Axios Has a Big Boner for Kyrsten Sinema

It is hard to resist the charms of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the visible bisexual with a taste for florals who opposes the most basic tenants of her party’s political agenda. She is from Arizona; she triathlons her way into perpetual injury; she has never looked at an embossed Wine-o’Clock plaque and said: “No.”

On at least this much, the news site Axios, known for boldly dispensing with paragraphs in favor of rock hard bullet points, agrees. At 9:33 a.m. this morning, the outlet tweeted a story titled “Cracking the Synema Code.” Here is the opening sentence, from reporter Hans Nichols:

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s political allies have some free advice for anyone trying to bully the wine-drinking triathlete into supporting President Biden's $3.5 trillion budget bill: She doesn’t play by Washington’s rules — and she's prepared to walk away.

Nichols, who writes an in-house newsletter called “Sneak Peek,” snuck in some stimulating details about the Senator blocking President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” COVID-19 relief, clean energy, and infrastructure bill for reasons she refuses to explain. Sinema’s confounding tactics have alienated even radical leftists like Jonathan Chait and David Brooks, but for Nichols, they merely add to her mystique:

For all her flash, Sinema — unlike fellow holdout Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) — rarely telegraphs her precise intentions, leaving political adversaries guessing about her ultimate goals.

In conversation with colleagues, she’ll suggest that her top priority is passing the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal she brokered this spring over late-night, wine-fueled negotiations. Beyond that, you're piecing together clues.

The main clue we’re piecing together here is that Axios reporter Hans Nichols wants to have some late-night, wine-fueled negotiations with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Consider this Missed Connections-style description:

Progressives could be forgiven for presuming that Sinema, 45, the first openly bisexual member of Congress, who's easy to spot in her trademark sleeveless dresses, wry wigs and acrylic glasses, would share their woke politics.

Mr. Nichols would never make assumptions about Sinema. He knows she doesn’t “mind challenging party orthodoxies.” Sinema’s silence on her motives has nothing to do with that thing Mark Twain maybe said; she’s just quirky:

She's unconventional (see: recent internship at a Sonoma winery) and a force to be reckoned with. She's known to rise between 4-5 a.m. to train for her next race, and she was forced to take up aqua jogging after breaking her foot this summer in something called the "Light at the End of the Tunnel Marathon."

Nichols sure has covered Kyrsten a lot. Yesterday, he reported that Sinema had skipped a “closed-door” meeting with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the other lone holdout on the spending bill, over climate provisions. Two weeks ago, he landed a groundbreaking scoop that Sinema, an elected official, uses Microsoft Excel.

The piece, titled “Sinema’s Secret Spreadsheets,” boasted that the Arizona Senator was “negotiating the size and scope” of the budget plan “armed with her own spreadsheets.” It did not elaborate on what was in those tight little boxes.