Rep. Russell Pearce wants to run for something.
Run for what? You know, something.
He is mulling a run for Governor, or maybe a run against Rep. Jeff Flake in the Republican primary. You see, Jeff Flake is a dangerous, birkenstock wearing, leftist, unamerican commiesymp. Well, that's what Pearce says. Funny what passes for liberal these days.Flake's "crimes" include wanting to deal sensibly with immigration and being more open with Cuba. In the addled right-wing mind, this puts him to the left of Trotsky.
If he runs against Flake, look for Pearce to connect him to that other unrepentant socialist, Sen. John McCain. Some of the people pushing for Pearce to run are already trashing Flake for working with Sen. Edward Kennedy. Imagine, respecting and working with a colleague.
Funny, Pres. Bush bragged about working with Kennedy on No Child Left Behind. I guess that makes Bush a bolshevik too.
Pearce is still talking about running for Governor too. He has been talking this up for a while. His current line is that Gov. Napolitano has not done anything on immigration. For Pearce and his friend Randy Graf, anything short of landmines in Naco and putting a bounty on scalps of swarthy people with accents is not enough.
However, there is often a barrier to people like Pearce running for higher office. Often, Phoenix-area pols think that people in the rest of the state know who the heck they are, and are as conservative as they are. They stick their toe in the water and are flabergasted that people in the rest of the state don't actually like or even know them. Most of them could win a statewide election with a little work, but the shock of knowing they aren't the most important person in the life of a family from Douglas or Parker is often too much to bear. The way that legislators like Pearce get elected, pretty much by hard-right primary voters, lets them buy the illusion that folks in their districts, and by extension the whole state, share every aspect of their mossback politics. He'll be shocked to know that there are moderates in this state, liberals even.
Look for Pearce to forgo the Governor's race, where he may need to speak with moderates and people whose last names end in "o", "a" or "z", and he'll run against Flake in the primary. I would be watching from down here, but the race between Graf and Rep. Jim Kolbe will be more fun.
(Note I couldn't figure out where to fit in above: Pearce has a tendency to "speak his mind." When you don't a well developed mind, that tends to lead to dumb-ass bigotted comments.)