Drudge salutes McCain
The story is an AP campaign wrap-up, detailing how McCain handled the Hayworth challenge.
8:11 PM
A new McCain attack ad against Hayworth
5:59 AM
McCain pulls away from Hayworth
The latest Rasmussen poll sees Dumb increasing his lead over Dumber:
Read down to the other questions asked in the poll, however, and you have to be a little bit concerned about not just the level of the political debate here in Arizona, but the overall ability of residents to process basic information:
Has the new immigration law affected Arizona’s image positively or negatively?
60% Positively
26% Negatively
4% No impact
10% Not sure
or…
Will the new immigration legislation be good or bad for the Arizona economy?
64% Good
17% Bad
9% No impact
10% Not sure
and …
Are economic conditions in the country getting better or worse?
7% Better
72% Worse
18% Staying the same
4% Not sure
7:21 AM
J.D.: "You're a liar!" McCain: "You're a pig!" Tea Party guy: "I want a popsicle!"
(Rewritten and updated, with video embedded.)
The GOP senatorial primary debate in Tucson last night was a sorry spectacle.
PHXated again thought that that bozo J.D. Hayworth came across well. He’s failing at the polls; his ludicrous past as an infomercial pitchman for a skanky company has come back to bite him on the ass; and he looks like … well, he looks like a clown.
Still, each of his answers was coherent (within the confines of the nutty far-right philosophy he was espousing) and energetic, and he came across far stronger, in command and in control of both the physical space and the dialog than McCain.
Here’s the video:
Or you can watch the event on the KUAT web site here.
The moderator, Bill Buckmaster, of the long-running public-affairs show “Arizona Illustrated,” on Tucson’s KUAT, was a caricature of the milquetoasty public broadcasting guy.
He didn’t ask a single tough question.
I mean, I guess I didn’t expect him to ask McCain about the spousal abuse described in the book Game Change, but he could have asked him about some of the terrible decisions he made during that presidential campaign, or even his recent statement that he never considered himself a maverick.
Instead, Buckmaster played entirely to the candidates' own talking points, at one point literally letting the candidates discuss the pressing issue of which was the most conservative.
There were no follow-ups, nothing that asked any of the candidates to deal with political and social realities of the issues facing Arizona.
At the end, completely giving up, he let the candidates each get free time to “set the record straight” about anything else said about them in the debate.
This produced the following exchange:
Hayworth [turning to face McCain]: “John, you wrote the book, Worth the Fighting For. You relayed what happened in South Carolina in 2000….
“You wrote, ‘Given the chance between losing and lying, I chose lying.’ John I’m sorry to say that it appears history is repeating itself here. As you deal with half truths, as you deal with blatant character attacks, as you deal with failing to own up to mistakes you have made that have hurt our nation.
“That’s what I most lament about this campaign.”
McCain [grimacing]: That’s a pretty strong attack there, and I’m tempted to respond.
“But I’m reminded of the advice from my old friend Bob Dole. Never get into a wrestling match with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.”
McCain then was given time to yammer on about “doing more for our vets,” though he and Hayworth were both part of the six-year-long Republican reign that produced the pointless war in Iraq, which has had a fairly deleterious affect on quite a few U.S. service people, and the lax oversight of Walter Reed Hospital, which created a big scandal for the Bush administration a few years back.
A minute or two later, the moderator let Jim Deakin, the soi-disant Tea Party candidate, have the last of the final statements. He began:
“It’s been a lot of fun. Next time, popsicles!”
PHXated’s live-blogging of the first Hayworth-McCain debate is here.
6:47 AM
How did the first McCain-Hayworth debate play?
In the Republic, Dan Nowicki wrote:
McCain, the four-term incumbent who first won the Senate seat in 1986, reminded viewers that Hayworth, a former 12-year Arizona congressman, was rejected by his constituents in his final re-election bid in 2006. McCain said that was at least partly because Hayworth was a congressional big spender. And echoing the television attack ads that he has used to pound Hayworth, McCain raised the issue of a questionable 2007 infomercial that Hayworth appeared in for National Grants Conferences, a company that came under fire from consumer advocates after purporting to teach people how to exploit “free” government money programs.
