Arizona is in the political news again—again—after outspoken conservative sheriff and Mitt Romney’s state campaign Chairman Paul Babeu was revealed, in rapid succession, to be gay, potentially in a relationship with an undocumented immigrant, allegedly threatening that immigrant with deportation, and still running for congress despite all that had just been revealed.
The Pinal County Sheriff has gained prominence in the past couple years after some boisterous rhetoric about border policies, Obama as a borderline traitor, and all the other tired were-teetering-over-a-socialist-cliff nonsense. Things got really bad when Babeu appeared last summer on a radio show with white supremacist tendencies (he blamed his assistant for the booking). Babeu has appeared in an ad with John McCain about immigration policies, and was recently heard making robocalls against Rick Perry.
But on Saturday, the Phoenix New Times broke a story that alleged Babeu had been carrying on an affair with a man named Jose, whom he met through the dating website Adam 4 Adam, for several years, a relationship that eventually became professional, with Jose designing websites for Babeu. When the relationship soured, Jose began dropping hints of the affair online. After Babeu threatened him with deportation, Jose went to a law firm, which publicized his story.
Jose, whose name is being withheld over accusations concerning his citizenship, has denied that he is an undocumented immigrant.
During an hour-long press conference on Saturday, Babeu acknowledged that he was gay, though claimed the remainder of the story was false. Babeu resigned from his position as chairman of Romney’s Arizona campaign, but has thus far declared his intention to remain as Sheriff, despite calls for him to step down.
Latino groups are calling for a federal investigation into the threat, including into any further improprieties Babeu may have engaged in through his position as Sheriff.
Complicating the story: Babeu is running for Congress as a Republican in Arizona’s 4th District. The Republican primary is next week, and Babeu is showing no sings of stepping out of the race, despite now running as an openly gay candidate in a rural conservative district. “Our party is the big tent, the party of Lincoln and of equality,” Babeu said, which might come as a surprise to some of the audience members of his CPAC speech last week. Not surprisingly, his campaign page is currently a nice exercise is cognitive dissonance.
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