Has Dan Saban already made a mistake in his run against Joe Arpaio?

I imagine the investigation already has begun.

Former Buckeye police Chief Dan Saban has agreed to put himself through the wringer again, announcing on Tuesday that he will run against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

As anybody who has crossed the sheriff knows, this can be a painful experience. And often an expensive one for taxpayers.

See: Phoenix New Times founders Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, arrested in 2007 in the dead of night after writing a piece critical of Arpaio's sidekick, then-Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas. Cost to taxpayers: $3.75 million.

See: Former Maricopa County Supervisors Mary Rose Wilcox, former Supervisor Don Stapley, former Superior Court Judges Gary Donahoe, Ken Fields, Barbara Mundell and Anna Baca, and a collection of county employees. Arpaio and Thomas in 2008 and 2009 launched a series of corruption investigations, indicting Wilcox, Stapley and Donahoe and accusing the others of racketeering. All charges/accusations were dismissed in 2010. Cost to taxpayers; $7.5 million.

See: U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow, the subject of not one but two investigations as he has presided over the famed racial profiling lawsuit against Arpaio and the sheriff's office.

Saban ran as a Republican against Arpaio in 2004 and suddenly found himself the subject of a rape investigation. Arpaio actually opened a criminal investigation into a 30-year-old allegation that Saban, then 17, had raped his adoptive mother. Saban claimed he was the victim and relatives backed him up. Of course, the investigation was a sham. The statute of limitations had long since run out.

But not the statute of intimidation. Saban lost the election. He sued for defamation and lost but it cost us well over $800,000 to defend Arpaio.

Saban ran again in 2008 as a Democrat, but a professional law enforcement officer had no chance in the face of a professional publicity hound.

But that was then, when Arpaio boasted that he was the most popular politician in Arizona. And this is now, when the Joe Show has lost most of its luster.

In 2000, Arpaio won 66 percent of the vote. In 2004, he got 57 percent. In 2008, it dipped to 55 percent. In 2012, he squeaked into a sixth term with just 50.7 percent of the vote. And he had to raise $8million – much of it from out of state – to do it.

Had it been a two-person rather than three-person race, he'd be retired today.

2012 wasn't a mandate for Arpaio. It was a warning sign.

Ironically, Saban is where the sheriff was 23 years ago, when he vowed to professionalize the sheriff's office after the botched temple murders investigaiton. Saban's campaign will undoubtedly be about electing a professional law enforcement officer rather than a professional publicity hound.

But already he's made a questionable move, opting to run again as a Republican.

Saban likely wins easily in a two-person general election. But can he beat Arpaio in a GOP primary?

Don't count Arpaio out.