Kari Lake just got schooled (and by her fellow Republicans)

The first pothole has appeared in Kari Lake’s march to the Governor’s Office.

A few weeks ago, she finally offered up a proposal for what she would do if she is elected.

Beyond bashing the media, masks, vaccines and school boards, that is.

When it comes to being angry, nobody does it better than the perpetually aggrieved Kari Lake.

But governors aren’t just supposed to get angry. They’re supposed to get things done.

Lake's first major policy idea: Cameras is classrooms

Oh, she has put out a few ideas for what we can expect if she’s governor, but they are more campaign slogans than actual policy plans. She would “finish the wall,” though she hasn’t explained how she would pay for it (maybe she could bill Mexico?).

She would arrest “OSHA goons” as soon as they set foot in Arizona, though she hasn’t cited by what authority she could place them in handcuffs.

Finally, a few weeks ago, Lake offered an actual policy proposal. She would install cameras in every public school classroom so that parents would be able to root out “woke” educators and their secret plan to indoctrinate our children in leftie ideas.

“We as parents and taxpayers fund these schools,” she told the far-right blog Gateway Pundit. “We pay for the salaries of the teachers and administrators – they are OUR schools and we have the right to know what’s being taught in them.”

Lake’s plan is, as I wrote recently, unworkable, expensive and, frankly, a freaky approach to a problem for which there are other more productive solutions.

Now, Lake’s opponents and even the governor are saying so.

Her opponents have trashed the idea

Former Rep. Matt Salmon, Lake’s closest competition thus far in the GOP race, called her plan a “knee-jerk reaction” and “very poorly thought out”.

“While it may sound appealing at first glance to have ‘more eyes’ in schools, one of the first things you learn in public service is the law of unintended consequences,” he said, in a statement. “President Ronald Reagan warned that a government program ‘is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth,’ and that’s exactly what this proposal would be: an endless, misguided, and dangerous program that would invite around-the-clock surveillance by Big Tech and enable Big Government to inject itself even more into our lives.”

Businesswoman Karrin Taylor Robson, a sleeper candidate who has not yet made her move in the race, said the idea reeks of communist China and its “army of cameras used to monitor and compile a massive digital profile against its own citizens”.

“If you think school bureaucrats are too powerful now, just wait until Kari Lake arms them with the ability to assemble this kind of video profile against our kids,” Taylor Robson said in a statement.

Businessman Steve Gaynor and state Treasurer Kimberly Yee also have panned Lake’s proposal, with Yee saying, “we should not be putting the privacy rights of young students at risk because of bad actors.”

Gov. Ducey more or less called it irresponsible

Even Gov. Doug Ducey has broken his silence on the five-way Republican race to replace him.

“I’m not going to comment on every candidate proposal over the course of time,” he said on Tuesday, when asked about it by reporters. “But I do think there are responsible things we can do to improve public education.”

Translation: Kari Lake’s proposal is … irresponsible.

She finally goes beyond the bumper sticker and her one and only concrete proposal for how she would actually govern gets panned by conservative Republicans as a total dud.

Of course, this matters not at all in the polls at present, where Kari Lake is dancing circles around the competition.

Outrage, after all, sells.

But campaigns aren’t just about grabbing a sledgehammer and bashing TV talking heads. Or ambushing reporters in order to create a campaign video.

They’re about ideas. And they’re about preparation.

Even Rep. Biggs called out Lake for her tweet

Is it possible that 22 years reading TV news scripts doesn’t prepare one to govern a state of seven million people?

Time will tell, but based upon Lake’s response to Salmon’s criticism of her camera plan, I’m guessing that time will not be kind to Kari Lake’s campaign.

On Tuesday, she retweeted an accusation that Salmon, by opposing her camera plan, is “okay with special needs kids being raped”.

It was a reference to a Chaparral High School teacher's aide, recently arrested on charges that he sexually abused a special needs student. The theory being, that such abuse could not have taken place had there just been a Kari Cam in the classroom.

And that if you’re against Lake’s plan to put cameras in classrooms, then you support child rapists.

That was too much for Rep. Andy Biggs, a rock star on the far right (and a Salmon supporter).

“What an irresponsible misrepresentation of @MattSalmonAZ’s stance,” he tweeted on Tuesday. “Cameras in classrooms may be worth discussion by parents + leaders but smearing anyone opposing that effort shows a lack of ideas, judgment, and character. One more reason why Matt is the right pick for Governor.”

Could Lake be in trouble in the future?

Lake is thus far silent on social media about Biggs’ public censure, returning instead to her wheelhouse: railing about the media and trumpeting her Trump endorsement.

Meanwhile, her first actual policy proposal raises a serious question as election year approaches.

Is it possible that this Lake … just isn’t all that deep?

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake got schooled by fellow Republicans over cameras, rape tweet