“After he was voted out by his constituents, he became a lobbyist, and after that a talk-show host, and then after that, an infomercial and late-night star,” McCain said of Hayworth. “So he’s certainly had an interesting career.”
For his part, Hayworth, who is trailing McCain in the polls, came well-prepared with multiple anti-McCain one liners and zingers. He repeatedly attacked McCain as a flip-flopper on President George W. Bush’s signature tax cuts, which McCain voted against in 2001 and 2003 but now supports extending. He also blasted McCain as a supporter of “amnesty,” the term Hayworth and other critics use to describe comprehensive immigration reform, and for voting for the 2008 financial bailout.
Hayworth called McCain a “convenient conservative” and a “political shape-shifter” who has “perfected the six-year switch” to fool voters in thinking that he is a conservative while up for re-election.
Howard Fischer writes similar things in the EVT.
Neither analyzed the debate’s quality of the candidates' performance.
To PHXated, Hayworth did a lot better than McCain, from his physical positioning to his voluble answers. McCain seems uncomfortable and mumbling, and recycled platitudes from previous debates. (“Facts are stubborn things,” “There you go again,” etc.)
There’s a very long recap of the debate on the Tucson Citizen site, here.
The writer is Jim Kelley, who seems to be obsessed with the third candidate, whom he calls “Jim.” It’s kinda weird:
The closing statement was the single most important moment for Jim Deakin to hook the voter and close the deal. McCain had absolutely nothing to lose. He was short and to the point delivering what every Arizonan already knows about him and heard for the last 3 years both in the Presidential race and his non-JD bashing radio ads. JD also played it safe and delivered what everyone already knows about him, his very smooth and practiced delivery, born of true oratory experience was non-threatening and inviting. Jim choked. There is no other way to put it. The only spin to put out there is that it was a rookie mistake. He did not practice his delivery or indelibly mark into his memory the message that he and his team crafted together over the last week. He didn’t know whether to try it or just fall back to his standard close. His lack of trust in the team’s crafted message made him hesitate.
NYT take on it here.
10:56 AM
The latest blast at Hayworth from John McCain
The new commercial begins with Hayworth looking his clownish best, and then a bunch of supposed former constituents talking about how lame he was as a congressman.
(I haven’t found it online yet.)
A couple of the comments are questionable. For example, one woman says, “He voted for hundreds of billion of dollars of pork-barrel spending.”
First of all, there aren’t hundreds of billions of dollars in pork in the federal budget. That’s about how much discretionary spending there is in total.
They might be trying to total up all of his budget votes over his ten or twelve years in Congress.
But given that these were Republican budgets during a lot of his tenure—and that McCain probably voted for them too—it hardly seems cricket to tag him with voting for them.
But the most arresting claim in the ad is this:
“He voted for the Bridge to Nowhere!”
Sarah Palin tried to rewrite history in her speech at the GOP convention, but it’s well established she was a supporter of the bridge when she was governor.
7:05 PM
Mary Hayworth comes to J.D.'s defense!
The Hayworth campaign’s new commercial:
To some, the ad show’s J.D. on the defense—when it’s McCain who’s supposed to be in that position.
Ben Smith in Politico:
Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth’s first ad tells you everything you need to know about the contours of the Arizona GOP Senate primary.
To recap: Hayworth is the conservative challenger and Sen. John McCain the incumbent. McCain is also a deeply unpopular figure among the sort of Arizona Republicans who show up to vote in August primaries.
Yet it’s Hayworth who is on defense in his TV debut, a low-budget number apparently airing only on Fox News in Tucson.
Why is a challenger deploying his wife with the soft-lens, my-husband-is-not-perfect line as his first commercial out of the shoot?
Smith’s answer is that McCain has been watching Charlie Crist get crucified in Nevada by challenger Marco Rubio … and has been careful to inoculate himself against the same sorts of attacks.
7:00 AM
National Review endorses McCain, tepidly
The leading doctrinaire conservative magazine can’t muster up enough enthusiasm for Hayworth to overcome its long-standing distrust of McCain.
