Joe Arpaio on Keeping Warm in Stir; Plus, A.J. LaFaro's "Crazytown" Ticket Wins County GOP Leadership

Robert Graham, will Pearce backstab him and run from the floor on January 26?

Then I asked him if his campaign had paid Independent sheriff's candidate Mike Stauffer for Stauffer's "assistance" in the 2012 general election.

"Stauffer?" Joe said quizzically. "I met that guy one time."

Which doesn't exactly answer the question.

I talked to him about his posse circling the schools, and the sheriff mentioned that posse members are not POST-certified like his deputies.Still, he continued to maintain that "they have the same authority" as sworn peace officers.

They don't, of course. But the sheriff did explain why posse members dress exactly like his deputies, same uniform, badges, etc.

"I started that 20 years ago, so the public won't know the difference," he said. "There's a deterrence. You know, I don't have enough deputies. So they dress the same, same cars, and they pay for everything."

Fooling the public. It's been a lifelong labor of love for ol' Joe.

What about these phone calls New Times scribe Matthew Hendley has been receiving from people on work-release, saying that they don't have access to a warm room and unlimited blankets like Joe's press releases depict?

"Well, you know what?" Joe said of the prisoners on work-release. "They don't wear the [prisoners'] uniform. They can bring all [their clothes] into the tent. Say it's going to be very hot [sic] tonight. C'mon, you're out working, you're coming back to the tents at night, put on a lot of clothes.

"Now the regular guys in there, they don't go out and work, they can't do that. But we give 'em a lot of blankets. Plus they have that building they can go in, where the showers are."

"But one of the guys who called Matt who was on work release said he couldn't go into that building," I countered.

"Yeah," he said, acknowledging this point. "But they can dress [warm]."

"Can they go back to their homes and get extra clothing?" I asked.

"Well, they should be goin' to work," he said. "It's work release. They're supposed to have a job, that's why the judge says alright we'll give you work release."

Um, so the lesson here is to keep lots of warm clothing at your workplace, in case you get popped for something, and have to do some nights in Tent City during the winter?

Ooooooh-kay.

Lastly, I ran into businessman Robert Graham, the guy campaigning for chair of the state Republican Party, though it's unclear if he's still being opposed by this fella Doug Little, chair of the LD 23 GOP, who at one point dropped out, and now may be back in.

Even Graham seemed unsure.

"You know, we've run this campaign positively and we've got huge support, across the state," he told me. "So we're just going to keep doing that, I told our team when we pulled out, you've got to behave as if we've got the stiffest competition on the planet."

Graham has earned support from both right-wingers like Haney and Pearce and non-right-wingers. But in spite of Pearce's endorsement of Graham, some are suspicious Pearce might turn coat, and run from the floor January 26, when the Arizona Republican State Committee meets to elect a replacement for outgoing chair Tom Morrissey.

Is Little a stalking horse for Pearce? Will Pearce try a last-ditch bid on the 26th, backstabbing Graham?

Pearce lies like he breathes, so there's no knowing, until the vote is done, two weeks from Saturday.