Arizona’s top leaders gathered on Monday to certify the results of the 2022 election.
Secretary of State/Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs signed the vote canvass as Gov. Doug Ducey, Attorney General Brnovich and Supreme Court Chief Justice Bob Brutinel looked on, signaling an end to …
Well, of course, it’s not an end to anything.
There are still the matter of recounts for attorney general, state school superintendent and in a legislative race, plus the inevitable election challenges that will be filed in court later this week.
As for Kari Lake, she’s busy lighting match after match, hoping to spark a fire.
“Unless our Governor and Attorney General put a stop to it, @katiehobbs will get to certify her own crooked election tomorrow,” her campaign tweeted on Sunday. “And Arizona will officially have entered Banana Republic territory.”
So, because Kari Lake lost, we’re a banana republic?
It couldn’t be the fact that Lake chased away the moderate voters she needed to win? Or that she and Republican Party leaders sabotaged an early voting strategy that for decades had been used to boost GOP turnout?
The depth of denial coming from Lake is astounding.
Another view:‘I’m not Lake’ may have won, but voters deserved more
Given that I don’t believe Lake is having a mental breakdown, I have to assume she’s calculated that her fiery path to fame and fortune lies in setting the state ablaze.
There is money to be made, after all, and a national movement to be built (and fed).
And so you have Lake, insisting that thousands of Republican voters were disenfranchised in a “corrupt” and “fraudulent” election, without, of course, producing any evidence to back up her claim.
And Lake, complaining that the courts are conspiring against her because judges require evidence and not just conspiracy theories.
And Lake, suggesting that there is something nefarious in Hobbs signing off on the state’s election results and expecting the counties to do the same — without pointing out that it’s a ministerial duty, required by state law.
And Lake and in her latest ah-HA moment over the weekend, charging that Hobbs commanded Twitter to silence her political opponents.
According to internal Twitter documents that surfaced over the weekend, Hobbs’ communications director on Jan. 7, 2021, notified the non-profit Center for Information Security (CIS) about two tweets containing “election related misinformation”. CIS passed along the information to Twitter, which then deleted the two tweets.
The Secretary of State’s Office told me the two tweets were flagged because they falsely claimed that Arizona’s voter registration system is run by a foreign corporation. The tweets had nothing to do with the midterm elections.
“This is yet another example of conspiracy theorists trying to create chaos and confusion by casting doubt on our election system. It’s unfair to Arizona voters and it’s harmful to our democracy,” Assistant Secretary of State Allie Bones said.
“It is standard practice for government entities, organizations, and corporations alike to report content on social media that violates a platform’s terms of service. It’s the Secretary of State’s job to make sure that voters are informed about how to vote and how our election system works. One of the ways we do that is by working to counter disinformation online that can confuse voters.”
Naturally, the far right sees a conspiracy and Lake is fanning those flames, promoting tweets that scream about censorship and even call for Hobbs’ arrest.
“If @katiehobbs was successfully silencing political dissent in 2021, why would we ever believe she stopped in 2022?” Lake’s campaign tweeted on Sunday. “You think she suddenly found integrity? She’s been consolidating power as Secretary of State since 2018. The one thing she didn’t grow was a conscience.”
So now, flagging two tweets containing lies about the 2020 election − on the day after the U.S. Capitol was stormed by insurrectionists – constitutes “silencing political dissent” … here in a state that must be a “banana republic” because Kari Lake lost.
The election may now be over, but it’s become oh so painfully clear that Lake wants to burn down our beloved state, if only to remain relevant to those who pay speakers on the chicken-dinner circuit.
“They sat there and signed their names to this sham certification,” Lake said on Steve Bannon’s podcast, referring to Ducey and the other Republicans who witnessed Monday’s canvass ceremony. “History will never forgive them. They will go down as three of the very worst in history.”
History will remember though perhaps not in a way that Lake envisions.
The good news is, with every baseless hysterical claim, Lake’s reach becomes more limited.
As one longtime Republican consultant told me, “Lots of people I talk to who really liked her are upset by her rhetoric after losing.”
Even Lake’s own advisers are beginning to publicly acknowledge that she just flat lost the election.
“I blame the campaign for Kari’s loss, not fraud,” Ed Morabito, a former Lake adviser, told The Arizona Republic’s Stacey Barchenger late last week. “She was poorly served by advisers who had no idea what they were doing. We never fully welcomed moderate voters, and the anti-McCain and Trump nonsense killed us.”
We’re not yet at the end of Arizona’s (and America’s) long national nightmare. But there’s a flicker of hope that it’s at least the beginning of the end.
“I think we’re on the backside of this,” Republican consultant Tyler Montague told me. “Trump’s popularity is waning. A clear and decisive loss like this is providing clarity even to Trump fans. She (Lake) lost. And so did everybody else running that playbook.”
Meanwhile, Lake’s fate is inextricably tied to Donald Trump, who dumped a pail of water over his own head over the weekend by calling for the Constitution to be terminated and himself restored as president.
Fortunately, even raging fires eventually do burn themselves out.
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.
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