Twenty years ago a sheriff in Arizona's Maricopa County named Joe Arpaio, in tandem with a little-known deputy named Russell Pearce, set about constructing the foundation of their police state. Over a period of nearly 20 years, the two pinheads erected Pearce's "Tent City," Sheriff Arpaio wrote books touting him as the "toughest sheriff in America," they exerted tremendous power over Arizona's elected officials, and the peckerhead pair of chickenhawks created mean-spirited and prejudicial programs that pissed all over the Bill of Rights -- resulting in the illegal arrest, mistreatment, and even death of people who had not been convicted of anything.
The wingers here, the same people who cheered Rick Perry's gold medal for executions, loved it. In 2000 Pearce ran for the legislature, comfortably winning in Mesa's ultra-conservative District 18. Pearce, a far-right Mormon disciple of wackjob Cleon Skousen and occasional companion of leaders in the state's National Socialist Party, easily won re-election five more times, eventually ending up as President of the Senate in 2011. The media often dubbed Pearce as the "most powerful person in Arizona," wielding even more clout than Governor Jan Brewer, who owed her 2010 victory to SB 1070, which Pearce authored.
Arpaio and Pearce, the Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum of racism, have had a good ride, so how's it working out for them now? Today, Sheriff Arpaio is the subject of two federal investigations that have been underway for nearly three years: a grand jury inquiry into abuse of powers, and a DOJ civil rights probe into racial profiling. He's lost his top two deputies due to corruption in the Sheriff's Office, and he's cost taxpayers more than $50 million in lawsuits that were brought against him (with another $100 million+ pending). The County Attorney who gave Arpaio's unconstitutional deeds legal cover, Andrew Thomas, not only lost the 2010 race for Attorney General, he's facing disbarment over the vindictive indictments and other harassments he and Arpaio leveled against their political enemies.
Meanwhile, Tea Party darling Senator Russell Pearce may have never lost a race in District 18, but today he faces a recall election on November 8. When Citizens for a Better Arizona began gathering signatures in January to put the question before voters, the mainstream media did not believe the group could gather anywhere near the roughly 7,700 names required. They submitted more than 18,000 signatures, and more than 10,000 were verified. Then most pundits declared it impossible for the powerful Pearce to lose the November race. Today they are singing a different tune.
Pearce and his lackeys may have doomed his chances in the recall election by stooping to and employing the same arrogant and deceitful tactics that have defined the Senator's career -- from his years with Arpaio, to his dismissal from one State job for forgery, to his recent attempt to ramrod through even more racist laws (his own party abandoned him). Pearce would like today's recall debate to be about immigration, about brown people coming to rape grandma and other fear-mongering. Instead almost all of the media are talking about the Senator's dick-headed and dishonest ploys, which have backfired big time.
It is, if you are Russell Pearce, a Yankee Doodle disaster. A Tea Party scheme that blew up in your face this week, in a patriotic shower of red, white, blue and black ops.... It's difficult to believe that a fair number of [voters] won't be turned off by this ends-justifies-the-means Tea Party tactic, this idea that voters should be manipulated, deceived even, if that's what it takes. Laurie Roberts, Arizona Republic
The manipulation and deceit that Roberts mentions have been at the core of this process since Citizens for a Better Arizona (CBA) kicked off their petition drive. Pearce initially dismissed the recall, laughing it off, confidently telling reporters that he'd never lost in District 18, where voters love him. More than 10,000 obviously don't. When the signatures were confirmed and Headless Bodies Brewer set the November 8 election date, Pearce and his goons tried to undermine the will of the public by:
• labeling CBA "outside agitators," when in fact it was teachers, seniors, students, and other "regular" Arizonans, some of them Republicans and Mormons from Pearce's own district, who spearheaded the effort;
• trying to invalidate the recall process using rightwing websites like Sonoran News, which ran an article claiming "massive" fraud with the recall petition, a lie that was regurgitated verbatim by winger media outlets here and nationally;
• taking the recall to court, claiming irregularities with the process -- an appeal that was tossed from both an appellate court and the Arizona Supreme Court;
• posting political signs around Mesa that did not even mention Russell Pearce or his main challenger Jerry Lewis, but instead featured a picture and "biography" of CBA co-director Randy Parraz, making him sound like an open-border, gay socialist. (Mesa made Peace remove the signs.)
