Arizona Election Results

AZCentral.com is reporting this morning that the political career of Andrew Thomas, former Maricopa County Attorney and water boy for Sheriff Joe Arpaio, may have come to an end.  As you will recall from the stories on Bad Lawyer, Thomas quit his job mid-term, a-la, Sarah Palin to run for higher office, Attorney General.  Thomas appears to have narrowly lost in his bid for the Republican nomination.  Amazingly, Thomas lost to a local lawyer who ran an investment scheme that went belly-up in college resulting in a bankruptcy that the lawyer subsequently lied about in various filings.  How bad a candidate do you yourself have to be to lose a race for attorney general to a "con artist" which is what Thomas called his opponent, Tom Horne?   If the election results hold, Horne will face democratic challenger Felecia Rotellini in the general election. 

Tellingly, returns from Maricopa County played a significant role in the projected electoral defeat of Thomas.

In a separate story, AZCentral.com is reporting that Sheriff Joe Arpaio who utterly hates interim County Attorney Rick Romley may have played a role in defeating Romley's bid to win election to the the County attorney position by illegally running ads and sending mailers on behalf of Romley's opponent.  The local electoral commission found Arpaio's interference in this election violated election laws as it relates to the mailers Arpaio paid for and distributed.  Romley appears to have lost the race by a wide margin although the defeat may have been attributable to complex and underhanded manipulation of candidacies and of course Arpaio's seemingly bottomless deep pocket. 

We will see how this turns out.  As with all things Arpaio, more shall be revealed.