About 500 members of various Tea Party groups gathered at the Arizona State Capitol April 15 for what has become an annual tax day protest. They listened to conservative speakers rail against immigration, taxes and government spending. Attendance was down this year. There were about 9,000 people at the Tea Party protest I photographed in 2009.

The Tea Party Patriots American Policy Summit was held in Phoenix Feb. 25 through Feb. 27. About 2,000 people were expected to attend the event, which organizers said was meant to unite Tea Party groups across the country. Speakers included former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, former Clinton advisor Dick Morris and conservative blogger Andrew Brietbart. The event ended with a presidential straw poll Sunday. Herman Cain, a newspaper columnist from Atlanta, GA., won the Straw Poll.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has gotten national attention for his high profile "crime suppression" sweeps which he uses as anti-immigrant sweeps, flooding Hispanic neighborhoods looking for undocumented immigrants. Some in Maricopa County praise the sheriff for the sweeps. Others in the county, including the mayor of Phoenix, condemn him for the sweeps, calling them racist and racial profiling. The sweeps have also gotten lots of national attention, including the attention of civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton. Rev. Sharpton came to Phoenix this week to protest the sweeps and join the chorus of voices condemning the sweeps. There were demonstrations against Sharpton and Arpaio at their respective venues during Sharpton's visit.

Michele Bachmann, the conservative Minnesota Congresswoman, announced Wednesday, May 29 that she won't seek reelection.

Former President George W. Bush was in Phoenix to sign copies of his book "Decision Points." Thousands of people showed up to get the former President's autograph in their book. A small group of protestors stood on a sidewalk about 100 yards from the bookstore to express their disapproval of the President's policies, which they said led us into a war and ruined the American economy.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer entered 2010 as a long shot in the Republican primary. A range of conservative candidates from the Republican party were arrayed against her and her poll numbers were not good. But in April she signed Arizona's tough anti-illegal immigration bill, SB 1070, and won a special election to raise the state sales tax. And she took a hard stand against illegal immigration and the Obama administration. Suddenly her poll numbers started improving and her Republican opponents started falling by the wayside and by the Aug. 24 primary she was a shoo in. She easily won the primary, getting more than 80% of the votes cast. She celebrated her victory at a sushi bar in Tucson Tuesday night.

Jerry Lewis is a Mesa, AZ, charter school executive and accountant. He's a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) and a conservative. Both are important if you want to get elected in Mesa, a conservative community founded by Mormons. He announced his candidacy for State Senate this week, running against Senate President Russell Pearce, a hard core conservative. He will face Pearce in the primary later this year as Pearce battles for his seat after voters in his district gathered enough recall petition signatures to force Pearce into a recall election.

US President Barack Obama stopped in Bangkok on November 18. It was his first stop in a tour of Southeast Asia. He also visited Myanmar (Burma) and Cambodia. While he was in Thailand, the President met toured Wat Pho, met Bhumibol Adulyadej, the King of Thailand, Yingluck Shinawatra, the Thai Prime Minister. I photographed the President's visit to Government House and meeting with the Prime Minister. All Photos are © Getty Images.

David Schweikert won his primary election battle against fellow Republican freshman Ben Quayle.

Sen. McCain held a town hall in Peoria, a suburb of Phoenix, to talk about the impact that sequestration would have on the Arizona economy and the Department of Defense. McCain said sequestration would immediately cost Arizona more than 35,000 defence related jobs and decimate the armed forces. Sequestration would result in about $1.2 trillion being cut from the federal budget. Sequestration, and automatic budget cuts, is scheduled to go into effect on Jan 1, 2013, if the President and Congress can't agree on budget.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, along with Cold Case Posse Lead Investigator Mike Zullo, held a news conference Tuesday regarding information stemming from an exhaustive examination into President Obama’s long form birth certificate. Zullo told reporters that the information he developed confirms that the document presented to the American public by the White House in April 2011 is undoubtedly fraudulent.

The race to be the Republican candidate in Arizona's 6th Congressional District promises to be the most interesting race of the 2012 primary season. The district is heavily Republican and who ever wins the August primary will probably win the general election in November. The race pits two freshman incumbents - David Schweikert and Ben Quayle - against each other. They were thrown together because of redistricting process, which takes place every ten years after the census.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer delivered her State of the State and the state legislature started their 2012 session Monday, Jan. 9. A group of people from the Center for Arizona Policy, a conservative think tank in Phoenix, held a prayer walk in the capitol before the session started while outside hundreds of people protested. The Governor's speech was short on specifics. She blamed her predecessor for the state's lingering problems, the Obama administration for passing health care reform and talked about the state's centennial, on Feb 14 of this year. She didn't put forth any specific policy goals though.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer visited Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix to declare that Oct 4 would be "Arizona Child Health Day." There were about a dozen protesters at the event, picketing because Brewer has cut funding for KidsCare, Arizona's health care insurance program for children.

Terry Goddard has been a fixture in Arizona politics for more than a generation. His father, Sam Goddard, was a popular Democratic governor of the state in the 1960's. Terry has served the public as the Mayor of Phoenix and the state's Attorney General. In 1990, he ran for Governor and lost after his Republican opponent ran a smear campaign. This year he ran against the sitting Governor, Republican Jan Brewer, who was not elected to the post but inherited the office after elected Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano resigned to become the Secretary of Homeland Security. Goddard ran a hard campaign against Brewer but couldn't overcome her popularity, which skyrocketed after she signed the state's anti-immigrant bill SB 1070. I followed the campaign for the last month of the race, essentially "embedded," spending time behind the scenes with Goddard, his family and campaign staff.

The Republican Presidential candidates held their last debate before the Arizona and Michigan primaries in Mesa, AZ, on February 22. The four remaining candidates, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, sat down for two hours of questions from CNN anchor John King.

Russell Pearce, the President of the Arizona State Senate and one of the most powerful politicians in Arizona, has been forced to run in a recall election because more than 15,000 residents of his district, Legislative District 18 in Mesa, AZ, signed petitions calling for Pearce's recall. Thursday night, Oct. 6, there was a debate between Pearce and his Republican opponent, Jerry Lewis, a former charter school executive. Pearce, a darling of the Tea Party movement, brings a lot of baggage into the race. In the last year, he has been dogged by charges of corruption for accepting free gifts from the Fiesta Bowl, his opponents allege that he pals around with white supremacists and one of his sons has been charged with domestic violence. Lewis too has some problems with unanswered charges that he diverted non-monetary gifts to his charter school for personal use. The election is early November. If Pearce loses it could shake Arizona politics to its core.

Some of the pictures I made the last week of the 2008 campaign season leading up to and including election day. (The election day photos are not available for sale or licensing.)