Is Arpaio running for Senate once again? Oh, please

Arizona’s long national nightmare continues.

Joe Arpaio 2020.

No, really.

It seems our indefatigable ex-sheriff is planning to rev up his Hoveround and hit the campaign trial to run for the United States Senate. Again, that is.

The only thing standing in his way – beyond the obvious fact that he is 86 years old and on a two-election losing streak — is a New York Times columnist who he says smeared his reputation.

Like that’s possible.

Arpaio on Wednesday filed a defamation lawsuit against Times columnist Michelle Cottle, saying she presented him in a “false light” that will hurt his chances of raising funds from the Republican National Committee and others.

Cottle, in a column published the day Arpaio came in third in a threeway GOP primary, called the pardoned sheriff ’s loss “a fitting end to the public life of a truly sadistic man.”

Having watched Arpaio for nearly three decades, I don’t actually believe Arpaio is sadistic.

Opportunistic? Absolutely. Narcissistic? No doubt.

Delusional? Definitely, sadly, pitifully so.

Thus comes his announcement via lawsuit that he’s contemplating a run for the late John McCain’s Senate seat in 2020 — a campaign he contends just got harder due to Cottle’s column.

“These false factual assertions are carefully and maliciously calculated to damage and injure Plaintiff Arpaio both in the law enforcement community … as well as with Republican establishment and donors … in order to prevent him from successfully run (cq) for U.S. Senate in 2020 or another public office as a Republican,” according to the lawsuit, filed by Larry Klayman, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who previously has represented Arpaio in a lawsuit against then-President Barack Obama.

Klayman, in the inevitable press release on his FreedomWatch website, calls Arpaio ““an American hero” with a “long and distinguished career in law enforcement”.

“The NYT and its hate filled reporter, Michelle Cottle, will be held accountable for their libelous acts, not just to bring about justice for my client, but all those who on a daily basis, are demeaned, trashed and harmed by this venomous leftist publication and its staff,” the press release says.

“By demanding and getting a jury verdict for large compensatory and punitive damages, we hope to bring this ‘failing newspaper’ to its knees and to end its mission to destroy all

who it disagrees with, most notably conservatives, including the current president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

“To support Sheriff Arpaio’s case and Freedom Watch’s Leftist Media Strike Force, go to www.freedomwatchusa.org and sign up for our “Justice League” and donate.”

Operative word here: donate. People have been using Joe Arpaio as a fund-raising tool for years.

Urgent pleas to gullible seniors across the nation have gone out time and again.

Usually, they start out this way: “America’s Toughest Sheriff Needs Your Help.”

Please give … because Arpaio is “fighting for his life” as the evil forces of doom try to unseat him as sheriff.

Give … so Arpaio can fend off “the ugly specter of a recall”.

Give… so Arpaio can fight “the Obama Justice Department … hoping to put him in jail for the rest of his life!”

Give … so Arpaio can fight his conviction for criminal contempt of court and “shine light, once and for all, on the obvious corruption within the DOJ and FBI while there is time to reverse the evil trends.”

Give … so Arpaio can go to Washington and help “my friend President Donald Trump.”

And they have given, over and over and over again, to the tune of millions and millions of dollars.

Every Arizonan knew Phoenix had a better chance of seeing a blizzard in July than of seeing Arpaio win a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Yet the funds came rolling in, as usual, from all across the land.

His campaign this year was in disarray from the start and honestly, it was a joke, capped off with an embarrassing Showtime interview in which Sacha Baron Cohen tricked Arpaio into saying he’d accept oral sex from Trump.

So now comes yet another fundraising plea.

Give … so that Arpaio can run for the Senate yet again and “to bring “this ‘failing newspaper’ to its knees and to end its mission to destroy all who it disagrees with, most notably conservatives, including the current president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.” That ought to raise a few bucks. Meanwhile, I’m thinking someone should call Adult Protective Services.

America’s once-toughest sheriff doesn’t need another political campaign.

More likely, he needs help from victim services.