SEEN BUT NOT HEARD: ‘I Don’t Want to Talk Politics to Anyone Who I Don’t Know’ Says Arizona Gubernatorial Candidate Katie Hobbs; Campaign Insiders Keep Her From Debate Stage
• Katie Hobbs, Democrat Arizona Gubernatorial Candidate: An Uber driver asked me “‘Oh, what do you do?’ And I was like, ‘Uh, I work for a campaign.’ I don’t know why I said that — I just didn’t want to have this conversation. And he’s like, ‘Oh, Kari Lake?’ And I was like, ‘F**k no!’ I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk politics to anyone who I don’t know.”
• Joe Wolf, Head Political Consultant, Hobbs Campaign: Hobbs would support an assault weapons ban “if she could, yeah. I mean the problem is that it’s a federal issue, right?”
• Wolf: “Because it’s a federal issue and like, you know, there’s nothing she could do about it — at least immediately, right? And some kind of advocating for it publicly, which is really more impactful once you’re governor. So, it’s kind of like, this state is crazy about their guns, so we’re not gonna take the beating for it before she can do anything about it.”
• Wolf: “That is an AR-15 [in our car] … Easier to fire than a handgun … That’s why it’s scary.”
• Nicole DeMont, Campaign Manager, Hobbs Campaign: “When Clean Elections was like, ‘Here’s the debate format,’ it was exactly the same as the primary. It was like, we’re not gonna put her [Hobbs] in that, like she’s not gonna be a part of something like that. Like, if you wanna make a format that actually allows for a substantive policy debate, where you can compare positions, sure we’ll do that…So, they want to see Kari [Lake] create this spectacle. We’re not participating in that…We’re doing a bunch of forums where we can actually hear both sides.”