The Daily Agenda: On their best behavior
Even free drinks can't make this fun ... Where hasn't Blake posted? ... And her speechwriter is overpaid.
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The Arizona Citizens Clean Election Commission will decide today whether to cave to Democrat Katie Hobbs’ demands to hold a gubernatorial Q&A rather than a debate and lose Republican Kari Lake, or hold fast to the debate format that Hobbs is boycotting, only to give Lake unfettered access to the airwaves.
Or perhaps they can find some third option that satisfies both candidates, though it doesn’t seem likely.
But last night, the two candidates stood on the same stage — at different times — to make their case before Arizona’s business community at a forum hosted by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Both attempted to show the business bigwigs that they’re a safe choice for governor: Hobbs said she wouldn’t increase taxes, for example, while Lake didn’t once bring up the “rotten” 2020 election, as she’s taken to calling it.
The forum was dull, despite the Chamber’s best efforts to liven it up by passing out drink tickets at the door.
Hobbs did her best impression of Gov. Doug Ducey, complete with parroting several of his slogans, like “opportunity for all.” She pledged she would “absolutely not” raise taxes, and backed away from her support of Prop 208 from 2020, which would have raised income taxes on high earners to fund schools, saying she supported education advocates’ efforts, rather than the tax increase itself.1
Lake, meanwhile, did her best impression of a person who likes Ducey, offering some tepid praise of some of his policies while delivering subtle digs at the governor’s eight years in office, like when she said she wants to get income taxes as close to zero as possible, a deep cut to Ducey’s unfinished 2014 campaign pledge, while adding she wants to be a person who “underpromises and over-delivers.”
The key to winning the gubernatorial election will be, in part, winning the kind of Chamber Republicans and independents that backed U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and Ducey in 2018. And to that end, a few hours before the event, Hobbs announced that a group of prominent business Republicans would host a fundraiser on her behalf.
But inside the chamber event, we couldn’t find a single Republican willing to acknowledge they were crossing the aisle on her behalf. Instead, as we wandered the event putting a tape recorder in the faces of the “RINO establishment” types that Lake has spent months railing against, we got a lot of long pauses, and answers like “I’m a loyal soldier.”
One Chamber-backed Republican put it most succinctly, saying they had little faith in statewide Republican nominees like Mark Finchem, Abe Hamadeh or Tom Horne. But when she’s on her best behavior, Lake seems like a rational choice for business Republicans.
“If she campaigns like she did tonight, I think she wins.”
Oh that’s right, they have policies: U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly and GOP candidate Blake Masters responded in writing to a list of questions about their policy positions on issues like abortion, water, the filibuster, inflation and more, while detailing why they think they’re each the more equipped candidate to represent Arizona, the Republic’s Ronald J. Hansen reports.
Vegan co-op listserv is the new Crossfit message board: HuffPost found a trove of emails a young Masters sent to the vegan co-op at Stanford University in 2006 where he made the kinds of comments you’ve now undoubtedly seen dredged up by other journalists. He said voting was meaningless, he railed against health inspections of kitchens, defended conspiracy theorism and called the U.S. fascist.
Pre-election session: School superintendents around the state are calling on Gov. Doug Ducey to call a special session to again increase the aggregate expenditure limit and allow their districts to fully spend the money they were allocated. Not increasing the limit will mean that districts won’t be able to spend a collective $1.3 billion, they say, so they want Ducey to call a session before the election to increase the limit for one year.
What’s old will be new: A site that was once the home of seven-term (not consecutively) Gov. George W.P. Hunt could become an apartment complex aptly called “Governor,” the Republic’s Corina Vanek reports. The lot near 16th Street and McDowell Road hasn’t contained Hunt’s house in quite some time; Hunt’s final resting place is a tomb at tomb at Papago Park, where his body is interred in a white pyramid. And if this mention of a gubernatorial house makes you wonder why we don’t have a governor’s mansion here, well, we’ve already answered that.
Old dog, new trick: Rachel wrote in Votebeat about the new frontier of the endless search for voter fraud, a spreadsheet called the “cast vote record” and corresponding ballot images. The records, which a familiar cast of characters is requesting from elections officials across the country, can’t really show the kinds of things people want them to. And whether they’re public record differs across counties and states nationwide.
Every video could go viral: You may recall a viral video from a multicultural student space at Arizona State University last year. ASU professor and New York Times Magazine contributor Sarah Viren dives into the whole story, its fallout, how it affected the students involved and the big picture — these kinds of altercations become national stories because right-wing media spread them effectively, resulting in harassment of the people involved. Universities, including ASU, have largely been ill-equipped to handle the incidents and their aftermaths.
City vs. state: Phoenix is weighing whether to approve a resolution that would minimize the criminalization of abortion, or at least make sure city resources and employees aren’t enforcing state laws that ban the practice. But the resolution’s fate depends on the full council’s interest in passing it, legal hurdles and whoever wins key offices like attorney general and county attorney, the Republic’s Taylor Seely reports. Tucson already approved a similar measure.
What are these tests good for anyway?: Most Arizona kids still are not passing English and math standardized tests, according to new state data analyzed by the Republic’s Yana Kunichoff. Their scores did go up a bit, though it’s hard to compare because Arizona started using a new standardized test last year.
This again?: Just over 90% of Arizona kids got the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, which falls short of the herd immunity threshold and comes at a time when the state is seeing some measles cases among the unvaccinated, Capitol Media Services’ Howie Fischer reports. Arizona’s laws allow for exemptions for personal reasons, a step further than most states that allow medical or religious exemptions only.
Related news: You can now get the omicron-specific variant booster at pharmacies and providers in Arizona.
Not bad: The Pima County Board of Supervisors heard a report about its “mostly successful” primary this year after some small problems during a year of big changes for the county’s elections, the Tucson Sentinel’s Bennito L. Kelty writes. The county switched to vote centers and had a new elections director start earlier this year.
Do-gooders, this one’s for you: Want a side gig that helps ensure a fundamental part of democracy runs smoothly? You can become one of the 2,500 temporary election workers in Maricopa County. You’ll get a bonus and a decent hourly wage. You’ll probably have to answer questions about pens, the Phoenix New Times’ Katya Schwenk reports. More info on the jobs can be found here.
Hank was a poll worker in the primary election. He didn’t get paid much money, but if you’d like to thank him for his service, you can just pay for your subscription.
Our bravado never ceased: A new KJZZ series called “Hot Town” starts with a search into Arizona’s newspaper archives, where writers detailed how heat stroke and other heat-related ailments were problems in other places, but not Arizona. The station’s Sativa Peterson said it obviously was hot here then, but the articles show “almost bravado or overcompensation” about our state’s climate.
How to write a Kari Lake speech: Watch an old Donald Trump speech and just copy it.
Our personal favorite line of the night came when Hobbs declared that her agenda isn’t left or right — it’s an “Arizona agenda.” Now that’s an agenda we can get behind.
I was there last night (wish I'd seen you!) and I agree that it was pretty dull overall. If you don't pay attention to what she's saying, Kari Lake certainly has more charisma and presence. However, she made it sound as though the state has been run by the far Left and she is the one who will swoop in and save us with her "common sense policies." I suppose that does give a clue to where she stands, given that the state has been under Republican control for decades.
I applied to be a poll worker months ago and still haven't heard anything. I went to apply again but it won't even let me because my email is already registered. I know that election workers have to be politically balanced -- I wonder if there is only a shortage of workers for certain partisanships?