Late last night, the judge entered an order in Kari Lake’s trial. She lost, of course, which delighted and encouraged liberals everywhere. Gleeful cries of “no evidence!” could be heard across the country.

But, as ever, it’s not quite that simple. Here is the core of the Judge’s reasoning:

Plaintiff [Lake] argues that 274,000 signatures (or so) were compared in less than two seconds. Plaintiff then zeroes in on 70,000 – the number of ballots that she claims were given less than one second of comparison. Plaintiff argues that this is so deficient for signature comparison that it amounts to no process at all. Accepting that argument would require the Court to re-write not only the [Elections Procedure Manual] but Arizona law to insert a minimum time for signature verification and specify the variables to be considered in the process.
In other words, the trial judge said maybe it’s true they spent less than a second to compare signatures, but the law doesn’t say how long it HAS to take, so what’s he supposed to do about it? How is HE supposed to know how long a “good” signature verification should take?

I respectfully disagree with the judge. The judge didn’t have to create new standards; he could’ve ruled that less than one second is the wrong amount of time, regardless of what the right amount of time might be. I can’t imagine why he thought he had to tell anybody what the right amount of time is to do justice in this case.

We have not yet heard from Lake’s group, except for a tweet saying they’d be making a big announcement today. Kari has previously sworn that, if she lost, she’d appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court.

This result is predictable, even expected. When I filed my mask lawsuit against the county in 2020, I knew that it would be almost impossible that the trial judge would take on the political burden of becoming the country’s first anti-mask judge. She gave me all I could really hope for: a fairly-conducted hearing, a quick, appealable order, and she let me create the record I needed for the inevitable appeal.

Had anyone from Kari’s team asked me, I would’ve predicted the same thing for her trial. They needed to be getting all the necessary evidence into the record, but planning for the inevitable appeal. It looks like the judge did let them get the evidence in, which is a great blessing. In other words, the judge kept his hands clean, but passed the decision buck up the line — where it would’ve inevitably gone anyway.

It’s too simplistic to say the judge should’ve been courageous and ruled for Kari no matter what. His decision would’ve only carried symbolic weight, and why potentially ruin your career to make a symbol? It’s not irrational that a judge could’ve concluded it was better to help by conducting a fair trial, getting everything in the record, and letting the plaintiff take it up to the appellate court, as opposed to the defendant.

It’s true that in most cases it’s better to win at the trial level, because it is vastly easier to defend an appeal than try to get a reversal. But that calculus goes out the window in politically-charged cases like this. Believe me. This case was always going to be decided by Arizona’s Supreme Court, one way or the other, regardless of what happened at trial.

Finally, Kari Lake has proven she’s a fighter. That’s going to go a LONG way for whatever comes next for her. She’d make a great VP for someone. Just saying.