Wow, the Republicans are going to have a field-day during her confirmation hearings, pointing out that perhaps the job of defending our nation’s borders should go to someone who isn’t the governor of a state that is home to the kidnapping capital of America and a major corridor for drug smuggling:
Last year alone, Phoenix police reported 357 extortion-related abductions — up by nearly half from 2005 — targeting individuals with ties to Mexican smuggling rings.
In addition, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement police have also recorded cases of kidnappers snatching illegal immigrant day laborers off the street for ransom…
Each year, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are smuggled through Arizona from Mexico, most heading on to join relatives living and working in the shadows in towns and cities across the United States.
The desert state also straddles a furiously trafficked corridor for drugs, especially marijuana, more than 400 tons of which were seized last year by the U.S. Border Patrol alone. Profits from the two crimes amount to billions of dollars…
The surge in kidnappings has earned Phoenix the tag of U.S. “kidnap capital” among law enforcement authorities.
And expect a whisper campaign about her sexuality to come into play, too. A similar campaign didn’t have much of an impact here in Arizona, but it also didn’t have the kind of push that Republicans at the national level — looking to put dent after dent in the incoming Obama Administration — are going to give it.
I don’t believe this is going to go well. At all.
