Is Lake trying to move to center?

Kari Lake is a charismatic figure who can draw a crowd. So she will be counted upon to kick off her U.S. Senate campaign on Oct. 10 with a lively camp revival.

She brings her highly polished delivery from years as a television news anchor along with her husband’s photojournalist skills to ensure the visuals will be perfect.

Lake has already put out a dramatic launch video that builds from a heartbeat to a thundering, rhythmic — “KARI! ... KARI! ... KARI!”

But the sheen is off this traveling gospel show and a long time ago.

Lake will come limping into the race after losing the gubernatorial election, losing legal challenges to reverse it, and running repeatedly to Mar-a-Lago to recommit body and soul to a political doctrine that has lost three consecutive national elections.

With the wreckage of 2022 all about her, Lake has still got the bravado, “I will never give up ... never, never, never!”

Today that’s all background. Part of the ambient noise in a world that moved on.

But last week, Kari Lake actually managed to break through — to say something interesting.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, she said she would be in Washington, D.C., this week to meet with the powers that be and money bundlers — “Republicans across the ideological spectrum.”

“I’d like to meet them to show them that I’m a very reasonable person who loves my state.”

STOP. REWIND. PLAY.

“I’m a very reasonable person.” STOP.

She said that.

Against all evidence to the contrary, Kari Lake said she is “a reasonable person.”

Now that’s not only intriguing, it reveals something deeply psychological.

In fact, my first reaction to that is a vision in black and white. In my mind I can see a mob emerge from the London gloom and corner Kari Lake.

They rip off her mask, and she screams in a pathetic voice, “I am not an animal! I am a very reasonable person!”

To have had that vision, I had to hear in Lake’s words a hint of self-awareness or perhaps a faint note of contrition.

But, then again, who, in reassuring the world that she is a “reasonable person,” jacks it up with the adjective “very” as in, “I am a VERY reasonable person.”

Which doesn’t sound reasonable. It sounds like someone saying, “When it comes to reasonable, no one does reasonable like I do. I am a VERY reasonable person.”

So, OK, she’s still Kari Lake.

But the quote is revealing in other ways. She knows she’s got problems.

A July poll shows that Lake is underwater in Arizona, with a majority of her state’s voters (51%) holding an unfavorable opinion of her.

She may be popular in an Arizona Republican Party still in the grip of Donald Trump, but among independent voters, who will have much to say about who wins the general election, her popularity rating is at a dismal 30%, according to the July 13-17 poll by Noble Predictive Insights.

Further, there are now signs in Arizona that the MAGA dam could be cracking. Nearly one-third (29%) of Arizona Republicans have a negative view of Lake, and in Yuma County an insurrection is stirring.

Phil Townsend, the former Yuma County GOP chair who endorsed her in 2022, has come out against her.

“I think she’s proven herself to be a grifter and a sore loser, and I’m not going to be able to support her in the primary,” he said.

If that’s what your friends say of you, one shudders at what your enemies must think.

She launched her 2022 run for governor in form-fitting black slacks and stilettos, swinging a variety of bludgeoning instruments – sledgehammers and baseball bats – at television sets representing the talking-head liberal media.

If the bat---- crazy she portrayed in that ad is now out and has given way to “very reasonable,” one begins to imagine what that looks like.

Will we see Kari Lake in prim pastels and flats, watering the roses and sprucing the daffodils?

Will she speak warmly and reasonably to voters?

If she does, there will be panic in the “Sinema for Senate” headquarters.

Sinema is contemplating a run as an independent, and if her leaked plans are to be believed, she is going to run what you might call the “Bat---- Crazy” playbook.

It goes like this:

In this two-party dominated landscape, you might be able to thread the needle as an independent between Republican bat---- crazy and Democratic bat---- crazy.

She’s got Ruben Gallego on the left who can’t resist calling Republicans “baby killers” and “mother(blankers)” and who sometimes seems about a halfstep away from pulling his own fire alarm.

And she’s got sledgehammer-swinging Kari Lake on the right.

This all works for Sinema if her opponents stay in their straitjackets.

But if Lake steps out of the jacket and out of character and projects sanity, well, that just ruins everything.