Arizona megathread

[AZdude]

Assuming Kari Lake is the nominee, which seems like a pretty safe assumption now, this is going to be an interesting campaign.

As an Arizonan, I may sound like a broken record on this, but we've seen Kari Lake for 20 years or so every night on the news.  She is, or at least was, one of the most well-known and trusted media personalities around.  The rest of the country may have only seen the recent lunatic persona, but that's not what a lot of people around here think.

Until maybe 2018 or so, she seemed to be fairly liberal in her social media, etc.  She praised Obama and attacked Trump.  And then, for some reason, she lurched to the right.  Did Trump and/or the pandemic drive her nuts?  Did she suddenly decide she really wanted to be governor and that this was the best path there?  Who knows.

And so that leaves me wondering, what kind of campaign is she going to run from here on?  Unlike a lot of people (Masters, etc), she could credibly moderate if she wanted to.  Even Robson kept attacking her as a "closet liberal."  The recent drag queen kerfluffle, where she attacked Drag Queen Story Hours and then was "outed" as having been close friends with a drag queen a few years ago, just goes to show how different she was not too long ago.

But does she even WANT to moderate herself?  Maybe she is genuinely nuts and not just spewing what she thinks the Trumpanzees want to hear.  I guess we'll find out soon enough.

[AZdude]

Well, I guess it's pretty safe to say she's not going to moderate.

I guess she's banking on the general mood of the electorate to carry her into office.

Can't wait for the debates.

[AZdude]

Katie Hobbs is apparently trying to duck the debate.  I don't think that's a very good idea.  I understand that she's probably leery of the fact that Kari Lake is charismatic and extremely comfortable in front of a camera, but she's still espousing loony BS and with any sort of prep Hobbs should be able to expose her.

Running from the debate would send a really bad sign to the electorate and give Lake a huge line of attack.  Hobbs got away with doing it in the primary because she was a prohibitive favorite, but I don't think that will work here.  The debate will have a huge audience, and Hobbs absolutely needs to take the opportunity to try and inject some sanity.

[AZdude]

Katie Hobbs is apparently trying to duck the debate.  I don't think that's a very good idea.  I understand that she's probably leery of the fact that Kari Lake is charismatic and extremely comfortable in front of a camera, but she's still espousing loony BS and with any sort of prep Hobbs should be able to expose her.

Running from the debate would send a really bad sign to the electorate and give Lake a huge line of attack.  Hobbs got away with doing it in the primary because she was a prohibitive favorite, but I don't think that will work here.  The debate will have a huge audience, and Hobbs absolutely needs to take the opportunity to try and inject some sanity.

Where is the evidence that she's trying to do this though? I'd be extremely surprised if she - or any GE candidate anywhere in the country - thought that would be a good idea.

Here's one link: https://www.azfamily.com/2022/08/19/why-there-may-not-be-an-arizona-gubernatorial-debate-this-year/

It's not set in stone, she's kind of going with that mealy-mouthed "I want to debate but not if she's going to make a circus out of it..."  That won't fly with the voters.  The general-election debates in Arizona have been on the public access channel for as long as I can remember, and they've always been pretty standard.  The primary was sort of a cluster, but it was a group thing.

[AZdude]

Katie Hobbs is apparently trying to duck the debate.  I don't think that's a very good idea.  I understand that she's probably leery of the fact that Kari Lake is charismatic and extremely comfortable in front of a camera, but she's still espousing loony BS and with any sort of prep Hobbs should be able to expose her.

Running from the debate would send a really bad sign to the electorate and give Lake a huge line of attack.  Hobbs got away with doing it in the primary because she was a prohibitive favorite, but I don't think that will work here.  The debate will have a huge audience, and Hobbs absolutely needs to take the opportunity to try and inject some sanity.

Where is the evidence that she's trying to do this though? I'd be extremely surprised if she - or any GE candidate anywhere in the country - thought that would be a good idea.

Here's one link: https://www.azfamily.com/2022/08/19/why-there-may-not-be-an-arizona-gubernatorial-debate-this-year/

It's not set in stone, she's kind of going with that mealy-mouthed "I want to debate but not if she's going to make a circus out of it..."  That won't fly with the voters.  The general-election debates in Arizona have been on the public access channel for as long as I can remember, and they've always been pretty standard.  The primary was sort of a cluster, but it was a group thing.

I mean, that's not really saying she won't debate. She's just saying that she doesn't want Lake to pull any stunts, and that's understandable, just look at PA-GOV where Mastriano is currently pulling stunts with their debate.

Yes, but as the piece mentioned, she already skipped the debate in the primary, so she's done it before.  And I just gave one example story, it's being talked about all over AZ politics.
But as you said, it would be an incredibly bad idea, so hopefully she gets talked out of it.  Maybe she'll be able to play with the rules to muzzle Qari/KKKari/whatever you want to call her.

[AZdude]

As utterly deranged as her words are, I HATE how familiar and comforting her voice is.  My parents watched Fox 10 religiously, so I heard her voice every weekday while I was doing my homework and even later when I was visiting.  I keep expecting to hear about "record temps" or "Suns/Cards fever grips the Valley" and then this demonic crap spews out.

