The run-in, captured in a photograph of the governor wagging a finger at the president as they discussed her book, “Scorpions for Breakfast,” lit up Hispanic radio stations and blogs all over the state. While it is difficult to judge whether the moment will have any lasting impact, Hispanic leaders said that what is being dubbed by some as the “dustup in the desert” could play in the president’s favor given the unfavorable view many Hispanics have of the governor for her advocacy of tough immigration measures.

“For that incident alone,” Robert Meza, a Democratic state senator from Phoenix, said Thursday, “85 percent more Latin people will gravitate toward the president.”…

Publicly, the White House treated the confrontation with Ms. Brewer with a scripted, and bland, retelling. “Political theater,” the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, told reporters aboard Air Force One to Denver.

But privately, one administration official, when asked on Thursday about the Wednesday confrontation, offered: “Let’s just say I don’t think yesterday was a bad day.”