Is Kari Lake Joan of Arc or Joan of Farce?

You know the scene in “Bull Durham” where the Susan Sarandon character and the Kevin Costner character are sitting in a kitchen eating breakfast cereal?

And the Sarandon character says that she believes in a previous life she was either Catherine the Great or Francis of Assisi?

I picture failed Republican governor candidate Kari Lake saying something like that.

Although I’d guess she imagines herself the reincarnation of Cleopatra or, better yet, Joan of Arc, a warrior martyr standing firm against those who would plot and plan and eventually steal a statewide election from her.

That has to be it.

Shouldn't Democrats have won by more?

After all, St. Joan would transmigrate into the body of a former TV news reader and unsuccessful politician only if such a person were destined to take on the evil plotters of a stolen election, right?

Except … if that were true, why wasn’t Democrat Kris Mayes long ago declared the winner of the attorney general’s race over Republican Abe Hamadeh, who ran closely with Lake?

The two attorney general candidates ran neck and neck.

Wouldn’t the evil election-plotters have made sure that Mayes won by a comfortable margin?

For that matter, if some vast conspiracy of leftists stole the election, how did Republican Tom Horne become the new superintendent of public instruction?

And how did Republican Kimberly Yee get to keep her position as state treasurer?

Kari Lake is not a martyr, but a sore loser

Even worse, if the election thieves were so diabolically clever how did Republicans manage to maintain their control of both the state Senate and the state House?

And why in the world would the plotters allow Republicans like state Sens. Warren Petersen and Sonny Borrelli – well-known election conspiracy theorists – to be named to leadership positions?

And why would the sinister cabal of election thefts permit Republicans to name as the head of the Senate’s election committee Sen. Wendy Rogers, a conspiracy kook who’s cozy with white nationalists, promotes QAnon lunacy, backed Alex Jones over the parents of murdered children in Sandy Hook, and has tweeted a photo of herself next to a dead rhino branded with the Star of David?

Either the elections plotters were really bad at their job or … the election was exactly like most elections, a mixed bag.

Which means that Lake, like her Dear Leader, Donald Trump, is not a martyr, but merely a sore loser.

Joan of Farce.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake thinks she's Joan of Arc, but she's really Joan of Farce