So Arizona, Will It Be Kari Or Katie?
Chaos Or Competence Is The Choice
Early ballots arrive in our mailboxes this week, so it’s decision time in the most important Arizona election in quite some time.
What? Bigger than 2020’s swing to Joe Biden? Absolutely. The Extreme MAGA slate led by Kari Lake and featuring a band of election deniers, misogynists, and white supremacists is not just a true threat to democracy. It’s a menace to the well-being of every Arizonan: Republican or Democrat, Independent or Disinterested.
Yeah, you think me shrill and unhinged. Not so, and here’s why.
Arizona’s fringe politics have, with the notable exceptions of SB1070 and Joe Arpaio, been backstopped by reasonable Republicans. John McCain, Jeff Flake, Rusty Bowers, Grant Woods, Jane Dee Hull, Betsey Bayless to name a few. They drove standard GOP values like small government, strong defense, less regulation and lower taxes. Generally, they avoided the grievance politics and culture wars of Extreme MAGA.
These Arizonans had both a moral compass, and in the case of Jane Dee Hull, the veto pen. When the Arizona Legislature went off the rails – a perpetual event – they guided the state back to its independent and conservative roots. Each knew their responsibility in maintaining a democracy. Each knew how administrative government was designed to function. Each stayed off the crazy pills.
Kari Lake seems to enjoy those crazy pills daily. She rants endlessly about the supposed corrupt 2020 election, promising to make in-person voting and hand counted ballots the law. She spews offensive remarks toward Arizonans who identify as LGBTQ and calls amnesty seeking immigrants“invaders at the border.” All the while she wages culture wars against “woke” educators and “being cancelled.” Kari Lake on the 10th floor of the Executive Tower is the dream of Arizona’s looney tune Republican legislators. Just take a look at last session to see what may become reality with Governor Lake. There isn’t a wacky bill she wouldn’t sign.
Who is Kari Lake?
You can read an Arizona Republic profile here. And, you can cringe through this AXIOS analysis and The Atlantic’s take on her rising fortunes within Ultra MAGA. VEEP on the Trump 2024 ticket is mentioned.
Democratic strategist David Axelrod offered this scary assessment: “If you get a candidate who has the performance skills of a major-market local TV anchor and the philosophy and thinking of Steve Bannon, that’s a potent and dangerous combination…”
At her core, Kari Lake is a local TV News anchor, meaning she made a successful living off the evening news (HT Don Henley). In her 20+ year career in Phoenix, she spent countless hours reading a teleprompter, briefly on the NBC station KPNX, then on the local FOX owned station FOX10. With FOX, She delivered high ratings in a very competitive local news market.
The station endlessly promoted Kari and her co-anchor John Hook – “Hook and Lake” was the tagline. The two were prominent faces of Phoenix evening news watched daily by FOX viewers at 9PM after they’d binged on top shows like American Idol, the Masked Singer, 24, and the World Series.
Kari earned six-figure salaries in a range of $150,000-$400,000 annually. The money grew in each contract renewal, rising with her popularity. People recognized her on the street, in grocery stores, and restaurants, That doesn’t happen unless they like what you’re doing. Constantly being told how wonderful one is can be heady stuff.
TV Anchors Do What, Exactly?
Mostly, they read a lot of news that others, their producers and executive producers, write for them. The Good Anchor often goes into the field to report, develop sources, break stories, make personal appearances at community events, and edit copy. They’re credible journalists, valuable leaders in their newsroom and to their audience. Done this way, a Good Anchor plays a significant role in the city she/he serves.
There’s also the Bad Anchor. They do nothing much except read news. They’re glued to the desk in the studio. They avoid personal engagement with their audience and keep newsmakers at arms-length for fear of alienating someone.
For the Bad Anchor, alienation is the third rail, to be avoided at any cost…because they know their paydays depend on maintaining their popularity. The popularity depends on people allowing them into their homes each evening at 6PM and 10PM. It requires looking great and being an exceptional communicator. Potentially offending someone – say with a hard question to a governor or even a bad haircut – isn’t in their playbook.
Good Journalism scares the Bad Anchor. Authenticity is not their strong suit.
Was Kari a Good or Bad Anchor?
