Rick Perry Takes Another Wrong Turn: Defending Sheriff Joe
I bet it sounded like a good idea at the time. Now, not so much.
“It” was the ill-conceived decision by GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry to hitch his wagon to the clownish Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, an opportunist who in recent years has taken to rounding up illegal immigrants and parading them outside his jail to catch the attention of television cameras.
How did Perry get mixed up with that circus? Simple. The Texas governor got into a political scrape, and made the mistake of overcompensating. He was looking for quick validation from his party’s nativist fringe because he had gotten hammered by GOP rivals for signing, in 2001, a reasonable bill in the Lone Star State that allows illegal immigrants who go to college to pay what other residents pay: in-state tuition.
In fact, Perry didn’t just sign that bill. He defended it and defiantly said he’d sign it again. Worse, in one debate, he told Republicans who disagreed with the measure that they didn’t “have a heart.” Good for him.