In case you missed the political news from Arizona this weekend, I'll paraphrase what various Arizona Republicans were saying:
Russell Pearce said some horrible things, he should resign his position. Now I have to get back to scrubbing his endorsement from my website.
Details? Yes, you want details.
Russell Pearce is, thankfully, a former state legislator. Still, he has enough juice in activist circles to get elected vice chair of the Republican Party and get a cushy political appointment with the Maricopa County Treasurer's office.
This weekend, he got into trouble some things he said on his radio show. In case you had better things to do than to listen to Valley AM radio, here is the report from the New Times:
"You put me in charge of Medicaid," Pearce told one caller, "the first thing I'd do is get [female recipients] Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations. Then, we'll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job."
Condemnations came from across the Republican spectrum. Call me jaded, but I am not ready to congratulate anybody.
First off, although Pearce is not endorsing a pro-choice position here by any means, condemning Pearce for talking up birth control is not the most difficult thing for an ambitious Republican to do.
Second and more infuriating, Pearce has been saying hateful things for years, and it only seemed to help him gather more and more power.
Let me give you an example. Consultant Barrett Marson tweeted out his condemnation of Pearce:
Leaving aside the "please write about me" plea, Marson is just a wee hypocritical here. He served as publicity flack for House Speaker Jim Weiers back when Pearce was at the zenith of his power: those heady years before the passage of SB 1070. During that time, Weiers and legislative leaders thought so much of Pearce that they created a second appropriations committee just so Pearce could be the chairman. Like I said, the man was powerful because people were willing to hand him power.
Yeah, Marson was not the decision maker there, but he was sure as heck willing to cash checks for justifying nonsense like that. So yes, another guy I won't give any credit to.
What he said here wasn't new. Pearce's colleagues can tell you about what he says when reporters are not around, and they aren't that far from what he said on his show. His relationship with neo-Nazi J.T. Ready should have been a clue that he was not just a run-of-the-mill conservative. His sponsorship of divisive legislation (SB 1070 is only one example) should have been enough, but too many people were willing to let this cancer on our state's politics grow.
Although he was recalled in 2011, it's instructive that the political and business community were dismissive of the effort at first. They didn't want to anger the guy. He was the most powerful politician in the state. By the way, it was power they helped give him. Even when the Latino activists that started the recall were shoved aside so that business leaders could take the credit when the tide turned against Pearce, there were still groups that supported him. Hate is okay as long as it is accompanied by low taxes and light regulation.
Pearce is out of power now, so it's pretty easy for the people that once sought out his favor to kick him around. His endorsements didn't pull a lot of weight this year. Still, he has his fans (and coddlers). For all the talk that his statement doesn't represent the Republican Party, his man got elected chair and he was elected vice chair. This didn't happen because he pulled a sword from a rock; he was chosen by rank-and-file activists. That's called representing the party.
As of this morning, Pearce has resigned that post. It will lead to no soul searching on his part and none from the people that helped create this monster in the first place.
For years, Pearce was at the vanguard of the anti-immigrant movement. He promoted some of the most hateful rhetoric against our Hispanic neighbors. Unfortunately, no one seemed to think that was a problem until he changed his target.