Faux Candidate in Arizona

The prime mover behind Arizona’s crackdown on illegal immigration, State Senate president Russell Pearce, angered so many people that a recall campaign against him was created. In the subsequent special election, a candidate appeared out of nowhere, a Mexican immigrant, who turned out to have been persuaded to enter the race by none other than people working with Pearce, in an apparent attempt to split the votes of those who oppose him. From the NYTimes:

Critics of Mr. Pearce’s hard-line approach to illegal immigration collected enough signatures to force him into a recall election in November. But allies of Mr. Pearce, who is one of the state’s most powerful politicians, did not take that humiliation lightly. They recruited Ms. Cortes in what was an effort to split the anti-Pearce vote, particularly among Latinos, a judge later found.....It remained unclear who exactly financed Ms. Cortes’s short-lived campaign.