Hard to say because it depends on your definition of success. I don’t think she ever broke a big story, so I wouldn’t rate her as an exceptional journalist, maybe not a journalist at all.
She was, however, a consistently strong newsreader. And, she has what the industry calls the “It Factor” – an innate quality that makes news personalities popular and watchable. Those communication skills drew fans for over 20 years. In 2022 as a political phenom, Kari is very much off the desk but not out of the studio. She uses her skills effortlessly.
Good or Bad anchoring be damned. She’s a personality that brings people to her message. The message is not kind.
Does AZ Need An Anchor Governor?
No, because our problems won’t be solved by the It Factor or by continuing to abuse and other.
Don’t believe the Chamber of Commerce BS Arizona is feeding you. As he leaves office after eight years, Governor Doug Ducey claims an exceptional business climate, a five-star lifestyle, and extreme population growth as his accomplishments. Those claims are a mirage and an insult.
Ducey doesn’t talk about the state’s public schools ranking nearly dead last, its housing affordability nightmare, its high child poverty rate, or its massive race and class inequities. He won’t explain the plan to deal with a water shortage….because there is no plan other than watering golf courses and building water parks. He won’t take responsibility for the tens of thousands who died under his management of the COVID 19 pandemic.
Arizona’s next governor must be someone who will veto its fringe legislature, who has the chops to tackle some big problems. Climate change is here in the form of extreme heat and forever drought. Affordable housing, and with it home ownership, has become a dream from another decade. Better educating our kids means paying teachers more and backing off the demonizing rhetoric. We need to build high wage jobs to counter poverty, and those jobs will need an educated and engaged workforce. Pulling together those of different races, religions and backgrounds will take someone who knows how to make government actually work for the people it’s supposed to serve.
No, we don’t need an It Factor Governor.
This Is A Job For Katie Hobbs…
…who is the anti-TV anchor. Her voice doesn’t inspire or project strength and confidence. She doesn’t commit to the look-at-me shenanigans of a “personality.” She’s the Work Horse, not the Show Horse.
Katie is a boring policy wonk, a former state senator who was elected Secretary of State at a time when that job really matters. Her performance against Election Deniers after the 2020 election, amidst threats against her and her family, was strong. As the Arizona Republic editorialized recently, this state’s election under Hobbs and others was well run and NOT corrupt.
Let’s be clear. Katie’s not perfect. Far from it. She lost an ugly and high profile racial employment suit for firing a Black employee without true cause. She’s apologized for doing so, but the stink from her actions linger. Recently, she failed to report income outside her state salary - she was an Uber driver of all things - a detail someone in her position can’t screw up. That stuff kills credibility.
Why Won’t Katie Debate Kari?
There’s much whining in the state about Hobbs’ decision not to debate Kari Lake on TV. As a journalist, I think they should have debated. It would have been a heck of a story.
But the practicalities of verbal fencing with a high-decibel Kari Lake in jabberwocky mode – picture the first Trump-Biden debate – would have served no one, least of all Katie Hobbs. The debate mess created by the recent Clean Elections and Arizona PBS machinations makes Hobbs’ decision seem even more reasonable. Besides, she’s submitted to questions with Lake on CBS News' Face The Nation and CNN’s State of The Union. You want to hear talking points from both Kari and Katie, just listen to those.
Chaos Or Competence Is The Choice
It gets down to this.
Does the state need Kari Lake’s polished nastiness, empty of any substance or original thinking, void of any sense of how to govern, fueled by hyper divisiveness and demonization? She has ZERO experience governing. She made her living off the evening news.
That’s the chaotic choice.
Or, does Arizona need a socially awkward but competent technocrat…a real life public servant? Katie Hobbs’ less than inspiring talking points combined with her very public fumbles show a flawed candidate. She is, after all, an Arizona Democrat. We’re not talking about the Kennedy’s here.
Yet, her steady and efficient performance throughout the post-2020 Election insanity show competence and the ability to rise to the moment.
And, it signals that she’ll methodically take on the big mess Governor Doug Ducey has left behind without the typical AZ wackiness. When our less than sane legislature offers up some racist, misogynist, medieval law…she’ll veto it.
It’s Chaos (Kari) or Competence (Katie). Arizona deserves Competence.