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The Friday Cover from Politico
Is Joe Arpaio the Next Roy Moore?

Image Credit:  M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO                       

He’s got money, charisma and a presidential pardon. Now he thinks—and local Republicans fear—he can win the GOP Senate primary in Arizona.

By Ben Strauss February 02, 2018

START-OFF QUESTION: How does Tyler Montague, a politician and banker from here in Mesa get into the thick of this?

Sheriff Joe has declared he's in the running in the upcoming primary election to replace Republican Jeff Flake retiring from the U.S. Senate.

(Image credit: M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO)

“It’s a stain on the party,” said Tyler Montague, a Mesa banker who heads the Public Integrity Alliance, a 501(c)(4) that mostly backs Republican candidates.

“It brings the whole party down to clownville.” Should Arpaio manage to win the primary, these same party activists suspect he would get crushed in November.

Paul Marchant, a local party chairman, is one of these Republicans. The week before the state convention, he helped circulate a resolution that called on Arpaio to withdraw from the race.

“This is the guy,” an Arpaio supporter in the Church for the Nations lobby informed the ex-sheriff, who now stood face to face with Marchant, a middle-aged man with a salt and pepper goatee.

“You?!” Arpaio looked at Marchant. “You want me to retire?”

“Yes!” Marchant said. “We have two great candidates," a reference to Kelli Ward, a Tea Party favorite, and Martha McSally, a member of Congress and Mitch McConnell’s preferred candidate.

There’s a real sense he could win the primary and ‘Roy Moore’ us. . .

—there is no graceful way to push out a legend.

When the reporter later suggested that the presumptive Democratic nominee, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, would be an interesting opponent in the general election, he asked why. . . and then reporter mentioned that she had a liberal background and would be the first openly bisexual senator. “Bisexual? Is that when they like both?” Arpaio asked.

He shook his head and said, “She’s not more interesting than me.”
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About the reporter: Ben Strauss is the co-author of Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA, winner of the 2017 PEN/ESPN award for literary sports writing