"I'm going to continue on. If they think they're going to scare me away, I'm going to be more aggressive as time goes on. ... They're going to have to contend with this sheriff."
That was Joe Arpaio. Though it sounds like something he might have said (and probably did) last week, it was January 1994.
He'd just finished his first year as Maricopa County's sheriff, having knocked off the previous sheriff who had botched a murder investigation. A campaign, by the way, in which Arpaio pledged to serve only one term and to work to change the position of sheriff from elected to appointed.
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Already, after a year in office, he was being called a buffoon and a blowhard, a sheriff who spent most of his time staging publicity stunts.
But he was also a sheriff who played to an appreciative audience. And so inmates were put into stripes and tents, and R-rated movies gave way to the likes of "Old Yeller." Suddenly, the bologna was green and the underwear was pink and ol' one-term Joe laughed all the way to a fifth term.
But things haven't gone so well for Arpaio in this, his 19th year in office. Headlines have focused on mismanagement and corruption and a sheriff who curiously knows nothing about what's been going on right under his own nose. Or so he says.
Add to that the recent furor over 432 potential sex crimes ignored and suddenly people were wondering (privately, for the most part) whether it was time for America's most dumbfounded sheriff to retire.
Then, Christmas came early for Arpaio. The Department of Justice last week accused the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office of sweeping civil-rights violations, saying Arpaio has promoted a "culture of bias" that illegally targets Latinos and punishes inmates who don't speak English.
If Arpaio seemed played out before, the Justice case provided a chance to return to the glory days when illegal immigration was a hot topic and so was the sheriff.
"By their actions today, President Obama and a band of his merry men might as well erect their own pink-neon sign at the Arizona-Mexico border saying, 'Welcome all illegals to the U.S., our home is your home,' " Arpaio proclaimed, just hours after federal officials announced their findings.
Never mind that the Justice investigation began during the Bush administration. Never mind his own botched cases or rogue operations or the rumblings that maybe it was time, after two decades, for a new sheriff in town.
Now, when his opponents talk about lawsuits and an agency run amok, Arpaio can talk about the open-borders crowd that longs to get rid of him.
Now, when the feds talk about abuse of power and racial profiling, he can talk about Attorney General Eric Holder and his fiendish plot to divert attention from "Fast and Furious" (a botched operation in its own right that allowed guns to flow into Mexico).
Now, when talk turns to 432 sex-abuse cases tossed onto a shelf, he can talk about how the media have been out to get him all along.
Oh sure, plenty of people are calling for his head. The thing is, they're the same people who've been calling for his head since the early days when the posse and pink underwear were all the rage.
Meanwhile, the choir is tuning up. State Rep. John Kavanagh immediately dismissed the Justice Department findings as a "smear job." Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu pronounced it a diversion from Fast and Furious.
The go-Joe faithful, too, are lining up.
"Thank God for Sheriff Joe," Larry told me, in an e-mail. "I will read the editorials in your paper when you go after the unionists like (Phil) Gordon or (Mary Rose) Wilcox the way you attack conservatives. We have one voice left in this state and illegal-using businesses and liberals want to shut that voice."
Music, no doubt, to the sheriff's ears and just in time for 2012, a year in which the avowed one-term sheriff will go for an encore -- his sixth. A week ago, I would have said he didn't stand a chance.
And now?
Arpaio will either delay or he'll settle with the feds, just as he did 14 years ago after another federal investigation. He just won't change.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department has put Arpaio back in his wheelhouse with a renewed chance to mount an offensive rally that has less to do with rounding up illegal immigrants than it does with rounding up support.
The question is: Will it work? Again, that is.
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8635.
That was Joe Arpaio. Though it sounds like something he might have said (and probably did) last week, it was January 1994.
He'd just finished his first year as Maricopa County's sheriff, having knocked off the previous sheriff who had botched a murder investigation. A campaign, by the way, in which Arpaio pledged to serve only one term and to work to change the position of sheriff from elected to appointed.
But he was also a sheriff who played to an appreciative audience. And so inmates were put into stripes and tents, and R-rated movies gave way to the likes of "Old Yeller." Suddenly, the bologna was green and the underwear was pink and ol' one-term Joe laughed all the way to a fifth term.
But things haven't gone so well for Arpaio in this, his 19th year in office. Headlines have focused on mismanagement and corruption and a sheriff who curiously knows nothing about what's been going on right under his own nose. Or so he says.
Add to that the recent furor over 432 potential sex crimes ignored and suddenly people were wondering (privately, for the most part) whether it was time for America's most dumbfounded sheriff to retire.
Then, Christmas came early for Arpaio. The Department of Justice last week accused the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office of sweeping civil-rights violations, saying Arpaio has promoted a "culture of bias" that illegally targets Latinos and punishes inmates who don't speak English.
If Arpaio seemed played out before, the Justice case provided a chance to return to the glory days when illegal immigration was a hot topic and so was the sheriff.
"By their actions today, President Obama and a band of his merry men might as well erect their own pink-neon sign at the Arizona-Mexico border saying, 'Welcome all illegals to the U.S., our home is your home,' " Arpaio proclaimed, just hours after federal officials announced their findings.
Never mind that the Justice investigation began during the Bush administration. Never mind his own botched cases or rogue operations or the rumblings that maybe it was time, after two decades, for a new sheriff in town.
Now, when his opponents talk about lawsuits and an agency run amok, Arpaio can talk about the open-borders crowd that longs to get rid of him.
Now, when the feds talk about abuse of power and racial profiling, he can talk about Attorney General Eric Holder and his fiendish plot to divert attention from "Fast and Furious" (a botched operation in its own right that allowed guns to flow into Mexico).
Now, when talk turns to 432 sex-abuse cases tossed onto a shelf, he can talk about how the media have been out to get him all along.
Oh sure, plenty of people are calling for his head. The thing is, they're the same people who've been calling for his head since the early days when the posse and pink underwear were all the rage.
Meanwhile, the choir is tuning up. State Rep. John Kavanagh immediately dismissed the Justice Department findings as a "smear job." Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu pronounced it a diversion from Fast and Furious.
The go-Joe faithful, too, are lining up.
"Thank God for Sheriff Joe," Larry told me, in an e-mail. "I will read the editorials in your paper when you go after the unionists like (Phil) Gordon or (Mary Rose) Wilcox the way you attack conservatives. We have one voice left in this state and illegal-using businesses and liberals want to shut that voice."
Music, no doubt, to the sheriff's ears and just in time for 2012, a year in which the avowed one-term sheriff will go for an encore -- his sixth. A week ago, I would have said he didn't stand a chance.
And now?
Arpaio will either delay or he'll settle with the feds, just as he did 14 years ago after another federal investigation. He just won't change.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department has put Arpaio back in his wheelhouse with a renewed chance to mount an offensive rally that has less to do with rounding up illegal immigrants than it does with rounding up support.
The question is: Will it work? Again, that is.
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8635.
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