Arizona Once Elected A Governor Like Trump... And Impeached Him
02/14/2017 10:46 am ET | Updated 4 minutes ago
Thirty years ago last month, Arizona became the laughing stock of the nation when a hair-impaired, executive-order-wielding, right-wing extremist became governor after a surprise victory.
President Trump, meet former Governor Evan Mecham. His ghost still haunts the state — and today’s February 14 anniversary of its admission into the United States — but his impeachment for “high crimes, misdemeanors and malfeasance in office” serves as a cautionary tale. A how-to lesson in the times of Trump on what happens when a “circus maximus” takes over the halls of power.
He warned voters to choose the “right track” and turn away from policies of “weakness and ridicule abroad.” Domestic ridicule would abound.
“With me in the race,” Mecham declared, “we’re not just going to talk about water and air and nice things like that.”
Taking advantage of a split vote between the Democrat and a liberal independent candidate, Mecham kept his word as he coasted to victory in the fall of 1986. In truth, the majority of Arizona voters (more than 60 percent) stayed home. Within days, the car salesman-cum-governor made good on his promise not to talk about “nice things like that” and managed to turn Arizona into a “Circus Maximus,” in the words of venerable Arizona Congressman Morris K. Udall.
“Would You Buy a Used Car from This Governor?” The mocking headline by the San Francisco Examiner, nearly a year after Mecham’s shocking victory, underscored a level of national scorn and derision that calls to mind the state’s more recent debacle over immigration policies. Saturday Night Live would have had a bottomless well of material.
In Mecham’s case, however, the nuttiness of his character somehow tempered the anger — or at least made it secondary to his nonstop tendency, as his press secretary once noted, “to put his foot in his mouth.” Mecham was already known for his B-movie Pontiac car TV commercials; at first, his folksy character and gaffes almost charmed cynics and pundits alike, providing a lifetime of jokes and one-liners. His descent into national buffoonery seemed inevitable — even welcomed.
Within days of his inauguration, though, the invective in the jokes mirrored the increasing division and extremist overtones in Mecham’s train-wreck of an administration. What a shame to waste a $400 toupee on a two-bit head! Did you hear that Mecham ordered the U. of A. School of Agriculture to develop chickens with only right wings and all-white meat? Why did Mecham cancel Easter? He heard the eggs were going to be colored.
Mecham’s appointees could have done with a bit more secrecy in ushering in a new era on January 6, 1987. Even People magazine couldn’t resist running a list of Mecham’s eyebrow-raising cabinet assignments: “Appointed to the state Board of Education a woman who reportedly described the ERA campaign as a lesbian plot. . . . Nominated as director of revenue a man whose company was $25,000 in arrears on unemployment compensation payments.”
Some appointments were almost uncanny in their contradictions: Mecham’s main adviser on education lectured a legislative committee on the failings of schools and declared: “If a student wants to say the world is flat, the teacher doesn’t have the right to prove otherwise.”
A convicted felon was asked to head up prison construction. The head of Mecham’s fan club turned out to be a child molester. Time magazine called Mecham’s nominee for a state investigator “a former Marine who had been court-martialed twice. The Governor’s special assistant went on leave after being charged with extortion. Such blunders have prompted publication of a hot-selling Evan Mecham joke book. One entry: ‘What do Mecham’s political appointees have in common? Parole officers.’”
These were pardonable offices compared with Mecham’s bullheaded implementation of the religious right wing’s extremist ideas. Mecham’s insurgent campaign, a precursor to the Tea Party, had railed against the Republican establishment in Phoenix and laid the foundations for a popular revolt “committed to the Constitution, traditional American values, and cleaning up our widespread drug problem and organized crimes,” according to the right-wing president of the Arizona Eagle Forum.
“Truth be told,” concluded Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Steve Benson (the grandson of Mormon leader Ezra Benson), “Mecham was forcibly extracted from the governor’s chair after having been in office only 15 months and was later confined to the dementia unit of the Arizona State Veteran Home (suffering from a form of the affliction similar to Alzheimer’s disease), before dying in February 2008, a beaten, humiliated and broken man.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/impeachment-arizona-once_b_14744166.html?
this shit is EERIE.
