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Time again for my official ask. Against my usual habit on this page, I'll try to keep it short:

If you haven't already, please cast your vote for Kamala Harris for President of the United States, and for Tim Walz for Vice President. I also ask you to vote for as many down-ballot Democrats as you can.

But if for whatever reason you simply can't do it, can't bring yourself to vote for a Democrat, or for a woman, or for a person of color, or whatever it is that's holding you back, then I ask you, for your own sake as well as for the country's and the world's: Don't vote. Seriously. Don't put that on yourself. I genuinely believe that, whatever happens, you'll be glad later if you didn't help try to send the Republican candidate back to the White House, or for that matter to empower his enablers.

Beyond that, there's not much else to say. Even if you're a staunch conservative, if you can look at the behavior and words of the Republican candidate, at any point but especially in the last couple of months, and believe that putting him anywhere near power is remotely a good idea, than our views of reality are too divergent for discussion to be helpful.

I think that Kamala Harris is an excellent candidate who stands a very good chance of being a capable President. But even if you have reservations about her, the choice between the candidates, for a reasonable person, isn't really a choice. This isn't the difference between, say, a gourmet dinner and fast food; it's not even the difference between a gourmet dinner and garbage. It's the difference between an edible meal (Harris/Walz) and toxic waste (the Republican candidate).

I spent the last two weekends canvassing here in Phoenix...

My paltry efforts amounted, I think, to pretty much the definition of The Least I Could Do. But I want to give a shout out to my terrific partners each of those days: Megan, Sue Ellen, Noah and Tim, and to all the volunteers who do this thankless, demanding work for weeks, months, years. I'm in awe of you.

GOIN' TO THE CANDIDATES' NON-DEBATE

Earlier this week the candidates for Governor of Arizona appeared onstage at the Herberger Theater Center in downtown Phoenix. But they didn't appear together.

Arizona Secretary of State and Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs and former Fox 10 anchor and 45-endorsed Republican candidate Kari Lake were both presented at a "Town Hall" event, connected to the National Conference of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Hobbs has declined to publicly debate or engage with Lake, which kept the main body of the event dull, but led to a bit of striking political theatre in its opening minutes.

Sitting in one of two armchairs, the moderator, Univision's León Krauze, announced that he would interview the candidates separately, and that the format, which both sides had agreed to, would not include questions from the audience. Not exactly a town hall, but whatever (I wasn't recording and had no way to take notes, by the way, so I'm relying on memory for these quotes). He cautioned the audience to be respectful of both candidates on pain of expulsion, and then, after some remarks from USHCC bigwigs... there was an uncomfortable pause. Krauze turned to a corner of the front row and said "Ms. Lake, will you go to your agreed-upon area backstage?"

Lake rose from a seat, resplendent in purple, saying that she would like a chance to be onstage with Hobbs. Krauze gently but firmly reminded her that she had agreed to the terms of the event, and would she please go. All wounded innocence, she kept up the resistance for a while. Krauze even offered to let her go first, but of course she wasn't about to let herself be the opening act; she departed, to applause, with an entourage in her wake. The stunt was effective--she painted Hobbs as chicken.

Krauze then left the stage, came back, and repeated his opening speech almost word for word. This time Hobbs came out from the opposite wing, took the seat opposite him and started answering his questions. It was the first time I had ever heard her speak outside of her campaign commercials, and I felt bad for her. She gave sensible mainstream answers about immigration, education, water conservation and abortion rights, but in a diffident, almost apologetic manner. She seemed less like a candidate and more like a nervous staffer pressed into service in a spin room.

Toward the end of her time, Hobbs was asked if her lifetime in Arizona had given her an appreciation of any particular aspect of Hispanic culture here. She seemed caught off guard by the question, and haltingly talked about how much she enjoys spending time with the family of a Hispanic in-law. Listening to her ramble, I was whispering to myself "hard work...strong family...hard work...strong family..." Finally she got there, noting that she admired the community's "family values and hard work," but it was the kind of softball question that an Arizona candidate ought to be able to riff on endlessly (and sincerely) without effort.

