Thread: Arpaio confident about re-election

Arpaio confident about re-election
by JJ Hensley - Sept. 29, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic .

Maricopa County voters are familiar with Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

His title is plastered on county facilities and equipment throughout the Valley. Arpaio's face is regularly seen on TV and when it's not, there's always footage of his detractors available, and the sheriff's name comes up in stories in The Arizona Republic more than 850 times in a given year - a rate of nearly 2.5 mentions a day.

So after 16 years in office and an inordinate amount of coverage from local, national and international media, it seems everyone in the Valley and most people in Arizona know who Maricopa County's sheriff is; most have an opinion of him.
Generally, those opinions have been positive.

During his long run as the top law-enforcement agent in the county, Arpaio has typically enjoyed high public-approval ratings, most pollsters say. But in the past year, those numbers have started to slip.

A Rocky Mountain Poll conducted in July suggested that Arpaio's popularity had dropped 10 percentage points, to 54 percent, in the past 16 months.

A little more than a month before he hopes Maricopa County residents vote him in for an unprecedented fifth term, Arpaio is undeterred, saying the poll's scope was narrow and slanted against him.

"They forgot to throw in 'fair.' When you throw in the fair (rating), I'm still around 70 percent," said Arpaio, who is knowledgeable of poll numbers stretching back a number of years. "If you look at all my history, I got them all here, if you go way back, I usually hover around 70, 80 percent. It's very difficult to continue. When you're the sheriff, it's not like running for the Senate or anything else. We are law enforcement; we do lock people up. They come through the jails, and maybe some people don't like you, they don't like being arrested."

Arpaio has always referred to his law-enforcement track record as quickly as his public support as a way to measure his success. But like his popularity, his job performance at the Sheriff's Office has taken a hit lately.

His backstory is well known to Valley residents: former DEA agent turned administrator retires in the Valley, helps his wife with Starworld Travel Agency, capitalizes on former Sheriff Tom Agnos' vulnerability after Agnos' deputies botched the Buddhist Temple massacre investigation, wins election promising to serve one term.

Sixteen years, thousands of news conferences and millions of prisoners later, he remains in the job, as defiant as ever.

That defiance has served him well in the past year, as residents, activists and political foes have challenged Arpaio on his illegal-immigration-enforcement tactics and ultimately focused their arguments on his general job performance.

First there was the issue of fugitive felons milling about the county, a message Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon brought to residents attending the Cesar Chavez luncheon in March, one week after Arpaio's deputies conducted the first of many "crime-suppression operations" designed to root out illegal immigrants from pockets around the Valley.

Arpaio's foes later seized on his agency's performance in areas such as response times for crimes in progress and clearance rates for serious offenses.

Then there are issues related to treatment of inmates and conditions in Arpaio's jails that have cost taxpayers more than $30 million in settlements and payouts in his 16-year career.

Critics say Arpaio's top-down, dictatorial style has created a culture of corruption in the office and a cavalier attitude among rank-and-file employees when it comes to the rights of Arizona residents.

"I think there are good officers who work for the Sheriff's Office, but the fact of the matter is, the commitment to good community policing and service, I don't think it's there," said Marcey Dorsey, an El Mirage resident who helped encourage town leaders to start their own police force after problems with the Sheriff's Office's service. "During that time period, I rarely if ever saw a police cruiser in my neighborhood unless someone called them to be there. It was, in my opinion, inadequate service."

These are only issues in an election year, Arpaio's supporters and employees claim.

"The simple fact is, when was the last time you heard about any of these issues?" Sheriff's Office Capt. Joel Fox asked. "You wouldn't be looking at any of this if there weren't an election coming up."

But the sheriff shrugs off critics and promises to redouble his efforts to do things his own way.

That attitude, coupled with criticism from other politicians and police chiefs, only emboldens Arpaio's supporters, reinforcing his self-made image as "America's toughest sheriff," willing to stand up to lily-livered lawmakers and lawmen.

"I don't report to anybody but the people, so I have the luxury to establish the policies and follow-through because I am the chief law-enforcement officer of this county," he said. "It's an honorable position, and it should be used correctly and I think I have been using it correctly, regardless of some critics who don't like the way I operate."
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... e0929.html

"I don't report to anybody but the people, so I have the luxury to establish the policies and follow-through because I am the chief law-enforcement officer of this county," he said. "It's an honorable position, and it should be used correctly and I think I have been using it correctly, regardless of some critics who don't like the way I operate."

This is the mold for EVERY single elected official in the US ... I hope they're all taking notes!