Some notes concerning next week’s election:
There is one simple, undeniable truth in this and, sadly, in the next few elections. If a candidate says that the Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election and/or that Donald Trump actually won, anything else that comes out of that person’s mouth is fly-covered horse turds. Espousing the “Big Lie” simply shows that the candidate is willing to throw away his/her morality, veracity and integrity just to try to gain public office. That’s sad and unforgiveable but it’s the Republican way in 2022.
In the matter of Katie Hobbs vs. Kari Lake for governor: It’s going to suck moving trailer hitches to have Hitler in Heels as governor for the next four years. What is Lake’s appeal again? That she can spout Trumpian racism and falsehoods while using complete sentences?
I understand that people can change as they go through life, but I’m always wary of people who have their “Come to Jesus” moment in the second half. They’re the people for whom the saying “There’s no zealot like a convert” is intended. She went from being an Obama Democrat to being an Oath Keeper’s More-Deranged Sister in about an hour and a half.
The most vulgar part of Lake’s campaign (and there are so many to choose from) is her invoking of Martin Luther King, claiming that if Dr. King were alive today, he would be “an America First Republican.” That almost makes me physically ill.
First of all, while people from both parties have tried to claim Dr. King over the years, he is quoted as having said, “I don’t think the Republican Party is a party full of the Almighty God, nor is the Democratic Party. I’m not inextricably bound to either.” And this was back when there were some Midwestern Republicans who helped pass Lyndon Johnson’s Civil Rights Bill and the Voting Rights Act.
Does anybody, anywhere, sincerely believe that Martin Luther King would want anything to do with today’s Republican Party? Or it with him? Heck, Abraham Lincoln wouldn’t be welcome in today’s Republican Party.
Dr. King gave up his life for what he believed in. Kari Lake is forfeiting her soul for what Donald Trump claims to believe in.
Kathy Hoffman vs. Tom Horne for superintendent of public instruction: This one is a doozy. Horne, who spent much of the past decade trying to wriggle out of legal trouble over some pretty substantial allegations of campaign finance violations, is running perhaps the most duplicitous campaign ad of this entire election. It shows that Arizona students’ test scores went up when Horne held the office between 2007 and 2011, while scores have gone down during Hoffman’s current tenure.
What the ad fails to mention is that Horne was sitting on a gold mine at the time. A few years earlier, Arizona’s voters had passed Prop 301, giving the state’s schools a much-needed infusion of funding. The State Legislature, under the prodding of Gov. Janet Napolitano, had also done right by the schools (the legislators would illegally reverse course during the Great Recession) and Arizona’s schoolkids were benefiting.
Now, it’s true that test scores have gone down under Kathy Hoffman. But all she’s had to deal with is a once-in-a-century pandemic, with over a million Americans dying, international food shortages, a scramble to facilitate remote learning, plus a governor and legislature obsessed with giving their rich friends free money through a shady Socialist voucher program.
Hoffman deserves a chance to help Arizona’s schools dig out of the pandemic mess. Horne deserves to spend a night or two in jail for the six speeding tickets that he got in one year, including one for speeding through a school zone! Idiot.
Juan Ciscomani is almost certainly going to be a member of the House of Representatives. I couldn’t help but get a kick out of his ads during the primary season. It was as though a sixth-grader had done a Mad-Libs version of a political ad. I think it went like this: Conservative cancel culture border wall MAGA endorsed six kids critical race theory Trump election integrity.
The only thing it left out was the one word that explains why he’s going to win on Tuesday — gerrymandering.
I learned very early on in life that there are a few things that you don’t call people. You don’t call somebody a child molester and you don’t call them a traitor. That was pretty much written is stone no matter how much you disagreed with somebody. Nowadays, a wide variety of right-wing ass-clowns from politicians to radio talkers to online screamers use the word “treason” all the time. I think that they’re just happy that they finally learned how to say a two-syllable word.
So I’m not going to call the vile Mark Finchem, who is running for secretary of state, any names. I’m just going to beg my fellow Arizonans not to elect him. Finchem doesn’t know how a democracy works. He doesn’t care about the sanctity of your vote. He wants the power to cancel the results of any election with which he doesn’t agree (like, say, if a person of color were to get a majority of the votes). He’s bad for Arizona and bad for America.
I don’t often do this, but I pray that he doesn’t win.