After Hobbs was excused to polite applause, Lake was invited out, and swept onstage like she owned the place, while three or four people in the row in front of me gave her a standing ovation. She responded smoothly and confidently to the questions, making frequent direct eye contact with the audience. She was every inch a broadcast veteran, with an impressive command of the rhetorical skills at which Hobbs was at best adequate.

She complained again about Hobbs refusing to debate her, calling her "a coward" and saying that she had also taken a pass on debating her Democratic primary opponent, former Nogales mayor and Obama staffer Marco Lopez, who Lake conceded is a "smart guy"; she said that if Hobbs had debated him he'd be onstage instead of Hobbs, and she fretted that Hobbs had "denied the people of Arizona" this. It didn't seem to occur to Lake that if she was right on this point, Hobbs had clearly chosen the better strategy in her run against Lopez, since she did win the primary.

As to the issues, Lake spoke in a folksy, easygoing way about the usual incendiary Fox News talking points, claiming that she would, for instance, declare an "invasion" at the southern border in "the first hour" of her administration, not only mobilizing the Arizona National Guard but bringing in troops from Texas and Florida. Asked if Joe Biden was the legitimate President of the United States, she shrugged and said "he's sitting in the White House"; Krauze was having none of this attempt to punt and pressed her, so she said that "the election was corrupt" and that no, in her opinion his presidency was illegitimate.

On to the main course: When Krauze asked her, as a "hypothetical which sadly isn't so hypothetical" case, whether a 12-year-old who was raped by a family member should be able to get an abortion, she tried briefly to dodge the question, but when pressed admitted that she thought such a victim should be able to get an abortion "if she wants one." She quickly added that such cases were extremely rare, and went on to say that her opponent believes in late-term abortion up to the point of birth "and after." She did not cite any information as to whether late-term abortions are more or less common than pregnancies caused by rape of the underaged, or suggest how the exceptions she apparently believes in to the abortion ban would be provided for legally.

In terms of presentational polish, there can be no denying that Lake is much the more capable and media-savvy candidate. It's very probable this is indeed the reason that Hobbs prefers not to spar with her face-to-face. But listening to Lake talk, it overwhelmingly seemed to me--and there were clearly many people in that audience who felt differently--that she was both condescendingly phony and, well...guano-esquely unbalanced (politically and socially speaking, that is).

Hobbs may feel that she's no match for Lake in a public forum, and if so she's probably right, and it unfortunately hands Lake a stick with which to beat her. But Hobbs is also quite justified, I think, in feeling that "debating" this person, allowing herself to be heckled and interrupted by a slick, experienced media professional who's also a political nutjob, is unworthy of her time.

At one point, Lake noted that pro-abortion activists all had "the luxury of being born." Listening to Lake for twenty minutes, I admit that I was less certain that being born was a luxury.

WHY YOU ALWAYS LION?

Hope everybody had a great Inauguration Day.

On Inauguration Eve, Donald Trump, Jr. posted this comparison between incoming President Joe Biden and Scar, the villain of Disney's The Lion King, on Instagram:

I'd like to set aside the obvious silliness--that Biden "cheated to win"--and ask Junior a different question: Who, in this "analogy," are the hyenas?

Back in 1994, when I reviewed The Lion King for Phoenix New Times, the 32-year-old pedantic ass I was spent interminable paragraphs trying to show off my supposed great Shakespearean acumen by tediously noting all the allusions to the Bard in this and other Disney animated flicks of the period. I didn't get to what should have been the point of the review until the last couple of graphs, and even there I let the movie off too lightly for it.

Specifically, I should have given more emphasis to how hard it is to escape the interpretation of The Lion King as an allegory (probably unintentional) in support of racial--or, at the very least, nationalistic and aristocratic--purity. Much was made at the time that this was the first truly original Disney film; that it wasn't based on some fairy tale or novel or other such source. Yet what they came up with was, as in the Star Wars flicks, one more tired-ass tale of a prince destined to rule as a birthright.

Even back then, though, what I found still more disturbing was the matter of the hyenas.

