Jan Brewer is no all around conservative hero...

I have met Jan Brewer a few times over the past couple of years. She is a decent lady. Not especially warm or engaging, but not in the good Iron Lady Thatcher kind of way... more in the "I don't want to be here" way...

Brewer though is currently on fire as a sort of conservative hero for signing "that Arizona immigration law."

Here is the deal though... she is not really all that special (link). Excerpt follows...

But Red State blogger and CNN political analyst Erick Erickson, who points to Brewer's "terrible" tax and spending record, doesn't think much of her prospects for national office. "I am a bit appalled by conservatives building her up because of the immigration fight after she personally lobbied members of the state legislature to kill the bill and then kept it on her desk, refusing to sign it until she realized she could use it to help her. One issue and one fight does not make a conservative hero."

Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist is likewise not impressed with the self-described "pragmatic conservative."

"She has made no effort to rein in spending," Norquist told The Examiner. "Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey has a hostile legislature, but he wrestled $10 billion the previous governor wanted to spend to the ground without a tax increase. So did the governor of Virginia."

Apparently Jan Brewer polls within a few points of Obama in a hypothetical 2012 matchup... please America, please Republicans, no... she is more to the left than McCain on just about every issue. At least McCain is a fiscal deficit hawk... Brewer is a big spender...

I tend to like her fire on the immigration issue and against Obama even if I quibble with her actual policy stand, but please peeps... don't crown this lady as some kind of presidential timber... she would disappoint the base and be slaughtered worse than McCain... it wouldn't even be close...

Why am I even mentioning this on this blog which is about Texas politics? Well because I try my best to stay in touch with political grassroots in all corners of the state from my lofty arrogant perch (inside joke)... and I have heard many times now from peeps in small town Texas and tea party groups in urban areas about how great Jan Brewer is and how she is what the national Republican Party needs right now...

As that Geico caveman once said, yeah, maybe next time, do a little research...

Thanks to one of my loyal readers for pointing me to this article...