In the endorsement of the incumbent in the GOP primary, there’s a palpable sense of wistfulness that his challenger wasn’t a little stronger:
Hayworth is, to say the least, not obviously a more exemplary statesman than McCain. On one of the most pressing issues of the day — the need to control federal spending — McCain has had the better record. That Hayworth appeared in infomercials to tell people how to get “free money” from the government underscores the point rather emphatically.
If McCain had a different challenger, we might think differently. But, taken together, these considerations move us to suggest that Arizona Republicans nominate Senator McCain.
Hayworth is a buffoon, of course, but McCain has done dozens of worse things than Hayworth’s infomercial.
The endorsement is already drawing fire from right-0wingers.
9:16 PM
J.D. Hayworth apologizes for that sleazy informercial he did
A few days ago, J.D. was standing by the patently skanky commercial:
“I always say about any product or service, one of the staples I learned growing up is caveat emptor, ‘buyer beware.’ I think that is a given in any commercial endeavor – I would certainly hope in this one. But yeah, I’m a broadcaster, and yeah, I appeared in this, and yes, it was a job. And that’s that.”
(You can see it below.)
Today, he’s running for the hills:
“I should not have made the ad. It was a mistake. I believed, as did former Congressman J.C.Watts, this to be a reputable firm, but I did not completely check out the organization. I hope voters will look past a video presentation made three years ago and instead look at the issues confronting us in 2010.”
Here’s the best parts of the infomercial in question:
10:22 AM
J.D.: Say it isn't so!
From a killer Dan Nowicki post this morning:
Republican Senate challenger J.D. Hayworth appeared in a 2007 television infomercial in which he helped convince viewers that they could rake in big bucks by attending seminars that would teach them how to apply for federal grants that they wouldn’t have to pay back.
National Grants Conferences, the Florida-based company that hosted the classes and produced the informercial, has faced criticism from multiple state attorneys general and Better Business Bureaus.
Hayworth, a former Arizona congressman who is running against incumbent Sen. John McCain, R-
Ariz., in the Aug. 24 GOP primary, made the infomercial after losing his U.S. House seat in the 2006 election. References to his TV appearance on behalf of National Grants Conferences appear in his Wikipedia entry, on the Internet Movie Database and other places on the Web. But the footage was unavailable. Highlights of Hayworth’s appearance are now posted on YouTube.com at this link.
The infomercial promotes seminars that ostensibly instruct attendees how to get the “free money grants.” Tucson TV station KVOA did an investigation of National Grants Conferences that you can watch here. The TV station’s investigative team found that the workshops cost from $999 to $1,200 and federal government grants really aren’t even available to individuals.
Politico story on the infomercial here.
2:01 PM
Brewer and Hayworth go on the attack against Clinton
… after the secretary of state mentioned in a public interview with the Ecuadoran president that the Obama administration was going to sue to overturn Arizona’s new immigration law, Politico reports.
“This is no way to treat the people of Arizona,” said Brewer, who recently set up a legal defense fund to combat challenges to the law. “To learn of this lawsuit through an Ecuadorean interview with the secretary of state is just outrageous.”
“If our own government intends to sue our state to prevent illegal immigration enforcement, the least it can do is inform us before it informs the citizens of another nation,” Brewer added.
[…]
Hayworth called Clinton’s comments “appalling” in a statement criticizing her for making “a major domestic policy announcement on foreign soil.”
6:56 AM
The Sonoran Alliance goes on the attack—against McCain
The right-wing blog supports J.D. Hayworth in the GOP senate primary.
Yesterday it posted this left-wing attack piece on McCain’s friendliness with lobbyists, the ones he talks about being so stridently opposed to:
… all to the tune of the “Friends” theme. The maker of the video is Robert Greenwald, who has done a series of contentious documentaries on Fox News, Wal-Mart, and Iraq war profiteers.
7:34 AM
Politico trashes John McCain's campaign
The McCain-Hayworth primary race makes the site’s list of the year’s worst campaigns, emphases added:
Thanks to a baggage-laden opponent, Sen. John McCain’s campaign may not be a flop electorally: he leads in every poll against former Rep. J.D. Hayworth ahead of this summer’s primary.
But in his desperate bid to hang onto his Senate seat, McCain has already lost something — his well-cultivated image as a different kind of politician who dared to take on his party and speak difficult truths.
