As commander of the space shuttle, Mark Kelly is used to heading for the heavens. Now the husband of the shot congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is said to be setting course for Capitol Hill with a plan to follow his wife into politics.
Kelly’s announcement last week that he was retiring from Nasa was not unexpected — the last shuttle flight is due to take off this Friday — but his wording prompted intense speculation.
“Gabrielle is working hard every day on her mission of recovery. I want to be by her side,” he wrote on Facebook. Intriguingly he added: “After some time off, I will look at new opportunities and am hopeful that one day I will again serve our country.”
Giffords made her first proper public appearance on Monday since being shot in the head during a political meeting in Tucson nearly six months ago. The Arizona congresswoman accompanied her husband to Nasa’s Houston Space Center to watch him receive the Spaceflight Medal, which is given to astronauts after they complete their missions.
Pushed in a wheelchair by her husband at first, Giffords stood up and chatted. She was rewarded with a standing ovation. Until then, Giffords had been glimpsed only once when she was caught on camera climbing onto a plane to watch Kelly’s final blast-off.
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Giffords was released from a rehabilitation hospital in Houston last month and is continuing outpatient therapy while staying at her husband’s house nearby. Her spokesman, CJ Karamargin, told CNN that everyone was delighted with her impressive progress. “For us, it is clear the congresswoman’s physical strength is improving as well as her cognitive and verbal abilities,” he said After leaving hospital Giffords visited her home town of Tucson for the first time since the shooting in January, which left six dead and 19 wounded.
“Gabby misses Tucson very much,” Kelly said, “and her doctors have said that returning to her home town could play an important role in her recovery.”
Giffords attended a reunion at the home of a member of her staff where, according to Karamargin, she climbed a flight of 18 steps. The remarkable recovery of Giffords, who was reported to have died immediately after the shooting, has inspired the whole nation. But she still struggles to form sentences and Arizona Democrats fear she will not be ready to return to Congress next year, let alone fight a bruising re-election campaign in a Republican-controlled state.
They believe her husband has name recognition and fundraising ability unmatched by any other candidate — Democrat or Republican. Giffords’s district is very competitive — she won re-election by just over 1% last year. But the glamour of Kelly being an astronaut combined with admiration for the way he has handled his wife’s recovery would guarantee public support.
There is a long tradition of familial succession in the US Congress, although it is usually wives who follow their husbands. Of the 275 women who have served in Congress, 46 took the seat held by their late spouse.
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Giffords’s office refuses to discuss her political future and says no decision will be made until next year. In the meantime the couple have begun work on a memoir.
Jaime Molera, a political consultant in Phoenix, said the state is abuzz with rumours that Kelly might replace his wife in Congress. “I believe he would be unbeatable if he were to run as her replacement,” he said. “People want to keep that Gabby’s seat and people would see him running as a reflection of that.”
Some Democrats are urging Kelly to run for the Senate, where the Republican Jon Kyl is retiring. “At the moment the Democrats don’t really have a viable candidate,” said Molera. “There are some I know in Democratic circles who would push and pray to try to get Mark Kelly to run.” But he warned that it could be tough. “I think having a state-wide audience and generating that kind of support would be a lot more difficult,” he said.
Were he to run for the Senate, Kelly might face an unlikely opponent. Sarah Palin recently moved to Arizona, prompting speculation that she intended to use it as a base for a 2012 presidential campaign. Others believe she has focused on Kyl’s Senate seat, which currently has only one Republican contender, the congressman Jeff Flake.
Ford O’Connell and Steve Pearson, Republican campaign strategists , co-wrote an article on the Daily Caller website, arguing that Palin could sweep Arizona and win the Republican primary.
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Pointing out that “this is only a rumour at this stage, and it is probably being pushed by Arizona Democrats who are looking to increase their party’s war chest,” they added, “we believe it has legs”. They argued: “Given the frontier nature of the Arizona electorate, Palin’s fundraising abilities, and her charisma on the stump, Palin will certainly have advantages in the GOP [Republican] nomination race.”
Although Palin is not to be underestimated, the hurdles she faces in Arizona are high. There was an outcry after Giffords’s shooting when it emerged that Palin’s website featured a map during last year’s mid-term elections on which the symbol for a rifle crosshairs appeared over the constituencies of several Democrats, including that of Giffords.
Others doubt that the Senate is where Palin’s ambitions lie. “There’s no doubt, she’d be a very tough candidate,” said Molera. “But I look at the kind of the attention she gets nationally ... would she want to give that up — and her power as a de facto kingmaker — to become one of a hundred?”