Arizona: The Ghost of Christmas Future

longhouse campaign style, illustrated

In 2022, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs ran for governor — mostly by hiding. She refused to debate her Republican opponent, Kari Lake, explaining that she didn’t want to embarrass her state by giving a MAGA candidate a platform to say crazy things. But, small catch, she had also refused to debate her Democratic opponent in the primary election. She carefully avoided specifics, gushed platitudes, talked like a child, and recited her script: Trump Trump Trump Trump, OUR DEMOCRACY, election deniers.

Here’s what the New York Times said about Hobbs, a couple weeks before the election:

At the Arizona Republic, a relentlessly mediocre Democratic Party newsletter, an op-ed columnist had an even less flattering take, wondering why Hobbs was bothering to run for office. “Maybe timidity is what Arizonans are looking for, but I doubt it.”

While she mostly hid, and occasionally produced some highly scripted and feelz-focused word clouds, Hobbs relentlessly demonized Republican candidate Kari Lake — whose most important issue as a politician, apparently, was that she desperately yearned to become the governor of Arizona so she could make it secede from the United States. Terrifying seditionist Kari Lake, the candidate who intended to fire on Fort Sumter! As the Hobbs campaign calmly explained in its press releases, Lake didn’t have campaign events — she had extremist rallies, like Klan meetings multiplied by a Nazi march but probably much worse:

Little known fact: Kari Lake actually named her horse Traveller.

Actual photograph of Kari Lake on the campaign trail

And that’s it: Hobbs hid, she sometimes babbled some light nonsense, and she said that Kari Lake was a seditionist and a secessionist and a passionate advocate of civil war and the most dangerous extremist in the history of, like, forever. Result: Katie Hobbs is the governor of Arizona.

So. This is a good guess:

Watch the next video, excerpts from the “White Dudes for Harris” Zoom call, to see a Democratic governor say that “that bastard” will have to wake up after the election and “know that a black woman kicked his ass.” That’s the tone and style of the emerging Harris campaign.

Kamala Harris spoke in Atlanta today — after Megan Thee Stallion warmed up the crowd with a song about the way her fat pussy drips so much she needs a mop for the floor — and you can watch her entire speech here. Sample rhetoric, with the transcript on the right:

She’s going to end inflation by taking on price gouging and late charges, which are…apparently the cause of inflation? I’ll have to check with Megan Thee Stallion. Scroll through the other claims if you must, because Donald Trump is running to destroy the middle class, which he hates, and the most important part of his agenda is making sure no one can ever collect Social Security benefits anymore. Get ready for three non-stop months of this.

Recognizing that not much time has elapsed since Harris sharp-elbowed the Democratic nomination without having campaigned for it, go take a look at her campaign website. As I write this, it features a button to contribute money, a button to volunteer for the campaign, and a button to shop for merch. Candidates usually gesture at an “issues and positions” page, but maybe she’ll get to it. Scroll back up this page to that screenshot of a tweet from the enjoyably named Coddled affluent professional: “…where politicians are memetic spectacles, have no platform, make no promises, hold no opinions..”

This is my bet, and I place it with some confidence: Kamala Harris will transition rapidly into a Katie Hobbs campaign. A lot of demonization, a lot of vagueness, entertainment events with a speech that avoids detail and punches cultural fear buttons in the middle of a bunch of celebrity appearances, and more hiding as election day approaches.

The thing Harris is saying about Trump pulling out of a debate after agreeing to it…

…is tedious and temporary, since Trump agreed to debate the winner of the Democratic primaries, the person he debated the first time. This is familiar rhetoric, and take a moment to remember how Joe Biden framed his challenge to debate Trump:

“Make my day, pal.” I guess he did, right?

My confident guess is that Kamala Harris will settle into her niche, and Katie Hobbs previewed that niche for us.