Racing to get to the right, he has unapologetically discarded any stance which may be unhelpful in a conservative-dominated primary, most notably his leadership on immigration reform and climate change. In the not-too-distant past he spoke passionately about both issues as matters of conscience, to hell with the political consequences.
But it’s not just the issues, per se, it’s the lengths McCain is going to shed his former political skin that have some of his former advisers shaking their heads about what he’s doing to get six more years in Washington. With no hint of the irony he was once known for, and apparent amnesia about the White House campaign he waged two years ago, he said he never actually considered himself “a maverick.” And after openly mocking conservatives who were obsessed with simply building more fences on the border — “I think the fence is least effective. But I’ll build the goddamned fence if they want it” — he’s now airing an ad in which he’s seen walking along said fence and promising to “complete the danged fence.”
It may be enough to fend off Hayworth, but by seeming to do anything to win re-election McCain has torched one of the most famous brands in modern American politics.
10:54 AM
J.D. Hayworth on 'Meet the Press'
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3:10 PM
J.D. Hayworth gets smacked by McCain—and then E.J Montini
We like J.D. Hayworth.
Not personally, but we’d like to see him knock John McCain out of the race in the GOP primary and be easier pickings for a Democrat in November.
Not so much because we favor Democrats as that we think Arizona needs a higher quality of elected representative and we think McCain is a bad person and a bad senator.
Anyway, J.D., who is, let’s face it, a buffoon of the first order, managed to turn himself into a joke recently by declaiming for some reason or another that the U.S. didn’t declare war on Germany during the Second World War.
(We assume it had something to do with arguing that it’s OK that America has been fighting wars for decades now without formally declaring it. This is of course inconsistent with the right-wing mantra that the constitution should be interpreted strictly.)
That made Hayworth a staple of the news shows for a day, and the Mccain campaign capitalized on it immediately, putting together a video mocking Hayworth you can see below.
Anyway, Hayworth smacked back at McCain today with a press release. Unfortunately, they sent it to E.J. Montini, who noticed the release misspelled McCain’s name in the hedline—and had a dropped word besides.
Sigh.
1:26 PM
All of a sudden John McCain is into pork!
I think there’s a new McCain for Senate ad out—I saw it on Letterman last night, but I can’t find it on his web site or on You Tube.
Anyway, it’s bragging how John McCain brings military-spending dollars to Arizona.
One hundred thousand jobs [the voice-over intone]. Nine billion dollars a year. Our military bases are vital for the economy of Arizona. And so is Senator John McCain.
As senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, McCain’s on the front lines of protecting Arizona’s military bases.
John McCain keeps us and Arizona strong.
Meanwhile, his web site is touting a new attack ad on J.D. Hayworth … for voting for too many earmarks.
9:16 AM
The Washington Post says J.D. Hayworth might be a beneficiary of last night's election results
Writes Chris Cillizza, who does the paper’s blog The Fix:
Ken Buck/J.D. Hayworth/Sharron Angle: Buck, Hayworth and Angle — running in Republican Senate primaries in Colorado, Arizona and Nevada, respectively — are all making a direct pitch to supporters of the tea party movement. Ophthalmologist Rand Paul’s surprisingly strong victory on Tuesday night and his crediting of the tea party for that victory will almost certainly embolden those who see themselves as part of the cause in other parts of the country. The tea party to date has been somewhat haphazard in the primary races it chooses to target — yes to Florida Senate, no to Illinois Senate — and so it’s not likely that all of the trio mentioned above will benefit from the increased intensity. But, now that the tea party movement has the taste of winning in its collective mouth, there will almost certainly be a push to find the next Kentucky Senate race.
Meanwhile, the latest Rasmussen poll gives John McCain a 12-point lead over Hayworth.
Here’s Pollster.com’s trend map on the race:
4:34 PM
A new poll: Hayworth closing in on McCain
The new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll has some interesting numbers.
They show plainly that, six months out, the Democrats' best chance for taking the Senate seat will be if J.D. Hayworth beats McCain in the GOP primary.
According to the poll, McCain beats the likely Democrat, Rodney Glassman, 48 to 35, with 17 percent undecided.