02/14/2017 10:46 am ET | Updated 4 minutes ago
Thirty years ago last month, Arizona became the laughing stock of the nation when a hair-impaired, executive-order-wielding, right-wing extremist became governor after a surprise victory.
President Trump, meet former Governor Evan Mecham. His ghost still haunts the state — and today’s February 14 anniversary of its admission into the United States — but his impeachment for “high crimes, misdemeanors and malfeasance in office” serves as a cautionary tale. A how-to lesson in the times of Trump on what happens when a “circus maximus” takes over the halls of power.
He warned voters to choose the “right track” and turn away from policies of “weakness and ridicule abroad.” Domestic ridicule would abound.
“With me in the race,” Mecham declared, “we’re not just going to talk about water and air and nice things like that.”
Taking advantage of a split vote between the Democrat and a liberal independent candidate, Mecham kept his word as he coasted to victory in the fall of 1986. In truth, the majority of Arizona voters (more than 60 percent) stayed home. Within days, the car salesman-cum-governor made good on his promise not to talk about “nice things like that” and managed to turn Arizona into a “Circus Maximus,” in the words of venerable Arizona Congressman Morris K. Udall.
“Would You Buy a Used Car from This Governor?” The mocking headline by the San Francisco Examiner, nearly a year after Mecham’s shocking victory, underscored a level of national scorn and derision that calls to mind the state’s more recent debacle over immigration policies. Saturday Night Live would have had a bottomless well of material.
In Mecham’s case, however, the nuttiness of his character somehow tempered the anger — or at least made it secondary to his nonstop tendency, as his press secretary once noted, “to put his foot in his mouth.” Mecham was already known for his B-movie Pontiac car TV commercials; at first, his folksy character and gaffes almost charmed cynics and pundits alike, providing a lifetime of jokes and one-liners. His descent into national buffoonery seemed inevitable — even welcomed.
Within days of his inauguration, though, the invective in the jokes mirrored the increasing division and extremist overtones in Mecham’s train-wreck of an administration. What a shame to waste a $400 toupee on a two-bit head! Did you hear that Mecham ordered the U. of A. School of Agriculture to develop chickens with only right wings and all-white meat? Why did Mecham cancel Easter? He heard the eggs were going to be colored.
Mecham’s appointees could have done with a bit more secrecy in ushering in a new era on January 6, 1987. Even People magazine couldn’t resist running a list of Mecham’s eyebrow-raising cabinet assignments: “Appointed to the state Board of Education a woman who reportedly described the ERA campaign as a lesbian plot. . . . Nominated as director of revenue a man whose company was $25,000 in arrears on unemployment compensation payments.”
Some appointments were almost uncanny in their contradictions: Mecham’s main adviser on education lectured a legislative committee on the failings of schools and declared: “If a student wants to say the world is flat, the teacher doesn’t have the right to prove otherwise.”
A convicted felon was asked to head up prison construction. The head of Mecham’s fan club turned out to be a child molester. Time magazine called Mecham’s nominee for a state investigator “a former Marine who had been court-martialed twice. The Governor’s special assistant went on leave after being charged with extortion. Such blunders have prompted publication of a hot-selling Evan Mecham joke book. One entry: ‘What do Mecham’s political appointees have in common? Parole officers.’”
These were pardonable offices compared with Mecham’s bullheaded implementation of the religious right wing’s extremist ideas. Mecham’s insurgent campaign, a precursor to the Tea Party, had railed against the Republican establishment in Phoenix and laid the foundations for a popular revolt “committed to the Constitution, traditional American values, and cleaning up our widespread drug problem and organized crimes,” according to the right-wing president of the Arizona Eagle Forum.
“Truth be told,” concluded Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Steve Benson (the grandson of Mormon leader Ezra Benson), “Mecham was forcibly extracted from the governor’s chair after having been in office only 15 months and was later confined to the dementia unit of the Arizona State Veteran Home (suffering from a form of the affliction similar to Alzheimer’s disease), before dying in February 2008, a beaten, humiliated and broken man.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/impeachment-arizona-once_b_14744166.html?
this shit is EERIE.