The headlines this weekend have been dominated by the news that Wyoming Republican Representative Liz Cheney announced that she will be campaigning against Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, because of Lake’s position on the 2020 election. To uninformed voters, this may have seemed as bad news for Lake.
However, as a seasoned member of the media, Ms. Lake correctly identified this attack, coming from someone like Liz, as a soft ball, begging to be hit out of the ballpark. Ms. Lake wasted no time in scoring a home run by welcoming as positive an attack by the likes of Liz Cheney.
In order to better understand this strategy, it would help to know more about Liz.
Liz Cheney is what we affectionately call in Arizona a DID (Democrat In Disguise). A DID is a Marxist/liberal individual who wants to advance his vitriolic agenda but could never be elected as a Democrat, disclosing his virulent agenda, in a predominantly Republican district. Therefore, DID’s register and campaign for office as conservative Republicans until they get elected. Because of Arizona’s voter composition in certain districts, we have had our share of DID’s and are good at identifying them. We just got rid of several DID’s via our primary election.
Wyoming also has its share of Republican dominated districts, which makes the state susceptible to DID activity. As the daughter of a former Republican vice president, Liz Cheney had plenty of cover to execute her deception. She was able to get away with it until the last primary election in August, 2022. But, just as happened in Arizona, the voters in her Wyoming district finally realized her true colors and handed her a well-deserved, humiliating defeat.
Instead of leaving politics quietly, Liz decided to adopt a Hassan Husain style scorched earth departure. This included the attack on conservative candidates like Kari Lake.
The question remains as to whether an attack based on Lake’s position on the 2020 election would succeed. Most likely it will not. Here is the reason why.
It is not clear whether we will ever settle the debate over whether or not the 2020 election was stolen as a result of cheating. What is clear is that this is not a pressing issue with the voters in Arizona.
A recent survey by the AZ Clean Elections Commission has shown that the four most important issues for AZ voters are the economy, healthcare, immigration and education. The 2020 election was way down on the list of priorities. The clean elections commission survey is quite comprehensive, but its results may be summarized by looking at this chart from the survey:
Other surveys have shown the same top four issues. The only difference among them has been the order of importance of those top four. In every one, the 2020 election has been way down on the list.
With this evidence in mind, it is easy to conclude that Liz Cheney’s attack on Kari Lake will be ineffective. If it does have an effect, it is likely that Lake’s astute reaction will cause it to be beneficial for her campaign by causing further energizing of her supporters.