Ding Dong The Witch is Dead…
AZ Drops A House On The MAGA Mafia
Well. How about those Munchkins! They sure shook up The Land of AZ.
Dorothy, also known as Governor Elect Katie Hobbs, silenced her critics (me included). Meek and Manners can top Mean and Crazy.
Amazing. Here in the state that thinks it’s so tough and independent and CONSERVATIVE (you know, Tombstone, Sheriff Joe, Barry Goldwater and all that BS). The top of a very normal, some would say very soft Democratic ticket, kicked some Extreme MAGA ass.
The repudiation was more than surprising, especially in State 48. Yes, Kari, Arizonans do know your BS when they see it…
Sure, it took a while to count the votes. Some races are in recount. Challenges are coming. That’s OK.
Counting in 2020 and 2018 took a while to finish. So, nothing aberrant here, despite the MAGA whining. In fact, MAGA created this situation with its own paranoid misinformation, flooding polling places with a record number of in-person votes. In-person combined with high early voting from Democrats, Independents, and disillusioned mainstream Republicans, quietly set up MAGA to meet its match.
Except for Superintendent of Public Instruction, where Tom Horne barely defeated incumbent Democrat Kathy Hoffman, they rejected Lake’s ”movement.”
Blake Masters – Loser
Mark Finchem – Loser
Abe Hamadeh – Maybe Loser, Pending Recount
Kari Lake – Loser
But…let’s not get too fired up here
The Land of AZ ain’t Blue. It’s barely Purple.
While Finchem and company are crushed under a house, Lake is still spewing falsehoods, and the Arizona MAGA foot soldiers are far from dead. State 48, with political heroes like Barry Goldwater, Evan Mecham, and Joe Apraio, was Extreme MAGA long before the Mad King lumbered down the escalator.
Why? Because all those Right-leaning Independents and Mainstream AZ Republicans who kept Lake out reverted to their nasty selves down the ballot. They voted GOP. Just like they always do, no matter what wacko is running.
The result: The Flying Monkeys – also known as the Arizona Legislature – are still winging around the Copper Dome:
Senate President Warren Petersen, a Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA puppet
Senator Wendy Rogers, QAnon believer and Oath Keeper who may be chairing the Elections Committee.
Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli, another QAnon disciple, who traffics conspiracy theories worthy of mafia movies.
Senator Anthony Kern, who was with the Insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6th.
Senator John Kavanagh, who has relentlessly tried to keep video of police brutality out of the public eye.
Representative Jake Hoffman, Election Denier who ran a misinformation troll farm from Queen Creek.
If their fringe ideas become law, Arizona’s spot in the Deep South collection of un-Reconstructed states will be guaranteed.
Won’t happen. Katie Hobbs, not Kari Lake, is wearing the Ruby Slippers. Hobbs has the veto pen. Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano used it 50+ times in her first year dealing with a more sane (barely) Republican legislature. Guessing Hobbs will probably break that record. Hope so.
Vetoes Won’t Cut Trump’s Deep AZ Ties
Arizona’s Flying Monkey Legislature shows the Republicans’ deep addiction to MAGA. They won’t separate from the Mad King. Getting whipped statewide didn’t stop Lake from visiting Mar-a-Lago this week. She hasn’t conceded.
There’s lot of blame to go around for this bad, bad habit. And let’s start with Lame Duck Governor and former ice cream salesman Doug Ducey.
He and his buddies played the Trumpster game for a while, knowing full well his politics were toxic. They got their COVID 19 money, their judges and tax cuts and the theater at the border.
Now, they’re stuck with a “leader” who built a dam around their beloved Red Wave, and for some reason isn’t in handcuffs. If you and I led an attack on the Capitol, stole nuclear secrets, actively conspired to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election, and fraudulently valued our assets to dodge taxes and inflate real-estate sales, we’d be locked up.
Ducey also supported Lake, after she knocked off his handpicked successor in the primary. He got behind “chaos, negativity, and excessive attacks” as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the Lake campaign. And he wasn’t alone. Other than the McCain family, almost no notable statewide Republican figure condemned Lake’s take-no-prisoners campaign.
So Somewhere On The Yellow Brick Road…
Governor Hobbs will have to deal with “the APEX Predator” for Trumpism
That’s the label CNN’s Anderson Cooper hung on Lake the night she lost. Apex predators are relentless. So, even as national Republicans try to extricate themselves from the MAGA death hug, the AZ GOP is stuck.
They’ll own Lake and all her awfulness for a long, long time. The down ticket winners November 8th showed how out of step these Republicans are with the voters In this now Purple state. It’s the price of being morally vacant.
A Better Arizona?
Governor Elect Hobbs, your belief that voters “chose a better Arizona” strikes the right tone.
Respectfully, it’s not at all what happened. Remember, you’re about to become governor of Can’t-Spell-Crazy-Without-AZ Arizona.
Kari Lake is so awful, so dangerous, so divisive, that even Arizona voters rejected her complete chaos. Your few thousand victory votes was not an embrace of “better.” You won the same way Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone did when he defeated Joe Arpaio in 2016.
In 2016, Penzone wasn’t the best alternative, he was the only alternative to “The World’s Toughest Sheriff.” Sheriff Joe’s contempt for the rule of law had become too over-the-top for the same Maricopa County voters who’d elected him six times. They booted him, not out of disgust for his racial profiling, his Tent City, his prisoners and their pink underwear, but because he was losing a lot of costly lawsuits.
Joe had become an expensive distraction. Just as Kari would have been.
Can you imagine the national boycotts she’d trigger with her Authoritarian, Democracy-Hating, White, Racist, Christian Nationalist, Science-Hating, Divisive, Grievance “movement?”
Unlike Penzone, who was saddled with Republicans everywhere - County Prosecutor Bill Montgomery, Governor Doug Ducey, a disingenuous Board of Supervisors, and Trump’s ICE playing like the Stasi - you’ll come into the Executive Tower with friends. Adrian Fontes will have your back in the Secretary of State’s Office. Democrat Kris Mayes is a recount away from becoming Attorney General.
But, the Republican knives that cut Penzone will come for you
You’ll have to deal with Extreme MAGA’s grip on the “Constitutional Sheriffs” in Pinal and Yavapai Counties. The gridlocked Congress won’t pass immigration reform, leaving you with the border shit show that’ll be forever and ever headlining FOX News and scaring the crap out of old White voters. And, of course, those flying monkeys.
Those forces quickly neutered Penzone, whose 2016 reform promise is now just talk. On November 8th, he was found in contempt of the court order Arpaio left behind on the way out the door. Penzone just can’t get past Joe’s racial profiling legacy. He promised a clean MCSO. Six years later, it’s still pretty dirty.
So no, Governor-Elect Hobbs, voters didn’t “choose a better Arizona.” They chose not to cringe along with Governor Kari’s act for the next four years.
Reality check
Historic win. But, that was so last week.
Tomorrow, Dorothy, you’ll not only need to sharpen your veto pen.
You’ll need to grow some fangs. And maybe find a house to drop on someone. Or, maybe it’s a bucket of water.
Kari chaos still lives in the Land of AZ.