In the race for governor of Arizona, Democrat Katie Hobbs is embracing a Biden-style invisible campaign and refusing to debate Republican Kari Lake.
This tactic seemed to work for a little while, but people are starting to get annoyed by it.
Laurie Roberts writes at AZ Central:
Katie Hobbs running away from a debate with Kari Lake is the debacle that just won’t dieIf Katie Hobbs loses, remember Oct. 12 – the day she ran away from confronting Kari Lake.Democrats in Arizona are known for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but Hobbs’ refusal to debate her opponent on Wednesday represents a new level of political malpractice.It’s right up there with David Garcia, who while running for governor in 2018 gave a speech in which he waxed poetic. “Just imagine, no wall,” he said. “No wall in southern Arizona.”He was never heard from politically again…Now Hobbs’ refusal to debate Lake has left voters imagining something altogether different: A candidate who appears afraid to confront her opponent.Hobbs has repeatedly gotten bristly when reporters ask why she won’t go toe-to-toe with Lake. Her campaign and her most ardent supporters act as if it’s an insult to suggest that Hobbs should debate Lake.
It’s a tight race. The Real Clear Politics average of polls gives Lake a lead of just 0.7 points.
Project Veritas tried to ask Hobbs why she won’t debate and she ran and hid in a bathroom. Watch:
The refusal to debate makes Hobbs look weak and even her supporters know it.
NBC News reports:
Some of Katie Hobbs’ supporters are concerned MAGA firebrand Kari Lake is outshining her low-key campaignIn the homestretch of Arizona’s high-stakes contest for governor, Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has refused to debate her Republican opponent, MAGA firebrand Kari Lake, while maintaining a low-key campaign schedule and facing being outspent on the airwaves in the closing weeks of the race.As Lake barnstorms the state, some supporters, including Democrats and anti-Lake Republicans — a key constituency Hobbs needs to win over in a state where voter registrations are essentially divided into thirds among Democrats, Republicans and independents — have expressed concern.In interviews, they point to Hobbs’ refusal to debate Lake as an unforced error, a move that has provided Lake, a leading 2020 election denier, with ammunition to repeatedly attack Hobbs as being too “weak” to serve as governor, and they are expressing a desire for her to be a more robust presence on the campaign trail.
Don’t you love how NBC just had to throw in that ‘election denier’ line? Remember, they never did that to Democrats who called Trump an illegitimate president.
Anyway, Lake has a point about all of this. If Hobbs can’t show up for a debate, voters in Arizona have every right to question her ability to lead as governor.
Featured image via YouTube.
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