Top O’ the Briefing
Happy Friday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. Charlene has been known to go into an almost mystical state of religious ecstasy when she happens upon vintage Corning Ware at flea markets along the way.
Last month I wrote that Kari Lake may have been the greatest thing to happen to the GOP this year. Even with what’s gone on in the last week, I’m sticking with that assessment. I think she has a bright future in Republican politics, should she want to pursue another run for office.
Ms. Lake, however, is not quite ready to move on from her first election, which is a good thing. More on that in a minute. Ryan wrote about the latest development here in the Grand Canyon State:
With thin margins, most major decision desks have called the Arizona gubernatorial race in favor of Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, but Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake announced Thursday morning that she’s not yet ready to concede.
In a video message posted to her Twitter account, captioned with “Arizona, we are still in the fight,” Lake addressed what she described as a “broken election system” and vowed to continue to fight to prove that something seems to have gone terribly wrong.
I honestly don’t think this is a tilting-at-windmills vanity project for Lake. She has a very good legal team. We’re not dealing with the Lin Wood/Sidney Powell “Release the Kraken” nonsense of 2020. If they think there is something to look at, then there is probably something to look at.
At the very least, I hope the fact that Lake and her team are continuing to keep the spotlight on Maricopa County might shame county election officials into overhauling procedures that have been a laughingstock for three elections in a row now. It’s the largest county in the state and it has been running elections like a bunch of backwoods drunks. As Ryan notes in his post, Maricopa County officials are getting a little chippy about Lake’s persistence.
In his Election Night Drunkblog, my friend VodkaPundit pointed out that Florida was so embarrassed by what happened in the 2000 presidential election that it immediately revamped its election laws and procedures and continues to do so to this day. That’s why a state with over 21 million people was able to count all of its votes on Election Night. Maricopa County has around 4.5 million people and couldn’t get it done in a week.
I do think a lot of the problem here in Arizona is that the state GOP is dysfunctional and unfocused. If left to their own devices, they’d still be trying to get Martha McSally elected to something.
There was, however, something not right about what happened with the machines in Maricopa County on Election Day. It is an established fact that most Republicans are Election Day voters and, as I mentioned a couple of times last week, by far the greatest concentration of Republican voters in the state is in Maricopa County. Here in thoroughly blue Pima County, the tabulation machines were humming along to perfection.
It may have been that the election officials in Maricopa County simply didn’t prepare as rigorously as they should have. If so, why not?
Kari Lake isn’t the only one who wants answers. I don’t know that there is a path for her to actually end up as governor, but I do know that she can do the state party and a dispirited Republican electorate in Arizona a great service by not letting these people off the hook until changes are made, heads are rolling, or both.
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The Mailbag of Magnificence contributions can be sent to [email protected].
The Mailbag of Magnificence
I think I should mention more that I copy and paste the emails and don’t edit them at all. Any formatting issues or errors are because I won’t mess with the source material.
The Mailbag got a little weird these last few days. There were a lot of FEELINGS over what I wrote about Pence, both from his supporters and detractors. You know I like to highlight the haters, so let’s start with this from David:
Your piece criticizing Mike Pence for his book tour and possible run for the GOP nomination has resulted in one less reader of you screeds. Perhaps you should listen to what Pence actually says, maybe even read his book instead of relying on someone else’s take. It’s sad that people can’t even listed to criticism of Trump without trashing the messenger. Perhaps you should stop, listen, and then ask yourself is Pence is actually telling the truth?
I can guarantee you that someone this filled with dislike for Trump and who refers to my columns as “screeds” was never a regular reader of mine in the first place. Why do they always have to pretend that they were?
Oh yeah, imaginary friends.
Cliff writes:
Hey Kruiser,A thought that I had early this morning was that we allowed the progressives to define MAGA. MAGA this and MAGA that, and MEGA MAGA and ULTRA MAGA. To the point where MAGA did not mean Make America Great Again anymore. It meant whatever the progressives made it sound like it meant.
Anyway that was my thought. Thanks for what you do and I always look for the Morning Briefing first, and use your links to find other stories I want to read.
Thank you very much for being an actual regular reader, Cliff. I do agree that the left gets away with defining those of us on the right a lot. However, I think that they’ve failed miserably at making MAGA a pejorative, which is obviously what they wanted to do. They’re preaching to their commie choir and that’s it. They’re flailing with this one and I’m enjoying watching them do so.
Nick missed my point:
Ill take Pence over gropey, senile Joe Xiden any day.
I never said I wouldn’t vote for Pence if he were the nominee, I merely said that I thought his time had passed. Pay better attention in class.
We’ll finish with this from Deborah:
Hi Stephen,
I love your column; it’s the first thing I read over morning coffee! I followed the link to your Budd Friedman column. Lovely read, but at the end I can only describe my reaction as:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFPbAqOKeV0
J/K I love the 80s style big hair.
So glad you enjoyed my reminiscences about Budd and my early days in stand-up. If you want to see the hair that Deborah is talking about, it’s at the end of my column here. And thanks for the levity. There’s never a bad time for a Firefly vid!
Thanks to everyone who wrote in, even the haters. I know that deep down in your RINO hearts you still love me.
Everything Isn’t Awful
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— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) November 17, 2022
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