In 2008, the GOP released an ad supporting Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio that may have set the record for dredging up filth. Dan Saban was Arpaio's challenger at the time, the Sheriff's record of intimidation and abuse of powers was beginning to bite him in the ass, and Saban was gaining in the polls. So the righties did this:
The infamous masturbation ad only played one day and was pulled from the airways after viewers complained. Saban quickly blasted the ad as a manipulated lie, explaining that he was the one who was abused as a child by his stepmother—the victim, not the criminal. And about the masturbation claim?
"That's inaccurate," Saban declared. "I was 20-years-old, I was a volunteer and I was at my home on a coffee break. I did disclose that and it was proven by polygraph that it was a one incident, never again."
Arpaio, who no doubt
never masturbated at home as a 20-year-old, won re-election. Now the flaccid fart is in another tight race with former Phoenix Policeman
Paul Penzone, who was endorsed by the conservative
Arizona Republic last week. Even Republicans have had enough of Arpaio's birther madness, botched criminal investigations, fear-mongering, financial malfeasance, political vendettas, bigotry, corruption, and
terrible record of reducing
real crime (worst in the state), while he's out chasing teenage Mexican burger flippers. And that's all on top of the
tens of millions of dollars he's cost county taxpayers in lawsuits for his illegal arrests, jailhouse murders, and other police state tactics.
Sheriff Arpaio may have a multi-millon-dollar war chest, but Penzone keeps closing the gap, and he's now within 4 points of Arpaio. The Sheriff had been running ads with his wife, saying what a wonderful guy he is, but apparently nobody believed that, with good reason, so we should have expected this:
Once again, Arpaio's dark, scary ad plays loosey goosey with the facts. It was Paul Penzone who called police when his wife hit him in the face with a hockey stick. Penzone held a press conference yesterday "to deny that he struck or pushed his wife." Neither Penzone or his wife pressed charges, and there's no evidence of domestic violence in either of their pasts. It was a marital spat from nine years ago, end of story.
According to a Glendale Police Department report of the 2003 incident, the Penzones were getting a divorce and in the midst of a nasty custody battle. He called police, saying his wife had assaulted him. Arizona Republic
Now, about
the ad Penzone is running accusing Arpaio of ignoring more than 400 sex crimes, some committed on children? Yeah,
that happened. The Sheriff was too busy
investigating mortgage crime in the wealthy community of Fountain Hills, where Arpaio happens to live, to respond to the pleas of hundreds of families, many of them Latino, whose children had been raped.
By the way, Arpaio refused to debate Paul Penzone. I wouldn't either, if I had to defend Arpaio's record and his slimy ads.