The usurper Scar invites the hyenas to integrate the lion pride, a sure sign of his wickedness. Two of them have overtly "ethnic" characterizations, voiced by Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin. A third, performed by veteran voice actor Jim Cummings, appears to have some sort of disability. It's this diversity that wrecks the integrity of the pride under Scar. The filmmakers seemed to be uncomfortable with this implication themselves, since toward the end there's a heavy-handed shot of the hyenas goose-stepping. This touch now seems like a classic reflexive right-wing projection, a meme tactic, like putting a Hitler mustache on a picture of Obama.

I closed my review back in '94 with the observation that "...if The Lion King weren't so obviously good-hearted...it might have seemed like the jackboots had been placed on the wrong paws." I can remember people I knew back then rolling their eyes at this mild suggestion as being overthought and tiresomely "politically correct" of me. But the 58-year-old pedantic ass I've grown into now wonders if I didn't take this insanely popular movie too little to task.

So, again, I'd like to ask Don Jr., who would have been about 16 years old when The Lion King came out: Who, in your view, are the hyenas?

Also, does this mean you see yourself as Simba, destined to rule after throwing Biden off a cliff?

BACK TO ONE

Okay, to begin with, thank Heaven.

I'm feeling terribly proud of my beloved home state of Pennsylvania, and of my beloved home town of Erie. I hope that within a few days, I can officially feel the same pride toward my beloved adoptive state of Arizona.

All that said, and without wanting to be a buzzkill in the least, here's some more of my unsolicited advice: Celebration is certainly in order today, but maybe we should consider keeping the gloating to a minimum, don't you think? Or, at least, keeping it to ourselves? Or, at the very least, focusing the ridicule on The Loser himself and the disgusting fraudulent enablers that run his party, rather than on his supporters? I understand that the differences we have with many of these folks run far deeper than petty politics, but the necessary work of bridging and healing those differences isn't served by cheap mockery.

First of all, it's unbecoming, unworthy of a gracious winner.

Second, as joyful as I feel today, I still won't completely trust this until Biden and Harris are sworn in. My superstitious side doesn't want to jinx it.

Third, no need to antagonize the already pissed-off, potentially violent losing side.

Fourth, and most importantly: Our side has little enough to boast about. This election was emergency surgery to remove a malignant tumor, and our side is in no small degree to blame for allowing this tumor to grow. This is a time for relief, not for trash talk and swaggering.

The last four years are in large part the result of the ugly bigotries and nationalism and resentment of the educated that, we now must admit, are a major and dangerous social force in our country. Like many people, I wanted a landslide; I wanted the Frank Capra moment of seeing this scumbag crushed like a diseased insect, of seeing decent people, including his supporters who've now had four years to see him in reprehensible and incoherent and incompetent action, rise up and repudiate everything he stands for.

We didn't get that, and while it's bitter, maybe it's for the best. If we'd gotten it, maybe it would have been too easy to dismiss his presidency as a fluke, a bad joke that got out of hand, rather than a symptom of a deeper, perennial pathology in our country that we'll need to work against all our lives.

But the last four years are also the result of dilatory, complacent, too-cool-to-vote-for-a-mainstream-candidate people in my party; people who, deep down, thought Hillary had it in the bag and wanted to play Hamlet about how they couldn't bring themselves to vote for That Woman. I even heard some of that shit about Biden and Harris in this campaign. Hopefully we've learned the hard lesson that voting isn't a pose, it's a tool. Biden and Harris weren't my ideal candidates either, but they were the candidates that could beat President 45 and begin to undo some of his damage, which made them the right candidates. If they're too mainstream and business-as-usual for you, then start organizing to push them in your direction...once they're sworn in.

Also: The people I see partying in the streets on TV, in New York and D.C. and other places...I get it, and I'm glad to see that most (not all) of you are wearing masks, but not for nothing, maybe you should think about celebrating by Zoom or something?

And finally: On TV I saw somebody holding up a sign that says "Thank Youse," which I'm guessing is directed at voters in my home state of Pennsylvania. How about some love for people on the western side of the state? How about a sign that says "Thank Yinz?"