I find it hard to believe that the chief law enforcement officer of Maricopa County is a willing participant in helping to perpetrate a fraud.   Not in the legal sense but certainly a political fraud nonetheless.   Many of us who have been involved in politics for years know Susan Bitter-Smith very well.  Not the current conservative Reagan Republican that she claims to be, but the chameleon she has become as seen by her stance on illegal immigration.

I  researched her position on immigration when she ran for Congress last. This is especially salient as the sum of her words to date aren’t hers, but Sheriff Joe’s.  When Joe says, “Susan Bitter Smith is conservative – very conservative,” it just doesn’t add up.  And there it was.  Her words from an Arizona Republic Op-Ed.  I will link to the entire article, but here is the gist.

So I decided to do some research on where she stood on the immigration issue when she last ran for Congress. In 2001, Bitter-Smith wrote an  for the Arizona Republic in which she wrote:

As a candidate for Congress, I heard many stories of desperation from separated families whose breadwinners crossed the Arizona border without authorization to earn badly needed dollars to be shipped back home…

City leaders in Mesa and Chandler are attempting to provide programs for day workers in their communities, but without immigration reforms, these programs face challenges and can’t address the real needs of undocumented workers…

Full immigration reform, both for skilled and unskilled workers, cannot continue to be elusive in the Congress.

Validity aside, one really needs to look at why Bitter-Smith was championing for the “undocumented workers”.  You see, Bitter-Smith is a lobbyist for many valley developers – developers who, during the real estate boom, were hiring illegals for “the less desirable jobs”.  In essence, she advocated for those who lined her pocket book, not for the rule of law.

Equally important is when did Bitter-Smith have the revelation that they are not “undocumented workers” but “illegal aliens” not to be granted amnesty?  Right around the time that pure political opportunity raised its head.

My father always taught me that you are judged by the company you keep.  Given that premise, I find it curious that both Bitter-Smith and her husband decided to give max contributions to Sheriff Joe’s arch nemesis, Mayor Phil Gordon.  Bitter-Smith and her husband gave money ($370 each) to Gordon for the first time in May, 2006.  At this point, Gordon had clearly made it known that he supported the ‘rights of undocumented workers’, and the political ruckus between Gordon and Arpaio had already begun.

Circumstantial? Perhaps if it were an isolated incident, but it is not.  Other notables in the more liberal Bitter-Smith network include former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley (another Arpaio nemesis) and former State Senator Slade Mead – Ex-Republican turned unabashed Democrat gadfly.  See, there was an election that shook the fifth district in November of ’06 and I’ll just bet that conversations with Gordon, Mead et al have been near non-existent since then whereas conversations with Arpaio have likely burned up the phone lines.  And right about that time  – voila! Your political epiphany sans substance.

Knowing what he knows now, Arpaio is likely too embarrassed to correct the record of her new-found conservatism, or he figures it’s a smarter bet to chant the Mariner Captain’s cry and go down with the ship in order to protect his investment. Either he knew of Bitter-Smith’s support for Gordon or he did not.  If he didn’t know, then we are left to wonder why.  If he did know, then he was obviously willing to compromise his own stated position on illegal immigration in order to affect a political payoff.
 
In either event, the body politic is sorely served by ideological double-dealing whose only apparent end game is confusion of the issues. I find it difficult to believe that a candidate for office can ride into a nomination with sheer absence of true scrutiny only to be delivered to their waiting constituency in the belly of a trojan horse.

Maybe Bitter-Smith owes Joe an apology and he owes us one in turn.  I guess the Gipper won’t get his.

In conclusion, one should be religiously skeptical when a candidate uses surrogates alone to espouse their newfound political fervor – especially surrogates who can no longer answer for themselves.