A 27-year-old tarot-card reader, reportedly homeless and with less than a dollar to his name, is among the candidates running to serve as Arizona's State Treasurer?
Thank Steve May.
May, a Republican running for a House seat in District 17, once told the nation that he had "chosen to live...life with integrity."
What's happened to this honorable, well-respected man?
He's among the Republican politicos who recruited homeless individuals from Mill Avenue to run as Green Party candidates for the Arizona Corporation Commission, State Treasurer, and the state Senate, the New York Times reports.
The former state represenative for four years, working on a political comeback, was ousted from the U.S. Army in 2001 because he had discussed his homosexuality on the House floor a few years earlier during a debate on healthcare benefits for same-sex partners.
He garnered nationwide attention for shining the spotlight on the hushed discussion of gays in the military and its "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
Concerning his work for the Green Party, May "insists that a real political movement has been stirred up that has nothing to do with subterfuge," the Times reports.
"Did I recruit candidates? Yes," said May, who is himself a candidate for the Legislature, on the Republican ticket. "Are they fake candidates? No way."
May proved that the candidates weren't fake by, well, asking them directly if they were fake. This according to the Times report:
Are you fake, Benjamin?" [May] yelled out to Mr. Pearcy, who cried out "No," with an expletive attached.
"Are you fake, Thomas?" Mr. May shouted in the direction of Thomas Meadows, 27, a tarot-card reader with less than a dollar to his name who is running for state treasurer. He similarly disagreed.
"Are you fake, Grandpa?" he said to Anthony Goshorn, 53, a candidate for the State Senate whose bushy white beard and paternal manner have earned him that nickname on the streets. "I'm real," he replied.
Could be May's trying to regain some of the notoriety he was showered with after getting booted from the military? Trying to rise in the ranks of Arizona's Republican Party?
In 1999, May told the New York Times that the Republican "party has been hijacked by theocratic fascists."
Maybe that's the real reason that he's working for the Green Party?