Arizonans know Trump can win because we've elected him

People who don't know any better are saying Donald Trump can't win the presidential election.

In Arizona, we know that he can get elected, because Arizonans already have elected Donald Trump – many times.

For example, former Gov. Jan Brewer was a less wealthy a version of Donald Trump - with better hair. She yammered on about border security issues over which she had no control, trashed President Obama and other politicians and used fear and anger to convince people to vote for her.

And they did.

Arizona's current governor, Doug Ducey, utilized the same Trump-like game plan when he was trying to get elected.

And Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio invented the master plan that Trump follows, and it has worked to get the sheriff elected. Six times.

Former state Sen. Russell Pearce and many of Arizona's current Republican majority lawmakers are nothing more than mini-Donalds.

Several members of our congressional delegation are Donald Trumps in disguise, including one of Trump's favorite targets, U.S. Sen. John McCain.

When former Rep. J.D. Hayworth challenged McCain in a Republican primary a few years back McCain went into full-blown Trump-mode, traveling the state with border hawk and Pinal County Sheriff Paul "Underpants" Babeu, railing against failed immigration policy and President Obama, and demanding in TV ads that we "build the dang fence."

It worked. He won.

Last week the online publication Huffington Post decided it would cover Trump's campaign only on its entertainment section, saying: "Our reason is simple: Trump's campaign is a sideshow. We won't take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you'll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette."

That's not necessarily the slap in the face it was meant to be.

Politicians should be covered with Kardashians and the Bachelorette. What's a political campaign if not a really bad, really trashy reality show

The people who want to pretend that politics can be high-minded, civil and played according to some media-dictated rules are wrong.

They're wrong about politics and they're wrong about Donald Trump.

He is not a sideshow.

He is the frontrunner.

In the New York Times last weekend Jeremy W. Peters wrote: "Mr. Trump is not, as many Republicans have suggested, merely a renegade agitator who sneaked up on the party establishment and threatens to spoil its plans for a tidy, civil primary. Rather, Mr. Trump has become the new starring attraction for the restless, conservative-minded voters who think the political process is in need of disruption."

We know that for a fact in Arizona. And we know as well that, as a strategy, it works.

Think about how many Arizona politicians have gotten elected by playing the role of a "renegade agitator."

Think about how many Arizona politicians have gotten elected by convincing us that the "political process is in need of disruption."

If playing that role works so well for an Arizona county sheriff, for state lawmakers, for congress members, for a U.S senator and for several governors, why wouldn't it work for Trump?

Still, the "experts" say Trump doesn't have a chance. CNN reported that a company using "an interactive data collection platform" says Trump has only a one percent chance of winning the Republican nomination for president.

James Fallows in The Atlantic says the odds are worse, writing, "Donald Trump will not be the 45th president of the United States. Nor the 46th, nor any other number you might name. The chance of his winning nomination and election is exactly zero."

I might believe the same thing if I still lived on the East Coast.

But I've spent 30-plus years in Arizona, where Donald Trump has been elected again and again and again.