by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Joe Arpaio is at it again. The eighty-five-year-old former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, was forcibly retired in 2016 when voters turned him out of the office that he had run like a desert fiefdom for twenty-four years. But, to paraphrase someone, it's hard to keep a good con-man down.
Last summer Arpaio was convicted on "contempt of court" charges for failing to follow a court order to stop his infamous "immigration roundups" and continuing to detain and harass persons of Hispanic descent without obvious reason to do so. He was convicted in federal court in July, but received a presidential pardon for his crime before sentence could be imposed.
And after that infamous pardon, Old Joe slunk back to his casa magnifica in Fountain Hills and began having to suffer through news cycles in which he did not figure prominently. Obscurity, for Joe, was a fate worse than prison.
But hey, now he's back!
Joe Arpaio, who has a long history of threatening to run for offices other than sheriff and then never following through, stepped up his game yesterday with an announcement that he was officially running as a Republican (of course) to replace the retiring Jeff Flake in the U.S. Senate. According to a commentator on the NPR station (KJZZ) in Phoenix this morning, the sudden entry of Arpaio into the race has shaken things up.
Arpaio does have some obvious strengths in the race: he has a name recognition of 97% among Arizona voters, and at eighty-five he is the approximate age of the average Arizona voter. Old Joe is also a perennial favorite of the state's white nationalists and assorted racist groups.
Conservative State Senator Kelli Ward, who lost last year's senate race to incumbent John McCain, was leading the field of contenders and likely contenders for the upcoming primary, but Arpaio's entry cut directly into her base of support. Now, according the Arizona pollster interviewed on KJZZ, Ward, who is backed by Steve Bannon, is suddenly at the rear of the procession, Arpaio is a strong second, and the more conventional Congresswoman Martha McSally, who is expected to enter the race tomorrow, is leading the pack. Arpaio is posturing as the candidate of the White House, and McSally is widely believed to have the support of Mitch McConnell and senate GOP leadership.
It almost feels like Alabama all over again!
Whoever the Republicans eventually nominate, that person will still have to overcome a seismic obstacle in the person of presumed Democratic nominee, Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema.
Some Arizona skeptics who doubt Arpaio's sincerity in pursuing the Senate seat, note that his announcement was accompanied by an appeal for donations. Some are even hinting that his run for the Senate may be no more than a personal enrichment scheme. And Old Joe, ever the showman, is undoubtedly planning to fleece the rubes like he always has, but even more important than the new income stream will be Arpaio's re-emergence into the daily news cycles.
Any press is good press on Planet Arpaio.
Citizen Journalist
Joe Arpaio is at it again. The eighty-five-year-old former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, was forcibly retired in 2016 when voters turned him out of the office that he had run like a desert fiefdom for twenty-four years. But, to paraphrase someone, it's hard to keep a good con-man down.
Last summer Arpaio was convicted on "contempt of court" charges for failing to follow a court order to stop his infamous "immigration roundups" and continuing to detain and harass persons of Hispanic descent without obvious reason to do so. He was convicted in federal court in July, but received a presidential pardon for his crime before sentence could be imposed.
And after that infamous pardon, Old Joe slunk back to his casa magnifica in Fountain Hills and began having to suffer through news cycles in which he did not figure prominently. Obscurity, for Joe, was a fate worse than prison.
But hey, now he's back!
Joe Arpaio, who has a long history of threatening to run for offices other than sheriff and then never following through, stepped up his game yesterday with an announcement that he was officially running as a Republican (of course) to replace the retiring Jeff Flake in the U.S. Senate. According to a commentator on the NPR station (KJZZ) in Phoenix this morning, the sudden entry of Arpaio into the race has shaken things up.
Arpaio does have some obvious strengths in the race: he has a name recognition of 97% among Arizona voters, and at eighty-five he is the approximate age of the average Arizona voter. Old Joe is also a perennial favorite of the state's white nationalists and assorted racist groups.
Conservative State Senator Kelli Ward, who lost last year's senate race to incumbent John McCain, was leading the field of contenders and likely contenders for the upcoming primary, but Arpaio's entry cut directly into her base of support. Now, according the Arizona pollster interviewed on KJZZ, Ward, who is backed by Steve Bannon, is suddenly at the rear of the procession, Arpaio is a strong second, and the more conventional Congresswoman Martha McSally, who is expected to enter the race tomorrow, is leading the pack. Arpaio is posturing as the candidate of the White House, and McSally is widely believed to have the support of Mitch McConnell and senate GOP leadership.
It almost feels like Alabama all over again!
Whoever the Republicans eventually nominate, that person will still have to overcome a seismic obstacle in the person of presumed Democratic nominee, Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema.
Some Arizona skeptics who doubt Arpaio's sincerity in pursuing the Senate seat, note that his announcement was accompanied by an appeal for donations. Some are even hinting that his run for the Senate may be no more than a personal enrichment scheme. And Old Joe, ever the showman, is undoubtedly planning to fleece the rubes like he always has, but even more important than the new income stream will be Arpaio's re-emergence into the daily news cycles.
Any press is good press on Planet Arpaio.
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