Between Hayworth and Glassman, the race is a real race… 43 for Hayworth, 42 for Glassman.
There’s a four percent margin of error in the poll.
But … can Hayworth actually beat McCain? It would seem a longshot.
McCain is unquestionably a bad senator, a bad person, and has squandered his dishonest-but-effectively-created image as a moderate and maverick by pandering to the vicious Arizona right
(For details, see PHXated’s “The Case Against John McCain,” a comprehensive look back at his career.)
Unfortunately, though, none of these are actually detriments in the Republican primary in a state like Arizona.
But the new polls shows conclusively that his popularity is dropping even there.
48 to 36 is still a good advantage for McCain, but it's four points less than he was polling a month ago.
The survey did a comprehensive look at all Arizona politicians, too.
McCain’s unfavorable numbers statewide are now about 50 percent.
He’s more unpopular than Hayworth, which has to be considered something of an achievement.
Most particularly, he has very high unfavorables among Democrats and independents … 82 percent and 60 percent, respectively.
But of course, he’s be a much more formidable opponent in November than Hayworth, a buffoon who could be made mincemeat of if Glassman—at this point still a political cipher—was up to the task.
Here are the overall numbers for Arizona politicians:
8:11 AM
New Public Policy Poll: McCain over Hayworth by 11 points.
From Pollster.com:
Public Policy Polling (D)
4/23-25/10; 387 likely Republican primary voters, 5% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone
Arizona
2010 Senate: Republican Primary
46% McCain, 35% Hayworth, 7% Deakin
Note that automated phone polling is not ideal.
Meanwhile, the Republic has posted a local poll from Behavior Research Center:
McCain leads Hayworth 54 percent to 28 percent with another 18 percent undecided.
In a potential general election battle against former Tucson Vice Mayor Rodney Glassman, the leading Democratic Senate candidate, McCain is ahead 46 percent to 24 percent with a significant 30 percent “uncommitted,” the poll says.
Hayworth also leads Glassman, who is not very well-known around the state yet, by 37 percent to 30 percent with 33 percent “uncommitted.”
This poll has a 5.7 percent margin of error; the two margins of error combined mean that both could still be quote-unquote correct.
Here’s Pollster.com’s current chart on the race:
11:06 AM
A new poll: Glassman can beat Hayworth
A new poll shows the obvious: That J.D. Hayworth might be easy pickings for the Democrats in November:
2010 Senate
49% McCain ( R ), 33% Glassman ( D )
42% Glassman ( D ), 39% Hayworth ( R )
Note that Hayworth has an incredibly high unfavorable rating:
Favorable / Unfavorable
Rodney Glassman: 7 / 15
J.D. Hayworth: 23 / 50
The source is Public Policy Polling, out of North Carolina. Its release on the poll stresses this:
Raleigh, N.C. – John McCain might still beat Barack Obama handily were there a redo of the 2008 election in McCain’s home state, but the senator’s constituents now view Obama’s job performance more favorably than they do that of their longtime senator. 45% of Arizona voters like the job Obama is doing, to 51% who disapprove. While that may seem bad, only 34% approve of how McCain is handling his job to 55% who do not. Republicans only barely approve, 48-39, with independents down at 28-58.
Emphasis added. Doesn’t this lend support to PHXated’s pet theory, which is that Democrats need to adopt a carom strategy for the fall, helping Hayworth beat McCain, so they’ll have an easier target in November?
Pollster.com account here. One of the commenters says that the company will release numbers on specifically the GOP primary tomorrow.
11:29 AM
1A new poll: Hayworth closing in on McCain
The poll, by Rasmussen, puts Hayworth at 42 and McCain at 47, with a four percent margin of error. McCain has been leading in every poll taken thus far; it seems more likely that the error would be in McCain’s favor.
