Remember this from the 2010 gubernatorial election in Arizona?
For those of you without access to the video clip, you didn't miss much, just 13 seconds of dead PBS airtime, as Governor Jan Brewer's over-stressed synapses searched for a thought, an idea, a concept, two syllables that fit together—any functioning brainwave that might help her explain why she should be elected. After the long, awkward pause, what finally escapes from her forced smile is:
"We have did ..."
Ranks right up there with "Yes, we can," doesn't it?
But it worked, she won. What's even more unbelievable is that today's Arizona Republic features a story about Governor Brewer's rocketing fame among wingers, including the possibility that her name might appear on the GOP ticket. Seriously ... over the thingy.
If you thought Republicans were fickle about their presidential nominee, lurching from one flavor to another almost weekly in search of a pure candidate, imagine what a circus it'll be to identify an acceptable VP—perhaps someone to satisfy the tea party, evangelical or Wall Street voices whose preferred candidate doesn't get top billing in 2012. Well stop the VP search: Arizona, the nation's looney flatulent uncle you wish would stay in his room, has just the leader:
Gov. Jan Brewer has become quite the popular speaker on the national political circuit lately. She was in Kansas City earlier this month, speaking at the National Federation of Republican Women's biennial convention. On Oct. 6, she was the featured speaker at a Little Rock dinner/fundraiser hosted by the Arkansas GOP.
Guests paid $150 a ticket to hear her talk about her battles against illegal immigration and other topics; those willing to spend an additional $250 got the chance to have their pictures taken with Brewer. Arizona Republic
I wonder if the tales "about her battles against illegal immigration" include her headless bodies comment, or other lies she routinely spread during the campaign about the costs and consequences of immigration. Do the "other topics" cover gutting education at the same time she passed corporate tax cuts, the death sentence Brewer dealt to patients awaiting organ transplants, the prison industry's stranglehold on her office, and the absolute meltdown of Arizona's economy during her tenure? (At a time wingers controlled by 2:1 the legislature and both chambers' appropriations committees.) Does she wax philosophically about the state's Birther Bill, the draconian restrictions on reproductive rights, new and improved homophobic laws, and our Official State Weapon and tea party license plate? You know, the economic development programs Republicans promised.
Jan Brewer has been a fixture in Arizona politics a long time, decades even, and she was usually considered a moderate, not-too-crazy Republican. That changed in 2010 when the tea party hijacked the GOP, and even "mavericks" like John McCain abandoned their independent and reformist immigration legacy, bending way over to lick the boots of the SB 1070 brigade.
To save her political naugahyde, Governor Brewer did the same—kowtowing to Senator Russell Pearce's nativist juggernaut, adopting his fear-mongering and race-baiting tactics in order to scare the shit out of blue-haired grannies in Sun City. In her TV campaign ad she stood out there in the desert, pointing at a sign and asking, "Does this look safe to you?" I never thought signs were that dangerous until watching this. She gets right in Obama's grill, challenging him to "Do your job!" and "Secure our borders!" Facts about immigration, and its decline under Obama, do not appear. Today, the governor continues to reward Pearce for SB 1070, sending hair-on-fire national email blasts supporting the senator in his upcoming recall. Her message: Send Russell Pearce back to the Senate or there's "no hope" for Arizona. :-(
Brewer later fessed up that she was wrong about the beheadings, since not a single report from any law official backed up her claim that the desert is littered with cranium-challenged corpses. Her explanation, when cornered by the lie, was that the decapitated victims were south of the border. But, hey, Mexico isn't that far away and, given the GOP circles Brewer is running in these days, facts are a nuisance anyway.
She is also being touted as a featured speaker at a Republican women's conference in mid-November in Washington, D.C., along with other GOP heavy hitters Sarah Palin, Condoleezza Rice and Michele Bachmann.
"GOP heavy hitters"?! A part-time governor who strung along her duped donor base to pay for a Constitution-wrapped bus; a Secretary of State who was wrong about nearly everything pre- and post-9/11; a pray-away-the-gay presidential candidate locked in at 5 percent, battling it out with Rick Santorum for the vote cast by knuckles that drag so low they shall not be named. Heavy hitters indeed, just the right rarified air for Jan Brewer.
The Republic article notes that Brewer will begin a book tour to accompany the November release of her memoir, Scorpions for Breakfast—a handy scheme to keep her name before GOP voters, especially the tea party wing, as that tough gal who rides rough on immigrants, who pals around with their hero Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who apparently throws back a deadly bug with morning coffee. Like most Arizonans, I've seen my share of scorpions, but I've never considered eating one for breakfast. Not to worry, a PR flack at Broadside Books, a division of HarperCollins that specializes in "conservative non-fiction writing," explains the title:
"At the center of the [immigration] controversy is the state's Republican governor, Jan Brewer, a woman who has been hailed as a politician so tough she eats 'scorpions for breakfast,'" read the description on HarperCollins' website." AZ Capitol Times
I don't know who did this "hailing," but kick-butt, kung fu guy Chuck Norris provides a book-jacket blurb—something about Jan being tough. Shit, I guess so, she eats fucking arachnids that have venomous stingers and sharp pincers! I don't see economists, doctors, scientists or teachers lined up to write blurbs for the governor.
Which is probably a good thing if she's seeking the GOP nomination for anything.