Andy Tobin, former speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, generated a lot of last-minute publicity with his statement that Central American kids crossing the border brought Ebola into the U.S., and it was enough for District 1 GOP voters to endorse Tobin by a narrow margin in last week's primary.
Yes, yes, it's true that Ebola has only been found in Africa, on the other side of the planet from Central America, but reality is seldom a factor in Arizona politics.
"I don't think anyone would be surprised," Tobin said, if his fantasies actually turn out to be true.
The "anyone" he was talking about would be people who probably don't know or care that Honduras isn't in Africa, and they think it made a dandy campaign tale anyway.
Besides, Tobin barely edged out some comedy competition from rancher Gary Kiehne and freshman state Rep. Adam Kwasman.
To wit:
Kiehne's major campaign publicity came from stating that 99 percent of mass murderers are Democrats (nobody keeps statistics on that kind of thing, of course, and Kiehne couldn't explain how he knew it). The remark got him pretty close, though -- Tobin was declared the winner when he led by only 532 votes with one Coconino County precinct still not added in.
Kwasman tried to measure up with a press conference describing the fear he saw on the faces of a busload of Central American children arriving at a proposed Oro Valley holding site. He later found out that the kids he saw were YMCA campers, and the fear "on their little faces" was fear of the snarling anti-immigrant mob protesting the immigrants that never came.
The winner in this dignified political exercise is given even odds against incumbent Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick of Flagstaff in the November general election.
The sprawling district reaches all the way from Tucson's northern suburbs to the New Mexico border, up to the Utah border and west to the Flagstaff area in a giant apostrophe shape.
Kirkpatrick hasn't exactly got her name in lights since she's been in Congress, but she established some leadership cred on veterans' issues, and she could probably be counted on for leadership on immigration reform if there were anything going on in Congress to be led on that subject.
But those are such boring, fact-based qualifications compared to Tobin's spotting Ebola wading the Rio Grande!
Based on his recent outbursts, maybe he could keep Arizona in the spotlight by challenging Texas' Rep. Louie Gohmert to a dumb-off for the title of "America's dumbest congressman."
Now the scary part: Polls show an even match between Kirkpatrick and Tobin, so District 1 just might end up with Tobin in Congress. The people of the district would lose whatever representation they have in Congress, but oh what a two-year field day for the press!