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Kari Lake helped Ruben Gallego win the Senate debate in Arizona

VaselineOctober 14, 2024

0 5 minutes read

Kari Lake helped Ruben Gallego win the Senate debate in Arizona

Ruben Gallego and Kari Lake represented the extremes of their parties in 2022. After the debate in the Arizona Senate, it is clear that only one has changed.

For about the first five minutes of Wednesday’s U.S. Senate debate in Phoenix, you saw what could have been Kari Lake.

Well pressed and precise in her appearance and speech, she declared that the audience would soon see a man in a mask, the product of “an extreme makeover.”

And she was right.

Ruben Gallego was once blasphemous and left-wing

U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego is the ultimate chameleon. Two years ago he was leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which took the uncontrolled paths of social media with his vulgar prose.

On May 24, 2022, the day a gunman killed 21 people in the Uvalde school shooting in Texas, Gallego pointed his finger and blamed Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz:

“For the record, you @tedcruz you fucking baby killer.”

Gallego’s generation is the first to come of age in the Wild West of the Internet and is accustomed to its harsh language and vile culture, but even this was overkill for a modern American congressman.

He could be like that – unapologetically profane and left-wing – from his safe congressional district where he won the election with 75% and 85% of the vote. At the time he seemed to be trying to be part of the AOC squad of young Turks and socialists.

When U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema found herself sideways to the Democratic base with her overtures to Republicans and bipartisan consensus, Gallego tackled her with a jackhammer from the progressive left.

“We need senators who will put Arizonans before big pharmaceutical companies and Wall Street bankers,” he said.

That was yesterday’s Gallego.

A serious Republican would win now

Current Ruben Gallego has quietly dropped out of the progressive caucus, cleaned up his language and looks a lot like Kyrsten Sinema reaching across the aisle.

He looks so much like her that he even sought her approval, although you suspect he’ll drive a Zamboni through hell before that happens.

In any normal time, Gallego would have been a friend of the serious Republicans who historically won that party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate in Arizona — the John McCains and John Kyls and Barry Goldwaters.

But he’s up against a Republican who was even crazier than him two years ago. The 2022 Lake Kari seemed to be smoking a potent dope that told her she had won a gubernatorial race she had decisively lost.

She was the master of subtraction, telling the moderates in her party — McCain’s Republicans — to leave the room. She was the picture of MAGA sycophancy curled around Donald Trump’s pant leg.

Gallego has changed. Not Kari Lake

Wednesday evening’s debate came down to this.

Two people who were extremists two years ago met onstage in Phoenix during a will contest for one of the biggest prizes in Arizona politics.

One of them had grown up in those two years. One of them didn’t.

If Kari Lake had had the equipment to hold her opening position and control for more than five minutes, she would have won the debate and cruised to victory on November 5.

But Kari Lake is an unreformed fanatic. Ruben Gallego is an adult.

Gallego characterized Lake as unhinged

Gallego’s opening was shaky. You could feel his fear in his broken sentences and uncertain eyes.

But he had a strong argument to show that Kari Lake is dangerous and unfair. That she “failed the basic test of honesty” when she denied the results of the 2022 and 2020 elections.

He used her apparent dishonesty to cast doubt on whether anyone could ever trust Kari Lake on anything again.

He linked that description of Lake to her varying positions on abortion and her once embrace of the 1864 blanket ban on abortion, which made no exceptions for rape or incest.

He then asked us to imagine that a young Arizona woman became pregnant by a rapist in 2024 and was not allowed to have an abortion in her home state.

He was calm, steady and ruthless and continued his case that Kari Lake is out of control.

And then came the smoking gun.

Lake proved that she doesn’t play well with others

It was a voice, a female voice, that kept invading Gallego’s speaking time and kept stepping on his words.

It was Kari Lake, who broke the rules of the debate and shattered decorum. Not only did she trample on his words, but she also tramped on the moderators, exceeded the time limits and stomped on the entire event with her MAGA brutality.

Lake didn’t say it explicitly. She didn’t have to. Through her actions, she told Arizona, “I don’t play well with others” and “I don’t respect the rules.”

Let no one shame you: For voting for Trump

Yes, we saw that in the aftermath of the 2022 election. Thanks for the clear reminder.

Lake would have gotten away with her audacity if Gallego had joined the food fight. But he was disciplined. He stayed out of it and just let her wallow in her own leftovers.

Then Kari Lake did something terrible

She was at her most disgusting when she welled up with faux pity and poured her sweet syrup on Gallego and his father: “You have a lover who was a convicted drug trafficker.”

Her sharp words were not empathy, but an indictment of Gallego’s father, who was a convicted drug dealer.

Any decent person would understand that the best part of Ruben Gallego is his biography, as he grew up poor in the inner city of Chicago, without a father to help raise him.

Gallego rose above that to attend Harvard, serve in combat in the U.S. Army, and then serve in Congress. Those in themselves are huge achievements and should have told us all two years ago that Gallego is much more than the sum of his tweets.

He used his military history to make it clear that he has changed. That he is no longer the conniving bomber, but someone who wants to work with everyone.

“In war there are no Republicans and Democrats,” he said.

1 Senate candidate is crazy. It’s not Gallego

Wednesday’s debate was light on content and policy, but heavily focused on the most important element in this race.

One of these two candidates is crazy.

Ruben Gallego made the point consistently about Kari Lake, but not nearly as effectively as Lake did with her chronic bad behavior.

If you were a Republican and saw everything happening, you had to whisper to yourself…

“What a waste.”

Phil Boas is an editorial columnist at The Arizona Republic. Email him at [email protected].

VaselineOctober 14, 2024

0 5 minutes read

Ruben Gallego and Kari Lake represented the extremes of their parties in 2022. After the debate in the Arizona Senate, it is clear that only one has changed.

Ruben Gallego was once blasphemous and left-wing

A serious Republican would win now

Gallego has changed. Not Kari Lake

Gallego characterized Lake as unhinged

Lake proved that she doesn’t play well with others

Then Kari Lake did something terrible

1 Senate candidate is crazy. It’s not Gallego

Vaseline

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