Here are the poll’s favorable/unfavorable rankings of Tweedlecreep, Tweedlebuffoon and Rodney Glassman, the likely Democratic opponent in November:
Favorable / Unfavorable
John McCain: 52 / 46
Rodney Glassman: 32 / 34
J.D. Hayworth: 43 / 49
Those are apparently the findings for likely voters; note that on the Pollster.com page for the poll, a commenter named “jmartin4s” says:
I looked at the internals of the primary poll and I think the McCain/Hayworth primary could go either way. According to the poll Hayworth has a 58% favorability among R primary voters and McCain has 57%. [This makes sense, given that all voters would have a higher favorable impression of McCain than Hayworth.] In addition, Hayworth represented a part of Maricopa county for a while and has gotten the endorsement of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The fact that McCain an a four-term incumbent is ahead of Hayworth by only 5 is amazing. In addition, the primary is in September [actually, it’s Aug. 25] so there is a huge amount of time for McCain to continue to bleed votes to Hayworth.
Emphases added.
Talking Point Memo’s piece on the poll contains this comment from one “david46”:
A couple of months ago, I had a long conversation with a long time Arizona Democratic political operative about what was gooing on in AZ. He said that McCain was in trouble and do not pay any attention to the disorganized and chaotic Hayworth campaign. The Hensley family (i.e., Cindy McCain) no longer had the dominent position it once had in the AZ Republican Party.
The party organization hates McCain and was looking to take him out because he was a liberal in their thinking and that he would not take care of their financial interests. (McCain was burned badly in the S&L scandals and pretty much stopped looking after individual, parachial financial interests and AZ is a state with heavy Federal involvement in its economy.) He said that the several very wealthy folks who control the AZ party wanted to get rid of McCain and replace him with someone who would do their bidding. They were prepared to let the seat go Democratic in the event the buffoon Hayworth lost in a general election because they would be able to talk to a Democrat about parochial AZ interests which they cannot with McCain and then hope to put in a Republican in six years.
Terry Goddard at this point looks good to win the Governor’s seat, but he does have a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The Hispanic vote continues to grow. The problem is that there is not a first tier Democratic candidate for the Senate seat because Democrats such as Gifford thought it was too much of a long shot that Hayworth would defeat McCain—and they were probably correct. That said, the Dems do have respectable folks in the race and if Hayworth does win, then expect resources to pour into AZ.
The latest fundraising news
Mike Dan Nowicki in the Arizona Republic has this, which suggests that Hayworth isn’t going to have it easy:
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and his primary challenger J.D. Hayworth released their final fundraising numbers for the first three months of 2010. Hayworth, a former congressman who officially entered the race on Feb. 15, reported raising an impressive $1.07 million, though he only has $681,478 left on hand. McCain, however, collected $2.3 million and still has $4.6 million ready to spend.
(Apologies to Dan Nowicki for getting his name wrong originally in this post.)
7:17 PM
Glassman running for Senate
Rodney Glassman, a Democrat, is a Tucson city councilman. He is not well known statewide but may become the de facto challenger to either John McCain or J.D. Hayworth in November if better-known Dems like Bruce Babbit or Gabrielle Giffords don’t chance the race.
Glassman slammed McCain for not being responsive to requests for federal help for local projects and accused him of neglecting the state. McCain has a national reputation for fighting earmarks and pork spending.
“Where has he been the past 28 years?” Glassman said. “We have a U.S. senator who’s more interested in visiting Kabul than visiting Casa Grande.”
The Tucson Sentinel:
Glassman’s bid surprised virtually no one. He told TucsonSentinel.com: "I’ll be the first elected official in 20 years to take on John McCain for U.S. Senate. I’ll also be the first candidate endorsed by dozens and dozens of Democratic leaders throughout the state.”
While he’s had an official “exploratory committee” for months, Glassman put off a formal announcement until Tuesday. In February, he explained his delayed decision by saying he wanted to concentrate on helping the city navigate its budget difficulties.
A Daily Kos poll from last Friday showed clearly that J.D. Hayworth was a slightly more vulnerable figure in the general than McCain.
The poll had Bruce Babbitt tied with Hayworth and six points behind McCain. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was thirteen points behind Hayworth and twenty behind McCain.
In both cases, interestingly, Glassman’s showing was almost identical with Giffords’.
The headline on the Daily Kos poll was that Hayworth is currently running fifteen points behind McCain:
Despite the conventional wisdom that McCain could be vulnerable to an intra-party challenge, we find that McCain has a fairly solid level of favorability among Republicans. His current favorability among GOP voters stands at 76%, with only 19% expressing disapproval.
