Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Kris Kobach quench Overland Park’s thirst for anti-illegal fervor
The Pitch outlines the Arpaio/Kobach Nativist rally conveniently held at the same time as the NAACP convention — coincidence?
The rally was about to start, but Arpaio got bored and wandered toward the parking lot, where conservative talk-show host Darla Jaye was broadcasting live.
“What kind of tent is this?” he asked her, a reference to the desert tents where Phoenix’s small-time criminals go to die. “Get a real tent.”
She missed the joke. But he had more.
“I want to see the illegals,” he said, gesturing to the protesters — a mix of NAACP conventioneers and local demonstrators — who were waving signs across the parking lot. “Where are they?”
Curiously, Arpaio then bragged about a Department of Justice investigation into civil and human rights violations in his county.
“Whose civil rights are you violating?” Jaye asked. “Criminals?”
That got a nice rise out of the audience, but not as much as the one that came next, when Kobach showed up to fetch Arpaio and bring him inside for the rally.“If you come to Arizona, call me,” the sheriff said to the audience as he rose. “We won’t ask for your papers.”
Inside, it was more of the same, more standing ovations for the sheriff and for Kobach. Kobach praised Arpaio for his work fighting illegal immigration — work that’s been proven time again to be despicable and even deadly. Kobach — the UMKC lawyer behind Arizona’s controversial anti-illegal-immigrant legislation — also trotted out bogus statistics about Phoenix being the world’s No. 2 city for kidnappings. He then localized the fear-mongering, suggesting those kidnappings could just as easily happen here.
Arpaio returned the favor, urging the audience to vote Kobach to the Secretary of State’s office and beyond: “He should be running for president.”