventually attending the West Virginia Osteopathic School of Medicine in Lewisburg.
“They teach you so much about how to take care of a patient and put a patient first, and I think it is one of the main reasons why I was able to be such an excellent physician was because of the training I got in Lewisburg,” she said.
Dr. Ward hopes she has made her Alma mater and those in North Central West Virginia proud of her.
“I think that I have made the people of Bridgeport pretty proud so far,” she said. “I’m a family physician. Had my own practice for about ten years. Transitioned to just working in the emergency department as I was transitioning into the political arena. Served in the Arizona State Senate.”
The Arizona Primary is on August 30th.