As I've discussed in previous columns — and as is obvious to anyone capable of doing third-grade math — former Scottsdale Police Lieutenant Mike Stauffer's inept Independent bid for office makes it far more likely that Sheriff Joe Arpaio will win an unprecedented sixth term in office.
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Cowgirl and Penzone hater DeeDee Blase, distorting facts and spitting hyperbole on behalf of Stauffer, Joe's best chance of staying in office.
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Why does Stauffer persist in this folly? He and his tiny cabal of supporters argue that he can top both Arpaio and his Democratic challenger, former Phoenix police Sergeant Paul Penzone, though you'd have to be certifiable to buy this line. The Patton Oswalt lookalike wouldn't even be on the ballot were it not for the $40,000 he lent his campaign to pay for the necessary signatures.
I suspect Stauffer is calculating that Arpaio will win but not serve out a full term.
Meaning the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors would pick a Republican to replace GOP Joe until a special election could be held. And who better than an avowed lifelong Republican who helped Arpaio get re-elected via an Indie candidacy intended to split the anybody-but-Joe vote?
Stauffer's sure to fail in such a scenario, as there's a much better candidate waiting in the wings: David Gonzales, the popular and far more qualified U.S. Marshal for the District of Arizona.
Many, including myself, saw Gonzales as the best chance to knock off Arpaio this time around. Ultimately, Gonzales was unwilling to abandon the GOP or run against Joe in a Republican primary, where Arpaio was bound to prevail, given the local party's worship of the octogenarian blowhard.
Gonzales will be the number-one choice should Arpaio win, then later croak of old age or simply retire. Stauffer, the Charlie Brown of Maricopa County politics, is fated to miss kicking the football yet again.
To some extent, you can judge a man by his supporters. Penzone has an army of law enforcement types, Democrats, disaffected Republicans, Independents, and DREAM Act students on his side.
Arpaio has racists, nativists, looney-tune birthers, right-wing extremists, and the Sun City crowd.
Whose support can Stauffer claim? A collection of online oddballs and goofs, a ragtag contingent of wackadoodles filled with loathing and resentment. Queen among them is DeeDee Blase.
A political gadfly with an Arpaio-like knack for garnering press, Blase founded the immigration-friendly group Somos Republicans, which now exists mainly as a website.
According to former Somos insiders, the organization imploded in 2011 under Blase's increasingly dictatorial regime.
Members left en masse to form a new group, Cafe Con Leche Republicans, which bills itself as wanting "America and the GOP to be more welcoming to immigrants."
CCLR president Bob Quasius, a onetime Somos executive vice president, said Somos members were turned off by Blase's divisive rhetoric toward fellow Republicans and Latinos and by her abrasive leadership style.
"She doesn't ever seem to be able to solve conflicts amicably," Quasius says. "It was her way or the highway. She has a long string of broken relationships behind her."
Quasius cites Blase's attacks on GOP Florida Senator Marco Rubio as an example, along with her tendency to tear down the GOP, in general, instead of going after those espousing extremist positions.
There also were questions about Somos' finances and its organization. Quasius says Somos was formed as a national PAC but never filed paperwork concerning its financials.
Also, Blase's repeated claim that Somos had 6,000 members nationwide were doubted even within the organization.
"I asked her about it," Quasius said of the membership numbers. "She told me, 'Well, there are 4,000 members in Arizona.' It just doesn't add up. Clearly, there's a lot of exaggeration going on."
Blase's still believed to be in control of the group, such as it is. Her phone number is listed as contact info on Somos' site, and the site's front page parrots postings from Blase's "Hispanic Politico" blog on the aggregate Tucson Citizen website.
(Somos was registered as a nonprofit with the Arizona Corporation Commission in late 2010, with Blase listed as director. It's since been dissolved by the ACC for delinquency in filing annual reports.)
One other former Somos member backed up Quasius' description of Blase's leadership style, speculating the "6,000 members" were those on Somos' mailing list but the ex-Somos-er declined to go on the record for fear of feeling "the wrath of DeeDee."
Which is understandable, as that wrath is gargantuan. As I've documented recently in my Feathered Bastard blog, Blase's been on the warpath, on Stauffer's behalf, against Penzone. Using my original reporting of a 2003 incident between the now-Democratic candidate for sheriff and his ex-wife, Blase's characterized the onetime frontman for Silent Witness as "an alleged wife beater" in her Tucson Citizen blog.
Blase's posts read like she's speaking on behalf of Penzone's erstwhile spouse, Susan, though the former Mrs. Penzone, who has remarried, so far has declined to comment on the altercation, which I first reported in a July 5 column ("Penzone Comes Clean").
To peruse Blase's rantings, you'd never know that Penzone reported the incident, that there were orders of protection against both Penzone and his former spouse, that he informed his supervisors of the situation, that both orders of protection were ultimately dismissed by the judge, and that Penzone was granted joint custody of his son.
