If you like what Andrew Thomas has done for Maricopa County, you're in luck; he might be taking the Andy show statewide.
That's right; Maricopa County Attorney Andy Thomas announced that he's forming an exploratory committee to look at a potential run for Arizona attorney general in 2010.
If Thomas hopes to replace Terry Goddard, whose term ends next year, he will have to compete with a laundry list of the who's who in Arizona's Grand Old Party, including state schools Chief Tom Horne and Representative Sam Crump, who have both already formed exploratory committees.
In case anyone forgot, Thomas ran for the AG spot in 2002, only to be trounced by Goddard, who won by seven percent of the vote.
By forming an exploratory committee, Thomas can raise a limited amount of money to run, and can maintain his current post as Maricopa County Attorney.
He gets to keep his county job? We knew there was a downside.
Thomas has been hard on illegal immigrants, which a majority of the registered voters in this county, seem to like. He's also picked fights with power brokers. He's investigating Goddard, for instance, on trumped-up allegations, and has also chosen to get a member of the county Board of Supervisors indicted on inflated charges.
Did we mention that he set the stage for New Times' owners, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, to get thrown in jail by Sheriff Joe Arpaio's men in the middle of the night in what amounted to a vendetta. But that's another story that you can read about here.