Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio isn't up for re-election for two, long years, but that isn't stopping him from trying to drum up cash to pay his legal bills for his campaign right now -- and he's turning to out-of-state donors to do it.
This morning, we received a letter sent to an Ohio man. The letter is from Arpaio and in it he says he "desperately need[s] YOUR help" to raise money for his campaign -- which is funny considering his campaign had enough cash on hand to run attack ads against outgoing Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley during the GOP primary. We all know how that turned out.
In the letter, Arpaio really tugs at the anti-immigration heartstrings,
opening with "You have probably heard by now that President Barack
Obama's Justice Department is suing me because I won't conform to their
turn-a-blind-eye strategy when it comes to arresting and detaining
illegal immigrants."
Arpaio runs down a list of those who despise him, and apparently finds
being compared to a Nazi more offensive than the $1 million bounty he
claims the Mexican drug cartels have placed on his head.
On the first page of the three-page letter, one sentence instantly
stands out, which is often the case when it's in bold print and
underlined. That sentence is as follows: "One of the local
newspapers printed a political cartoon of me and our Governor wearing
Nazi uniforms and performing the Nazi salute!"
All we can say to that is guilty as charged. Check it out below.
The very next sentence -- in regular type and not underlined -- Arpaio says "the Mexican drug cartel has placed a ONE MILLION DOLLAR bounty on my head."
Arpaio rambles on about the ongoing conspiracy perpetrated by "left-wing extremists" to end his reign of terror in Maricopa County and allow illegal immigrants to run amok.
"They know that if they can remove me from office the fight [against illegal immigration] is over because none of the local agencies will take up the fight. And I don't have the personal resources to defend myself from these vicious attacks," Arpaio writes.
If by "vicious attacks" the sheriff means "warranted lawsuits," he might be on to something.
It's not until the letter's P.S. that Arpaio gets to what he's really after: a legal defense fund.
He concludes with "P.S. Please don't set this letter aside. It is imperative that I have the necessary resources to defend myself and my office from these outrageous attacks and politically-charged investigations. I must have a strong re-election war-chest to face my opponents. Your support is urgently needed and appreciated!"
In other words, Joe Arpaio is using the immigration debate to conjure fear and outrage amongst out-of-state donors, who, in reality, will likely be unknowingly paying his legal bills -- not fighting illegal immigration, as the sheriff leads them to believe.