Ballots get mailed Oct 12, and AZ is a huge VBM state.  I really hope Hobbs can kick it into gear here.

[AZdude]

As Centrist and Xavier have noted, Hobbs has virtually zero TV presence currently.  (Lake doesn't either, but as I've said she doesn't really need it due to her name recognition.)

Tying into what I said earlier and about what was asked about Kelly-Lake voters?  My parents, for two.  They're just in love with her.  I managed to cajole them into voting for Biden, and they really like Mark Kelly, but I can't currently dissuade them from voting for "Kari."

The abortion angle?  Doesn't move them at all.  The nutcase election rhetoric?  According to them, she doesn't really believe it, so it's okay.

At this point I wonder if I'm going to have to sneak over there and steal their ballots or I don't know, threaten to not be their son anymore if they vote for Lake.  Ugh.  I was really hoping Hobbs would "man up" and debate in order to show Lake's stupidity off.  Really, really stupid move on her part to chicken out like that.

[AZdude]

I wonder if there are any AZ posters here from Tucson or Yuma.  The Phoenix media market covers the entire northern part of the state, so I think their perspective would be interesting to hear as they haven't been exposed to Lake before the campaign.

[AZdude]

Tying into what I said earlier and about what was asked about Kelly-Lake voters?  My parents, for two.  They're just in love with her.  I managed to cajole them into voting for Biden, and they really like Mark Kelly, but I can't currently dissuade them from voting for "Kari.

How did you convince them to vote for Biden in 2020?

My parents have always been pro-military (hence the like for Mark Kelly), and Trump lost their votes by daring to attack Saint McCain.  Frankly, I believe that's what cost Trump the state, not some huge love for Joe Biden.  From there, I played up Biden's seeming common-sense response to COVID and the empathy which he does so well, especially contrasted with the MAGA crowd.  But honestly, Trump did most of the work for me.

Anybody other than Kari Lake espousing that stupidity would be a slam dunk to get them to vote for Hobbs.  But I have hope I can sway them before the election.  I'm going to hit them with Lake badmouthing John McCain as hard as I can.

[AZdude]

Well Hobbs is finally on the air, so that's a good thing.  Both she and Kelly are pushing border security - I don't know if that's the best place to fight this battle on.  I've said even before 2018/20 that AZ is actually a sort of purplish, live-and-let-live state (1st in the country to beat a gay marriage ban!) until you start in on immigration, and then a significant portion of the state simply goes insane.

I thought it was strange albeit understandable due to name rec that Lake is not on the air, now I think it's deliberate.  It looks like she's running a two-pronged strategy - 1, work the base heavily with rallies and insane rhetoric on right-wing social media, 2, stay quiet on a statewide level and bank on "low-info" voters filling in the oval for Fox 10 Sweetheart Kari Lake.

I guess it's to her credit(?) that she's not "moderating" like Masters and putting up tons of TV ads showing what a normal person she is.  But it's why so many people in AZ are concerned about the Hobbs campaign - she HAS to expose Lake as nuts to win.  I thought a debate would have been a great chance to do that.  Sinema vs McSally was certainly talked about quite a bit afterwards.

[AZdude]

Unsurprisingly, the abortion ruling is HUGE news here now.  This could really be a turning point, at least hopefully.  I think people weren't really thinking about it before because AZ was in a somewhat unclear position regarding abortion law.

Now I bet Hobbs wishes she had agreed to the debate.  But even so, she needs to really start hitting hard on this as other posters have said.

[AZdude]

Early ballots go out in the mail today in Maricopa County.  Every time I open my mailbox and see that big yellow envelope, I feel a little bit like it's Christmas morning.  Oh yeah, I'm also a huge dork haha.

I'm feeling very good about Kelly. Hobbs...  I'm hoping for the best.

[AZdude]

So many of the props just seem like the GOP chewing away at voting rights.  Given how big citizen referenda are here, I hope people can see through them.  It would be funny ('cause it's sad) if 132 (which will require 60% approval for future initiatives) passes with less than 60% of the vote.  I think the same thing happened in Florida when they passed their 60% law.

Since I always vote by mail, 309 doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but requiring photo ID for in-person voting will likely make E-day voting even more of a mess.

I honestly have to confess I'm undecided on 308 though.

All of that said, I'm shocked how little airtime any of these have gotten.  Some of the props in the past (marijuana, marriage, etc) absolutely sucked the air out of the room as I remember.

[AZdude]

Every day I'm getting more depressed about this race.  If Hobbs loses, which it's looking more and more likely she will, she needs to be drummed out of AZ politics (and preferably the state) for good.  She's blowing this race right and left, and it's sad that nobody better stepped up and ran.

And yet I still dare to hope Hobbs might win.  If "Roevember" (eye roll) becomes a thing, or if just enough people wake up and see how batsh**t nuts Qari Lake is, there's still hope.  But I'm afraid we're getting to the point where desperate hope is ALL there is.

Regardless, I don't think there's any chance of a blowout win by Lake.  As we've mentioned, she's making virtually no effort to reach out to the middle or moderate.  But all she needs is a plurality to get in there and wreak God knows what kind of havoc here.