Horne promises access to those who give him large campaign contributions

There's a not-so-fine line between blunt honesty and utter brazenness, and Tom Horne has stepped *way* over that line.

From AZCentral.com -

State schools Superintendent Tom Horne says he has not decided whether he will run for attorney general next year, but he has promised his biggest campaign
contributors that, if elected, he will meet with them at quarterly lunches during his term.

{snip}

In e-mails and printed mailers obtained by The Arizona Republic, Horne tells prospective donors that he has formed an exploratory committee to consider running for attorney general in 2010. In the material, he points out that the maximum amount an individual can donate is $840, or $1,680 per couple.

"If I am elected as attorney general, I pledge to have quarterly lunches with members of the '840 Club' throughout my administrations," the material says.

Horne denied that he was offering special access to maximum contributors, conflating his pledge of regular access to an event held by Janet Napolitano after her first election as Governor and campaign fundraising dinners held by candidates nationwide.

Apparently, he's hoping that no one notices that those examples are of one-time-only events, while he is promising repeated and regulary scheduled access to him for his largest contributors.

The best part of the pledge, for Horne and his bribers "contributors" anyway, is that if he wins, it's not like they will have to worry about a corruption investigation from the AG's office.

Tom Horne - he's spent eight years running Arizona's schools into the ground, and now he wants us to give him a chance to do the same to the Attorney General's office.

The sad part is that he has a real chance at the GOP nomination for the job - his only (presumed) opponent in the Republican primary is Andrew Thomas, the man best known as a puppet for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (witness the prosecution of journalists who have criticized Arpaio and the hiring of expensive out-of-state lawyers to act as special prosecutors to push Arpaio's jihad against the county supes, something that no credible AZ prosecutor will touch).

Welcome to politics in Arizona folks.