Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward calls Phoenix a 'hell hole'

The head of the Arizona Republican Party, Kelli Ward, proclaimed on Twitter earlier this week that 220,600 members of her party choose for some ungodly reason to make their homes in a “hell hole.”

Meaning, Phoenix.

According to the Maricopa County Recorder’s latest count, that is the number of GOP voters who live here: 220,600.

I live in Phoenix, too, and have for 40 years.

As do individuals of note like Alice Cooper, the Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps, “Twilight” series author Stephenie Meyer and many others.

The late-Sen. Barry Goldwater was born and raised here. As was Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks. And film director Steven Spielberg. And country music star Dierks Bentley.

It goes on.

Parks, museums, nightlife = hell hole?

The internationally renowned Heard Museum is here. The Desert Botanical Garden. Encanto Park. Papago Park. South Mountain. Camelback Mountain. Piestewa Peak. Roosevelt Row. Heritage Square. St. Mary’s Basilica.

Restaurants and bars and sports venues and theaters of every variety and size.

All that and more is what the chair of the Arizona Republican Party calls a “hell hole.”

It happened after the Phoenix Police Department published a tweet thanking the public for aiding them in the arrest of a suspect shown assaulting a cellphone store employee.

Ward tweeted: “Monsters everywhere – especially in Democrat run hell holes including Phoenix.”

Facts don’t matter to someone like Ward, who continues to spread the Big Lie and to spew divisive language, even it if insults 220,600 of her Republican brothers and sisters. But here is something interesting about “Democrat run hell holes”.

The think tank Third Way analyzed data from the 25 largest cities in the U.S. that are run by Democrats and found that those cities employ 75% more police officers than the 25 largest Republican-run cities on a per capita basis, and likewise spend more money on policing.

And while statistics like that may be illuminating, they don’t get to the heart of what defines a place.

Phoenix is the biggest small town in America

By population Phoenix is the fifth-largest city in the United States, but it always has felt to me like America’s biggest small town.

That has to do with all the good and gracious and generous individuals I’ve met over the years. People like the great old ballplayer turned broadcaster and humanitarian Joe Garagiola. And the caring and wildly charitable grocery store magnate Eddie Basha.

And someone you may not have heard of. His name was John Ahearn. He used to go on walks in my neighborhood. We’d meet in my yard some days and talk. He had a slight hitch in his step, owing an artificial limb below the knee on his right leg and what had been a severely injured left foot.

We all could learn from an expert on hell holes

On June 6, 1944, D-Day, Ahearn was a 29-year-old tank commander. He landed on Utah Beach. He’d already served in combat in Sicily and North Africa as part of the 70th Tank Battalion. Fighting their way into the hedgerows, Ahearn’s company came upon American soldiers trapped in a minefield. He wouldn’t allow any of his men to go in after the wounded. He went in himself. During the rescue attempt, he stepped on a mine.

“What could I do?” he told me. “I had to try.”

He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, second to the Medal of Honor. His wife showed me the award once. It shared space in an old department store shirt box, stored in a clothing closet, along with Ahearn’s Silver Star, three Bronze Stars and Purple Heart.

John Ahearn was an expert on hell holes, and was determined after the war to make his home someplace thriving, hopeful and welcoming.

He lived out his life here. In Phoenix.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kelli Ward, AZ GOP chair, calls Phoenix a 'hell hole'