The Mysteries Of Kari Lake - PHOENIX Magazine

And the substance of her 20-minute speech? Well, compared to the blithe partisan invective she will unleash at rallies and campaign events over the next year, it’s positively Gandhi-esque. Yes, the 52-year-old takes a swipe at COVID-19 mask laws and CDC policy and quaintly name-drops Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine (“They work… we know that now”). And, naturally, she describes her deep disenchantment with the forces that hastened her departure from FOX 10 the previous March. (I don’t write them down, but the words “mainstream media bias” linger in my head afterward.)

But mostly she stays on point for this presumably bipartisan group of Phoenix-area businesswomen. Reaching back into her childhood, she shares some of the origin-story details I would hope to include in a profile: Raised in rural Iowa, she was the youngest of nine children and not a rich kid by any means, living on her father’s teacher salary. “You had to work if you wanted shampoo,” she says, with a trace of ruefulness, just enough to let you know it was a character-building thing, not trauma.

She also describes a childhood filled with “God moments,” an evocative term that pairs nicely with the small gold cross she has recently taken to wearing on a chain around her neck.

She dovetails into recollections about her career. Perceiving a “Y in the road” between media and politics, she chose the latter. Make no mistake: Leaving FOX 10, even in the wake of myriad controversies, was her decision, her calling. And her family’s. She shares an anecdote about broaching the idea of a governor run with her husband of more than two decades, Valley videographer Jeff Halperin, and giving him veto power over it, acknowledging the upheaval it would likely cause them and their two teenage children.

According to Lake, her husband then went on a soulful hike in the foothills behind their Phoenix home to mull the idea before giving her the go-ahead.

She preemptively answers the questions audience members want to ask, like “Do you miss being on TV?”

“I miss the paycheck,” she self-answers, to a smattering of laughs.

At one point in her speech, she surprisingly points me out to the crowd, seated a few feet away, chewing on the last bites of my tenderloin. She doesn’t do it in an aggressive or condescending way. It feels more like a gesture of tolerance: “See? I might not like the media, but I can still hang with them.”

Afterward, she’s friendly and gracious, if a bit leery. She wants to know if I’ve ever run a negative story about former President Donald Trump. “Because I’m a Trump candidate,” she says matter-of-factly.

I dodge that one and repeat my honest desire to profile her fairly and expansively in the magazine. To tell her life story, her triumphs and miseries, the folds of experience people might not guess from seeing her ads or campaign speeches.