Brittany Bernstein reports that activists from the Green New Deal Network intend to harass Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema as she runs the Boston Marathon today. The race is being run today for the first time since 2019, given its cancellation last year.
This is yet another chapter in the ongoing and extremely unseemly saga of public harassment of the Arizona senator, for the purported offense of not going along with the Democrats’ agenda. It follows recent public harassment of her in a bathroom, on an airplane, and in an airport. This latest attempt should be seen in the same light, and equally condemned.
My own background in running (and in Boston itself), however, inclines me to some sport-specific condemnations. First, if the intended harassment is successful, it could look an awful lot like the attempt by Jock Semple to remove Katherine Switzer, the first officially registered female competitor in the Boston Marathon, from the race. Will those obvious optics be noted if activists do find Sinema? Somehow, I doubt it.
Second, I just have to say: Apart from the obvious impropriety of this kind of treatment, the last thing I would want to have happen to me during a marathon is to be accosted in this manner. Marathons are difficult things, requiring months of training beforehand to pull off and several hours of intense physical effort and mental focus during. Given how I tend to get during competition, accosting me in the middle of it is probably not something anyone should want. Sinema would be well within her rights to be angry about such an interruption.
At any rate, I am hoping that the logistics of the race, with its crowd of thousands, varying start and finish times, and first-rate security, make it impossible for these activists to get what they want. And I wish Senator Sinema the best in her efforts.