The conservative Goldwater Institute was unsparing in its assessment of Arpaio
NATIONAL REVIEW
(Editor’s note: Opinion pieces are published for discussions purposes only.)
The Alabama Senate race was disastrous for Republicans, who found themselves apologizing for a crackpot accused of serious and potentially criminal wrongdoing. Republicans have the opportunity to avoid repeating the error in Arizona where former sheriff Joe Arpaio, a publicity-made abusive lawman and convicted criminal pardoned by President Trump, plans to seek the GOP nomination. Republicans should say no to Sheriff Joe.
Long a favorite of Fox News and talk radio, Arpaio is a publicity whore of the first order. An old Washington joke holds that the most dangerous place in America is standing between a senator and a television camera, and Sheriff Joe surely loves a camera. But a much more dangerous place to be, for much of Arpaio’s 24-year-run as the sheriff of Maricopa County, was the jail he ran, where inmates were brutalized and disabled men were beaten to death — and where the sheriff’s political opponents were incarcerated from time to time.
