Meghan McCain To Kari Lake: “No Peace B—-!”

It think it’s safe to say Kari Lake is scared. Becoming Arizona’s next Senator is her backup plan if she’s not Trump’s VP pick and I’m betting her internal polling is telling her she’s in deep doo-doo. A big pile of her own making with repeated MAGA type trashing of the late Senator John McCain, his service to the state and country, his legacy and the McCain family. For while it worked for her.  Now all of a sudden she’s trying to bury the hatchet with the McCain’s. To make up and make nice and put forth of united GOP front from Arizona. The headline speaks bluntly to how Lake’s overtures have been received.

Taking her cues from the Mango Messiah himself, Lake has echoed Trump’s disdain and criticism of John McCain. And his wife & widow Cindy. Meghan too. The McCain’s Lake has made a point to say are old news, and everything John McCain and his family have stood for and still believe in was wrong. Even harmful to the conservative cause! Again, she really wants to be Trump’s VP pick and since Trump knows deep inside the feces on John McCain’s toilet paper was better than he is he’s taken every chance to trash John McCain. So Lake has done so as well.

Before Trump the McCain name was second only to that of the Goldwater name in Arizona and arguably just as iconic and respected. But Trump’s MAGA madness infected the GOP there as has in many other places. Enough Arizonans including just enough Republicans started to think the unthinkable. Walk away from the GOP, or at least the MAGAs in it running for office. Some of them. The state legislature is still infused with plenty of MAGAs. I’m not up to date on the day-to-day pulse of Arizona but from the outside it looks like some actual embarrassment began to form over the election denial antics.

Kari Lake has led that charge. And she’s not back down on that front even now.  However, for reasons as yet unknown Lake has decided not only to attempt a reconciliation with the McCains, she has done so publicly. Hmmm. Maybe Trump has told her she’s NOT going to be VP? That makes as much sense as anything at this point. Whatever, what matter is that, as this article from ABC News reports the McCain’s aren’t just rejected Lake’s overtures, they too are taking the matter public. Don’t kid  yourself. Meghan would say whatever she wanted but she wouldn’t have made that comment I put in the headline without her mom saying “Sure kid. Let her have it with both barrels.”  The article leads off with Lake’s offer to meet one-on-one with Meghan McCain and her saying prior remarks taken as disparaging were ‘said in jest.” Really, what about:

Lake, a former TV reporter-turned-vocal ally of former President Donald Trump, who notably feuded with John McCain, said after winning the Republican nomination to be Arizona’s governor in 2022 that she “drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine,” referring to the family’s roots in the state.

Aw shucks Lake seems to be saying now. That and things like at an event in 2021 telling McCain supporters to “get the hell out” it were all in good fun! In an interview this past Monday Lake spoke of John McCain’s sense of humor saying “I think that if John McCain, who had a great sense of humor, would have heard it, he would have laughed,” Lake told hosts Barry Markson and Bruce St. James. Really? You think John McCain would laugh about for example this?:

Lake, in an interview in July 2022, accused John McCain’s widow, Cindy McCain, of running a scheme to promote a “globalist” agenda.

“This is the Cindy McCain branch of the Republican Party. They’re not Republicans. … I think they want an end to America,” Lake said at the time.

I won’t speak for you but I sure as hell don’t think so. If Lake is serious with with this “just kidding” or “bygones” kind of crap Native Americans need to post security wherever peyote can be found because Lake sure seems to be high on it.  Whatever. Lake is appealing to the McCain family, and Meghan in particular, I suppose because Meghan too has been on TV and has a social media presence:

“I’d love nothing more than to buy you a beer, a coffee or lunch and pick your brain about how we can work together to strengthen our state,” she wrote Wednesday in a 225-word public post to Meghan McCain. “My team is sending you my contact info — if you’re willing to meet, it would mean a lot to me.”

I’ll bet your right Kari although that last bit was a bit disingenuous. What you actually were trying to say without putting into words is it would mean a lot to your chances in your Senate race. Because you are going to lose. Part of the reason, perhaps the most important reason is that there aren’t enough true, hard core MAGA in your state. You need the “MAGA Lite” Republicans. The ones who hold their nose and vote for Trump because of low taxes and less regulation. As I said earlier though it’s possible a fair number of these people are embarrassed by you and MAGA. When they get into that voting booth they can tell you and the other crazies where to go. (hint – you won’t like the place)

So some public back and forth began on social media. First Meghan’s initial response:

“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,'” McCain wrote in a social media post on Tuesday. “Guess she realized she can’t become a Senator without us.”

Well that was blunt. Not nasty, although that last part was a pretty good dig at Lake. McCain went on in her post to say “We see you for who you are – and are repulsed by it,” Okay, so the gloves did come off after all.  Lake would have been wise to let it go but she responded with talk of the two of them being mothers, “Mama Bears” and trying to play on the fact both of their fathers had died of cancer. I guess she was trying to forge a “sisterhood of common experiences” connection or something. No matter. I suspect McCain assumed things wouldn’t end with her initial response to Lake and was ready to REALLY cut loose at Lake’s next turn:

“Our movement to save Arizona & America is growing, and it’s Mama Bears like us who are leading the charge — ALL Moms want the same thing: to leave our children a better America than the one we had. It’s as simple as that,” she (Lake) wrote.

“I want to make Senator McCain and Larry Lake proud,” she continued — before Meghan McCain bluntly dismissed her offer to meet.

“NO PEACE, B—-!” she wrote, in a post that was shared by Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison.

Okay – NOW it’s truly “on.” Again, Lake would do well to back off and try to keep her appeals to the McCains and other establishment Republicans in Arizona private. At least for now. After that Monday interview that got all this stared one of the hosts who interviewed Lake, Barry Markson asked an obvious question, why Lake “won’t just admit she was wrong and apologize.” He went on to say:

“Kari was a friend of the McCains, a close friend of the family, yet she had no problem attacking John McCain over and over, and she even attacked Cindy McCain in her recent book,” Markson wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Well, it seems it’s dawned on Lake that to have any chance she needs to gain forgiveness with the McCain family. And not just that according to the article. She’s apparently going around trying to make amends with the old Republican establishment in Arizona who she also has spent some years trashing because they wouldn’t “go MAGA.”

Here’s something to look for because it might be a canary in the political coal mine. Arizona was a solid red GOP state. Not to the degree quite a few others were but prior to 2020 talk of Democrats turning into a battleground were like speculation of turning Texas into one. Initial “Oh boy” followed by looking at the actual numbers on the ground and deciding not to waste resources there. It’s still not exactly a true battleground, at least in my opinion. But when it comes to Senate and the WH is is now up for grabs.

It all happened so quickly but from where I sit 2020 was some fluke or “one-time” thing. We have Mark Kelly as a Senator. We have good odds of having both Arizona Senators be Democrats after November. The legislature is a mess but we have a Democratic Governor and Secretary of State there now. Like I said calling the state purple is a stretch but it’s clear with good candidates we have a fair shot at winning elections there. Especially against openly MAGA candidates.

My point is that in Arizona the “old guard” is quietly reasserting itself. The fact that Lake, and I’ll be others are now going hat-in-hand to them asking for another chance sure seems to suggest Megan McCain was on to something with that “Guess she realized she can’t become a Senator without us” comment. IF that’s true of other offices, and there are indications it might be then it’s a whole new ball game in Arizona.

It makes me wonder if that might, if not this year then come 2026 (and 2028) turn out that an old-school Republican regaining control of Arizona politics (at least on the GOP side) might make that state the “canary” I spoke of.