Kari Lake Returns To Her Basics With Racist Shot At Haley

So much for the “kinder, gentler” “unifier” version of Kari Lake. She’s back to being the Trumpian style attacking bomb thrower that got her all too close to the Arizona Governor’s Mansion. The news all morning was that an actual (former) Governor, Nikki Haley would end her bid for the GOP Presidential nomination. So Lake trotted out a fairly widely (among MAGA type GOPers) trope that’s a thinly veiled racist attack on Haley who has gone by the nickname Nikki since she was a child. Using Haley’s given first name is a way of implying she’s not an American and of course given her skin tone an “other.”

At least as this article from Mediate indicates there are fellow conservatives taking Lake to task. So, just what happened? Well, it all started on twitter, or X or as I sometimes call it twiXster “Reports: Nimrata Haley will suspend her campaign today after more humiliating, landslide loses on Super Tuesday.”  Whether Lake intentionally mis-spelled Haley’s given first name which is Nimarata as “Nimrata” is unclear. Haley has gone by her middle name Nikki since she was a a child as many people, even white folks who have roots going back generations with plain ole bland American names often do. Hell, I hate my first name and for a time in grade school tried to switch to my middle name being used but gave up. (long story I won’t bore you with)

What matters is that as I said Lake decided to go racist in an attempt to diminish Haley’s having diminished her hero Trump by exposing the fact that the GOP isn’t nearly so united as Trump and others would have everyone believe.  Lake seemed to have realized in her own state there are a number of old-school Republicans who are sick of Trump and Trumpism and want to get back to Reagan style conservatism. You know, still favoring the rich at the expense of average and poor Americans but not being overtly mean-spirited about it. Appearances used to matter to old-school rich and powerful people.  However Lake is who she is:

Reports: Nimrata Haley will suspend her campaign today after more humiliating, landslide loses on Super Tuesday.

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) March 6, 2024

In any case reaction from at least some other Republicans has been swift. They’re calling out Lake:

Ms. Lake, there is nothing wrong with Niki Haley's given first name–it's quite a beautiful name, really. But, like former president Trump, you use it in a prejudicial manner to make her seem foreign. That's wrong. It's unChristian and unAmerican. It appeals to the worst in us.

— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) March 6, 2024

And:

Nominating Kari Lake is baffling to me. She is obviously off-putting to anyone outside of the Republican right. She has a record of losing winnable races. And she’s a grifter who you can’t trust actually cares about conservative issues. It’s all downside outside of the spectacle. https://t.co/uCe91AJ7fo

— Frank J. Fleming (@IMAO_) March 6, 2024

Or this:

Genius move making racist attacks on Haley. Now that Sinema is out you can’t win without her non-MAGA voters. But you do you. https://t.co/gEvWfRIz5l

— Marc Thiessen 🇺🇸❤️🇺🇦🇹🇼🇮🇱 (@marcthiessen) March 6, 2024

And one more:

Shot: “Lake has also been drifting toward the center, making overtures to the moderate wing of the Arizona Republican Party that she viciously attacked during her 2022 governor campaign.” (Politico, today)

Chaser: https://t.co/zj9WusoVeP

— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) March 6, 2024

It’s those last two I want to talk more about because they illustrate how Lake recently seemed to realize she’d burned a lot of bridges. And it she wanted to win a Senate seat she had to have statewide appeal AND there weren’t enough Trump fluffing MAGAs like her to prevail. However as I said she didn’t just burn bridges with Arizona’s old-guard, she’s spent the time since her failed gubernatorial campaign dropping napalm bombs on the old-guard’s side of the canyon. First and foremost she needed to make up with the McCain family and idiot that she is instead of making a quiet overture to John McCain’s widow Cindy to sit down and offer a sincere apology Lake tried to “make-up” publicly. That went about as well, or to be more accurate poorly as you’d expect:

McCain’s daughter, Meghan McCain, sent that attempted olive branch back to Lake in flames.

“Kari Lake is trying to walk back her continued attacks on my Dad (& family) and all of his loyal supporters after telling them to ‘get the hell out’. Guess she realized she can’t become a Senator without us. No peace, bitch. We see you for who you are – and are repulsed by it,” said McCain.

Lake responded by appealing to McCain’s maternal instincts. “As mothers, (both with two kiddos) I’m [sic] know we both agree that our children’s future is too important to let it slip away over past grudges or hurt feelings,” wrote Lake.

“NO PEACE, BITCH,” repeated McCain in reply.

So, as I said rather than continue and in the right way (privately) to mend fences with the McCains and that still substantial part of the Arizona GOP Lake appears to have said “screw it” and is full-on MAGA again. I guess like Trump she’s deluding herself into believing there are more MAGAs in her state than there actually are. What you should watch for is how if Lake continues with this it will hurt not only her own Senate chances but the chances of Trump winning Arizona. He could well lose by quite a bit more than last time!

Well, it’s interesting to watch GOP infighting. I’m plenty pissed about folks on our side pushing this whole “uncommitted” bullshit to “send a message” to President Biden but that’s nothing compared with what’s going on in multiple key states in the GOP.  If anything the internecine GOPer warfare in quite a few key states will get worse as the year progresses. So have at it Ms. Lake. Hand us a Senate seat on a silver platter with your MAGA crap, and Arizona’s electoral votes in the process!