COULD KATIE HOBBS HAVE PULLED A HERSCHEL WALKER?

Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor of Arizona, is having a moment, with long profiles in The Atlantic and The Washington Post and a piece at Axios headlined "Dems Fear Kari Lake Could Be Arizona's Governor—and a Major MAGA Star." According to FiveThirtyEight, Democrat Katie Hobbs once had a 7-point lead in the race, but Lake has wiped it out and now leads, although by less than a point. Lake has accomplished this with always-on-offense demagoguery delivered with a professionalism developed over a decades-long career in local TV news, as the Post profile notes:

... Kari Lake does not say “um.” Kari Lake’s words are crisp and clean and, when needed, they can be warm or they can be harsh. The more confrontational you are, the more composed Kari Lake will become. People have said Kari Lake is “Donald Trump in heels,” but really, she is Donald Trump with media training and polish.

Lake is nasty and looks for the quick kill. When the Post reporter tries to interview her, she realizes she's stepped into an ambush.

“Is this paper owned by — who is it owned by?” she asks.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.

“Oh, I thought so,” she says, her voice turning hard.

“You don’t give anybody fair coverage, unfortunately.”

She walks away, and a gaggle of Lake staffers are waiting, laughing.

We're told she's always like this, and we're led to assume that her punches always land.

... a CNN reporter tries to ask for an interview: “I’ll do an interview,” Lake says, “as long as it airs on CNN+. Does that still exist? I didn’t think so.” ... Dennis Welch, political editor for Phoenix’s 3TV and CBS 5, tries to question Lake, only to have Lake question the questioner: “I don’t even know: Do you guys have any viewers left?” The interactions are packaged into videos, content for her campaign to release and weaponize on social media: “Kari Lake Exposes Bias” ... “Kari Lake Goes Mega Viral After Exposing Fake News” ... “Watch Kari Lake Put The AZ Republic In Its Place.”

To me she seems obnoxious. But I know this can work. It worked for Trump. It worked for Chris Christie in his first term as governor.

So I understand why Hobbs has refused to debate Lake. Hobbs, who's currently Arizona's secretary of state, doesn't have Lake's media skills.

At the Arizona Capitol, reporters would often ask [Hobbs] to repeat her answers because sentences would trail off, making her meaning difficult to decipher, one reporter said.... She has ... refused to share a stage with Lake, producing a weeks-long saga over debate rules and an uncomfortable running contrast.... “I have no desire to be a part of the spectacle that she’s looking to create,” Hobbs said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” ...

But I'm reading this Post profile a couple of days after a debate between Herschel Walker, a mushmouthed ex-football player with a cargo hold's worth of personal baggage, and Raphael Warnock, a minister who regularly delivers sermons at what used to be Martin Luther King's church. Walker is currently enmeshed in scandal. Walker -- to put it mildly -- lacks Warnock's skills as a public speaker. And yet this is what I'm reading about that debate:

If the Friday showdown was a make-or-break moment for Walker, as some analysts predicted it would be, the Republican didn’t snap. And to some of his supporters, the hourlong debate forged him into a stronger contender....

Walker came out punchy and aggressive, interjecting frequently as he tried to knock Warnock off message....

The Republican benefited from low expectations, mostly because of a history of gaffes and meandering remarks on the campaign trail. He also worked to downplay his chances against Warnock....

Couldn't Hobbs have tried something like that? Couldn't she have spent weeks lowering expectations, telling Arizonans that Lake's years as a slick TV professional gave her a natural debate advantage? Isn't that Politics 101?

Maybe this works for a jockish man and doesn't work for a woman. Maybe it works only if you're a Republican. But couldn't she have tried? (In Pennsylvania, John Fetterman has certainly made the case that he'll be at a disadvantage against a smooth-talking TV star.)

When I first wrote about this, on September 12, Hobbs had a small but persistent lead in the polls. It's gone now. Lake has the momentum. It shouldn't have happened.

Hobbs had the opportunity to try to lower expectations. She could have prepared observers for a shellacking and then surprised everyone by taking the fight to Lake. It worked for Walker. Walker has been an overdog ever since he was Heisman Trophy-winning college football star, but he gee-whizzed and aw-shucked his way to underdog status before debating Warnock. Here was Walker in September:

“I’m this country boy, I’m not that smart. And he’s a preacher, he’s smart man, wear these nice suits, so he is going to show up and embarrass me,” Walker said of Warnock. “And I’m just waiting to show up and I will do my best.”

It could have worked. The Katie Hobbs approach isn't working. And MAGA's next star might get to run a key swing state going into 2024.