But what shifted the media and public conversation last week was the revelation that the third name on the November 8 ballot, Olivia Cortes, is a diversionary candidate intended to steal votes from Jerry Lewis. Given Pearce's virulent anti-Hispanic and anti-women policies, a Latina name may draw just enough votes from the anti-Pearce crowd to deliver the election to him. When the allegation that Cortes is a sham candidate surfaced in August, it was CBA and progressive reporters like Stephen Lemons at New Times who floated the idea and kept it alive.
However, eventually other newspapers and television stations could not ignore the truth, which is that Pearce supporters were behind the collection of roughly 1,100 signatures that put Cortes's name on the ballot. The paid signature gatherers admitted as much to reporters. Then campaign signs for Cortes miraculously appeared throughout Mesa, but nobody knows who paid for or posted them, not even Olivia Cortes. Same with her website, which she knows nothing about, although someone is writing Olivia's story there in the first person, as well as soliciting donations for her campaign. Ditto a letter to the editor of Sonoran News written under her name, which claimed that the people who are skeptical of Cortes's candidacy are the racists! Suddenly, the Sonoran News, the glory hole of Tea Party wingnuttery, is on the side of Mexicans!
Anyone who thought the allegation that Cortes is a shill was a baseless lefty plot, or a scheme concocted by the Lewis camp, didn't have a leg to stand on after Friday, when Olivia Cortes and several Pearce supporters appeared in court to determine whether Cortes should remain on the ballot. Today Judge Edward Burke ruled that there's no legal reason to remove her, which is what most observers expected. But the damage to Pearce's campaign has been done. Under oath, Cortes admitted that she didn't know who collected signatures for her, who posted her campaign signs, and who created her website. Nor did she seem to be the least bit curious about why backers of Russell Pearce, her supposed opponent in November, were spending thousands of dollars to help her!
That's precisely what emerged during the trial: supporters of Pearce's candidacy, such as East Valley Tea Party committee chair Daniel Grimm, are behind the Cortes stunt. The flimsy excuse that Grimm and others gave during their testimony is that they want more competition in the race, or they'd rather see Cortes elected than Jerry Lewis. That's rich!
First, why not just work harder for your man Pearce? Second, it's not exactly like Lewis is a progressive; he's nearly as conservative as Pearce -- just not a racist lunatic. Third and most bizarre, why would they say they'd rather elect Cortes than Lewis, when nobody knows anything about her? She's a retired single mother with absolutely no political experience, who has refused to meet with reporters and the public during this whole affair! They'd prefer her to Lewis, a successful businessman, conservative, school administrator, Mormon leader, and 30-year resident of the community?! You'd think the GOP tricksters would at least recruit a candidate who knows the issues, who has a platform. Cortes appears clueless about everything, including her own reasons for entering the race, which should make tomorrow's candidates forum interesting.
Today on radio and television talk shows across the Valley of the Sun, on websites left and right, and in the Arizona Republic and other mainstream outlets, the recall conversation is not about immigration, as Russell Pearce would prefer. Since Friday, popular TV talk shows, like PBS's "Horizon" and NBC's "Sunday Roundup," devoted their entire discussion of the recall to the Cortes controversy. The debate is not even about the economic shambles that Pearce has created, as the Lewis team might like. After all, Pearce was not only President of the Senate last year, but during the previous decade he was Chair of the House Appropriations Committee and Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Pearce can gripe all he wants about the decisions that drove the state into an economic ditch, but nobody was more responsible for those policies than him. His party was in power 2 to 1, and he controlled both chambers' Appropriations Committees.
Still, the conversation today is about one thing only: Pearce's underhanded tactics. It's put his handlers on the defensive, answering questions about their role in the Cortes scam. Happily, more and more voters are beginning to understand that these same dirtball schemes have been at the root of his career, since his time with Arpaio. And any possible votes Cortes may steal from Jerry Lewis will be far offset by the flight of former Pearce supporters and independents outraged by his douchebaggery.
