Sorry, Kari Lake, but if you're explaining on abortion, you're losing

I’d guess that Kari Lake and the rest of MAGA consider the late President Ronald Reagan to be less of a Republican Party icon than a RINO.

But the political operatives running Lake’s campaign for the U.S. Senate in Arizona know better. I’d guess that somewhere on their desks, or hanging in a frame on a wall, or etched indelibly in their brains, is one of Reagan’s most famous campaign quotes.

He said, “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.”

Yep.

And these days, Kari Lake, Donald Trump and Republican candidates up and down the list, including Arizona Reps. David Schweikert and Juan Ciscomani, are doing lots and lots and lots of explaining when it comes to their position on abortion.

Kari Lake knew the abortion law by number

And it ain’t working.

During her time as a failed candidate for Arizona governor (which was tucked in between her worshipful visits to the Church of Trump at Mar-a-Lago), Lake has been an adamant anti-abortion advocate, referring to that particular element of women’s reproductive health care as “the ultimate sin.”

She said life begins at conception and expressed opposition to abortion medication.

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Lake not only praised the decision but pointed specifically and happily to the possible return of Arizona’s Civil War-era abortion ban.

She was even able to quote the exact number of the 19th century law in the Arizona Revised Statutes.

Who but a zealot could do that?

Lake can't unsay she's 'thrilled' with 1864 law

Lake said in an interview with KFYI (550 AM) on the day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, “I’m incredibly thrilled that we are going to have a great law that’s already on the books. I believe it’s ARS 13-3603 that will prohibit abortion in Arizona except to save the life of a mother. I think we’re going to be paving the way and setting course for other states to follow.”

Last week the Arizona Supreme Court did exactly what Lake and others were hoping for. The court decided that the draconian 160-year-old abortion ban was now the law.

Behind the GOP scheme: To rescue anti-abortion justices

Only instead of praising the decision, as you’d expect from someone saying what Lake said, she hemmed, then she hawed, then she issued a statement saying, “I oppose today’s ruling, and I am calling on Katie Hobbs and the State Legislature to come up with an immediate common sense solution that Arizonans can support.”

What Lake opposes, of course, is not the court’s ruling but the public’s overwhelmingly negative reaction to it.

Lake can't unspin that to not look bad

Democrat Rep. Ruben Gallego, who’s seeking the same Senate seat as Lake, isn’t about to let Lake off the hook. He said in part, “The other thing is, voters know that you are lying, Kari, and they’re not going to trust you. … Arizona voters are not going to fall for this.”

Lake and the people who speak for her have tried several times over the past week to find some version of Lake’s comments that don’t make her look so … bad.

But they can’t. And there’s an simple reason for that.

When you’re explaining, you’re losing.

Reach Montini at [email protected].

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake must know: If she's explaining on abortion, she's losing