Is the Arizona 'ethnic studies' ban a campaign tactic?

Justin Elliott makes a good catch and notices that the man most responsible for Arizona's new ban on ethnic studies classes, state superintendent of public instruction Tom Horne, is a candidate for attorney general. Indeed, Horne's campaign site is a casserole of made-for-Glenn-Beck Arizona culture war news.

Horne isn't the only 2010 candidate sticking it to liberal college campuses as a campaign tactic. Tom Lucero, who's lagging a bit in his Colorado congressional bid, is running on his record as a regent of the University of Colorado, where he helped prosecute and oust former professor Ward Churchill after the academic referred to 9/11 victims as "little Eichmanns."