Call me politically crazy, but I just finished downloading all ten of the Sheriff Joe Arpaio ads for his re-election run. I'm not sure if he is going to make another run for office, but I wanted to have them as a reminder to myself about elections. There are always going to be politicians like Sheriff Joe; someone who is despised by a great number of the population but who somehow wins election after election. The question that keeps coming into my mind is how can these politicians continue to win with so many people against them.

One argument would be money. Sheriff Joe Arpaio has somewhere around 7 to 8 million dollars to run his campaign. His opponent has just under a million dollars. So Joe starts off with a 7 to 8 times amount on money. I saw Sheriff Joe posters all over the city. From his opponent I saw little. Commercials started for Arpaio around August and was one of the first general election ads shown for a state candidate. With millions in his war chest Arpaio was able to air those ads frequently, long before his opponent got his ads up. I keep calling the Sheriff's opponent the opponent because that's how much name recognition he has, less than nothing. Sheriff Joe has ten ads he produced and only one attacked his opponent, Paul Penzone, by name. The rest of the ads have been the type of ads the public says they want to see. They talked about his love of service, his care of animals, his long marriage, how he has kept Arizonans safe and how he will continue to fight for the good citizens of Arizona. Now, the Paul Penzone ads talk about many of the scandals that have plagued the Sheriff, but those ads have only been on YouTube and the hits they have are weak.

If I had to put a finger on why candidates like Arpaio win, it would be that the opposition wants either a Messiah as a candidate or a miracle for a win. Here's where I'm going with this. Penzone doesn't have a household name. He is going up against someone with a national, some would say international name recognition. The person Penzone is going up against also has some severe negatives against him. By Penzone going up against Arpaio, there should have been money flowing from state and national organizations with a beef against Arpaio. Early on Penzone should have been on national news shows. Why didn't any of that happen? Did he even seek out such help?

I was lucky enough to follow a group of people who claimed to be putting together some information to educate the public and mobilize people against Sheriff Joe. My initial understanding was they were going to get some videos produced a month before the election. It turned out most of the group had an Occupy Phoenix approach to getting their voices heard; they wanted to yell and shout but figured that a majority of people agreed with their assessment of Joe Arpaio. I guess they figured they would put out the ad, the people would magically rise up and Arpaio will be defeated. Seriously? Their videos were finally posted on November 3. How in the world are you going to convince people to stand up against Arpaio when you post your video three days before the election without any notice? How can you call that organized?

The people who put together the video put out a long, rambling piece. The video, broken into four parts, is around an hour in length. That means each part is close to 20 minutes in length. With the length of the video and the time of it being released, how is this going to help in defeating Arpaio?

Both Panzone and many groups opposed to Arpaio forget is they can't treat Arpaio as a mythical figure. They can't wait for a miracle or a Messiah to appear to vanquish him. Politicians like Arpaio rely on that thinking for keeping them in office. Until Michelle Bachmann ran for office she seemed a formidable opponent in her district. After her failed attempt for a Presidential run she became vulnerable and she may lose her election. Despite the press' hopeful assertions, many of the Tea Party favorites running for office may hold onto their seats, because their opponents aren't going full bore against their radical ideas and proposals. When the Tea Party people took a lot of seats in 2010, the reason why they won against incumbents was because they didn't regard them as Messiahs. They fought hard to win their elections by organization. I'm sure Panzone and those groups opposed to Arpaio would say they did fight, the evidence isn't there.

When I recently saw the film Street Fight, about the Cory Booker loss in 2002, that was an example of a race few politicians have seen. It was divisive, it was ugly, it was on par to the mudslinging we see today, yet Booker fought every inch of the way to try and win the election. He failed but he was a stronger politician for failing. Even though his opponent threw stuff at him that was crazy, he gave as much as he took. In this race with Arpaio, I see a lot of people talking tough but not following through. I see more posers than activist. In the end, Arpaio will win, is stature will grow and those who oppose his tactics will be less inclined to challenge him.