Kari Lake, the Trump-endorsed Republican candidate in the Arizona gubernatorial race, is tied in polling against Democrat candidate Katie Hobbs. Democrats are nervous because Lake is very likely to win the race. As hard as they try to paint Lake as some kind of conspiracy theorist nutcase, her numbers continue to rise in the polls.

Lake is a campaign manager’s dream candidate. She’s attractive, articulate, unafraid of the press, and quick on her feet with answers to questions. She is a former television news anchor with over two decades of experience so her ease on camera is to be expected. She is also a professional who insists on proper lighting and always looks flawless. I know that all sounds slobbery but it’s the truth, in my opinion. Judging her on her personal and professional appearance, she’s a 10.

Hobbs refuses to debate Lake. How weird is that? Hobbs is the current Arizona secretary of state, for heaven’s sake. Lake is a newcomer to politics. Hobbs should be secure enough in her political savviness that she would agree to at least one debate. But no. She uses the excuse that Lake is an election denier, a believer in Trump’s Big Lie, and said during the GOP primary that if she was the governor during the 2020 election, she would not have certified the presidential election results. Ok. So, Hobbs should face off with Lake and make her case. That’s how this works. Voters are entitled to see the two candidates go head-to-head. Instead, Hobbs comes off looking like a coward, which is what Lake calls her.

A CBS News poll of likely voters published Wednesday found Hobbs and Lake deadlocked at 49%. Among registered voters in Arizona, Lake, however, trails Hobbs by nine points on how she handles herself personally.

That quote is from a CBS News write-up after both Lake and Hobbs appeared on Face the Nation Sunday morning. Hobbs only agreed to doing a separate interview so each candidate appeared alone and given the same amount of time for their interview with guest host Major Garrett. Let me note that the new CBS poll used likely voters in stating that the candidates are tied at 49% while it used registered voters to report that Lake is nine points behind Hobbs on rating her personally. How convenient. The media isn’t even trying to hide the fact that it’s all about dinging Lake as election day is almost upon us. Like Trump, it’s all about her personality and style, not the substance of her political philosophy.

Lake went first on Face the Nation. As it turns out, Hobbs may be cowardly but she is also probably aware that Lake commands attention and is very good at navigating through an interview. Hobbs is mousy and clearly trying to not say anything that may offend anyone, except when she lobs personal insults at Lake.

For example, on the question of abortion, Lake said she will follow the law in Arizona which limits abortion after 15 weeks. The CBS poll found that 60% of Arizona voters believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. It found that abortion is a top issue for Democrat voters but not ranked among all voters when compared to the issues of the economy, inflation, or immigration.

“We need to draw the line somewhere. I am going to be the executive of the state, the chief executive officer, and I will follow the law,” she said. “The law right now as it stands is Gov. Ducey’s law at 15 weeks, so we’ll follow the law.”

Lake said supports giving women choices when confronted with an unplanned pregnancy and argued that when women go to abortion clinics, “they’re only given one choice.”

“I will uphold the law, whatever that law is. And I want to see to it that we’ve save more lives,” she said.

Hobbs, as a pro-abortion Democrat may think that answer sounds extreme but Lake sounds like most other Republican candidates running this cycle. Hobbs wouldn’t even say when or if a time restriction should be placed on abortions. She said, it is a “very personal decision that belongs between a woman and her doctor. The government and politicians don’t belong in that decision, we need to let doctors perform the care that they are trained and take an oath to- to perform.”

On the Big Lie, Lake would only say that there were “major problems” with the state’s election system.

“We can’t speak out against our own elections,” she said. “All I’m asking for is the ability to speak out when our government does something wrong. We should be able to speak out against it.” She said that “honesty” has to be restored in elections.

On immigration, Lake said she has spoken to several governors and has a plan for a like-minded governors to join a compact to carry out immigration enforcement along the southern border.

“Article 4, Section 4 calls for the federal government to protect us from invasion, and under Joe Biden’s lack of leadership, we just aren’t seeing that,” she told “Face the Nation.” “And we have an invasion at our border, the cartels, these narco-terrorist groups have operational control. And they’re using Arizona to smuggle people, to traffic children and to traffic the most dangerous drug we’ve ever seen, fentanyl. And so we’re going to invoke our Article One, Section 10, basically, authority to take care of our own border and protect our own border.

Instead of any possible solutions, Hobbs only said that Lake offers empty rhetoric. She did admit that Biden has failed to secure the border and Arizona pays the price for that failure but she criticized Trump for focusing on building a wall. That seemed odd, considering Trump put programs like Title 42 and initiatives like the Remain in Mexico policy in place to halt the overwhelming flow of illegal aliens into border states.

The reason given by Hobbs for avoiding accepting an invitation to debate Lake is that Lake disrupts such events and Hobbs doesn’t want the distraction of Lake’s actions. What a weenie answer. If she can’t stand up to a shenanigan on a debate stage, how is she to be trusted in having the ability to run a state? Hobbs has been concentrating on town halls as an alternative to debates. Lake showed up at a recent one and Hobbs refused to go on stage until Lake was removed. Lake was doing her part of the town hall after Hobbs and put herself in the front row, in Hobbs’ line of vision. It rattled Hobbs so much that a reporter noted that Hobbs’ performance suffered for it. Imagine that. Hobbs was so rattled by just the sight of Lake that she couldn’t recover enough to put forth a strong performance during a town hall.

Launching Hobbs’ segment, Garrett asked the candidate if there would be any circumstance in which she could see herself debating Kari Lake. Hobbs said that she still has no plans to debate the candidate, citing that any debate would “turn into a circus.”

Real Clear Politics aggregate averaging has Lake up by 1.1 points. The long knives are out for Kari Lake now that it looks like she can win the race, despite the media’s attempts to paint her in a negative light. There is an article in The Atlantic that should probably be addressed, and I may do that in a post later.