Republican Arizona state Sen. Warren Petersen, running for Attorney General (Photo: Screen capture)
Republican Warren Petersen struggled to make it through the debate against Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes.
He "couldn't have shown up LESS prepared to debate tonight," said Democrat AmericanBridge VP Kelsie Taggart.
She posted a supercut of Petersen struggling to speak and looking down at his notes.
At one point, Mayes quipped, "It's too bad that Warren can't do anything but read off of your sheet there. But, ya know, we'll go ahead and respond."
In clip after clip, Petersen appeared to be sorting through a stack of papers on the podium.
"Someone did absolutely no debate prep," said former Jeopardy! champion Hemant Mehta.
Republican Gabby Biggs tried to make excuses, saying that Petersen was clearly more prepared: "How are you less prepared when you bring notes? That’s what a good AG does. We need an AG who shows up prepared rather than Mayes, who makes up lies on the spot."
It didn't go over well. Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann replied, "He re-read some of his notes aloud, twice each."
"Let me explain it this way," began voice actor Jayden Libran, "if you were giving a job interview to an applicant who was constantly fumbling with their notes, would you view them as prepared and ready to be hired on the spot?"
One person even quipped, “I’m not sure of my position on school shootings let me check my notes I’ve printed out here.”
Deputy Attorney General of Arizona Dan Barr even noticed, "He was pretty bad at reading his script as well."
"One of them had the knowledge and one of them couldn’t speak without reading from a script. This isn’t hard. He may as well have been any yahoo pulled off the street," replied another.
PR strategist Stacey Champion quipped, "He got his a—— handed to him by #LawyerForThePeople AZ AG @krismayes ! His new hair plugs seem to be holding though, so at least he’s got that."
At one point, the camera caught Petersen sticking out his tongue to lick his lips, but it just sort of lingered there instead.
Taggart posted a screen capture of the moment, saying, "Between constantly shuffling his papers and whatever this was... the choice for #AZAg couldn't be clearer."
A conservative who complains Trump isn't a true conservative indicated that it's clear Petersen "got crushed."
One person mocked Petersen as if he was giving an elementary school book report. "My book report on 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bontë: Wuthering Heights was written by Emily Brontë. It is a book about heights that are wuthering."
Petersen's campaign put out a clip of his reading a statement from the papers he had in front of him. Republican followers cheered him on, but others quickly inserted Taggart's supercut asking, "This you?"