"More border fences for everyone!"
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, probably the only
county law official in the nation that most people know, sent an email to supporters today, asking for "$5, $25 or even $250" to support his possible bid for Arizona governor this year. The GOP primary is already super-crowded with wingnuts, and Arpaio's addition to the mix will only make the race even more entertaining.
Among others, the announced posse of pinheads already includes Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who early on pushed the birther nonsense; "Atomic" Al Melvin, a legislator who believes every problem can be solved by building nuclear plants and importing nuclear waste; former County Attorney Andrew Thomas, who was disbarred from practicing law for his role in building Arpaio's police state; and Christine Jones, an attorney for Go Daddy who clearly doesn't know Arizona geography and thinks Sheriff Arpaio "acts with integrity and honesty." There's more but it'll be a race to see who can out-crazy the others. If Arpaio enters the fray, the crazy bar just gets higher.
Sheriff Arpaio's email today begins by saying he has to "make one of the most important decisions of my life," then the sheriff asks his "patriots" to "STAND WITH JOE" at least nine times, i.e, send cash now. Arpaio says he needs to raise at least $4 million for the primary and election, which will pit the Republican primary winner against Democrat Fred DuVal, who is running virtually unopposed. Fred is smart, experienced and practical, which probably makes him unelectable in Arizona.
Arpaio's email is a very loud dog whistle to his base—the blue hairs in Sun City and similar retirement havens who encouraged him to investigate President Obama's birth certificate, along with the spiteful anti-immigration crowd that's been urging the 81-year-old lawman to run for governor (hell, even President).
The 4-page email includes the sheriff's own Enemies List, those people and organizations that have challenged Arpaio's unethical and illegal policies, making his potential run for governor very expensive. Among others:
• Obama's Department of Justice (bullshit, although they uncovered racial profiling, cronyism, criminal activities, and political intimidation, the DOJ did not prosecute)
• The courts and their "unfounded" charges of racial profiling (no, actually, they were found)
• The Dems who ran an unsuccessful recall campaign against Arpaio last year (which, he says, drained his multi-million war chest, so pony up!)
• Rev. Sharpton, George Lopez, Linda Ronstadt and "a gaggle of other celebrity lefties"
• A "hostile" national and local press (bullshit again, the press has generally lionized this turd)
Sadly, if Sheriff Arpaio enters the GOP primary, he'll be considered one of the favorites, and Arizona may experience a deadly one-two punch of "Headless Bodies" Brewer and Arpaio. Southern Arizona's threat to secede and create Baja Arizona may become a reality, Tent Cities will pop up across the state, pink underwear will be the state's official attire, Walking While Brown will become a felony, prisons will outnumber schools, the Office of Tourism's job will be impossible, we may invade Mexico with a bunch of camouflage-wearing volunteer posse goons, and most businesses that were thinking about re-locating to Arizona will look elsewhere.
Let's hope the answer to Arpaio's "most important decision" is to take his millions and slither away. We can't take this much crazy.