Hayworth, meanwhile, may well have some upside in the GOP primary, as he is still unknown to about a quarter of the electorate. And it is worth noting that among Republicans, he is well liked (a 61/16 favorability spread).
However, his upside might be limited to a GOP primary. In a general election, he is clearly a greater liability for the GOP. Hayworth is much less popular among both Democratic and Independent voters, and sports an net negative favorability (34/42) among all voters, joining only President Obama (41/55) and incumbent GOP Governor Jan Brewer (39/54) in minus territory.
Full report on the poll here.
7:46 AM
Rachel Maddow kicks J.D. Hayworth's ass
The MSNBC host had Hayworth on yesterday evening. PHXated, who is rooting for Hayworth to knock that chucklehead John McCain out in August, was disappointed in his stalking horse’s performance.
Full video is below.
The conversation had two main parts. In the first, Maddow asked Hayworth about his well-established ties to the crook Jack Abramoff.
Hayworth let the conversation descend into a debate as to whether he was the first-, third- or ninth-largest recipient of Abramoff money.
In the second part, she asks him about his contention that the highest court in Massachusetts had “defined marriage as, simply, quote, the establishment of intimacy.”
Hayworth used this assertion to make the argument that legalizing gay marriage could allow people to marry horses.
Maddow read from the decision, demonstrating plainly that the court, “simply,” had done no such thing. Hayworth,looking like a not-very-bright tree sloth caught in a pair of car headlights, could say only, “You and I have a disagreement.”
More after the video:
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The only solace Hayworth fans can take is that Hayworth is being crazy like a fox. He is, after all, running in the Arizona republican primary, looking for votes from a group of people for whom factual accuracy, logic, common decency, tolerance, and intellectual coherence are of relative and fungible interest. We’re hoping that Hayworth may yet demonstrate he is their man.
4:51 PM
J.D. Hayworth still talking about Obama's birth certificate
Here he is getting grilled by Campbell Brown last night. The stuff about the birth certificate starts at 5:50.
Hayworth first says that the media are the only people bringing the matter up—and then turns around and says he’s getting emails from constituents about it.
Under Brown’s increasingly incredulous questioning, he then starts talking about … identity theft. And then starts babbling about “a so-called stimulus that led to incredible unemployment.”
And refuses, several times, to answer her direct question as to whether he thinks Obama is an American citizen.
2:31 PM
Hayworth announcing candidacy today
The former U.S. representative and quondam McCain-bashing radio host will formally start his campaign today, the Republic says:
Former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth will announce his Republican Senate candidacy today, but his record as a fiscal conservative has been under assault by incumbent GOP Sen. John McCain for weeks.
In anticipation of Hayworth’s primary challenge from the right, McCain has been portraying Hayworth as one of the big-spending Republicans who, during President George W. Bush’s two terms, largely squandered the party’s reputation for fiscal discipline.
The Republic doesn’t bother to tell people when or where Hayworth is making the announcement. For that, you have to go to Hayworth’s web site, which says he’ll be officially starting the race five times across the state today and five more tomorrow.
2:37 PM
J.D. Hayworth in the NYT
The anticipated challenger to John McCain’s Republican senatorial renomination this year gets a front-page profile ‘n’ pic in the paper of record today:
PHOENIX — J. D. Hayworth is a large man, and to compensate for his indulgences, he hits the elliptical trainer every morning at 4, zipping along to an incongruous soundtrack of Elvis Costello, Frank Sinatra and old advertising jingles.
The story, while noting McCain has support in the state, sums up his recently philosophical somersaults thusly:
Mr. McCain now finds himself jammed, moving starkly — and often awkwardly — to the right, apparently in an effort to gain favor among the same voters whom Mr. Hayworth, a consistent voice for the far right, could pull toward him like taffy come summer.
Mr. McCain now sharply criticizes the bailout bill he voted for, pivoted from his earlier position that the Guantánamo Bay detention facility should be closed, offered only a muted response to the Supreme Court’s decision undoing campaign finance laws and backed down from statements that gays in the military would be O.K. by him if the military brass were on board.
The story also notes that Hayworth himself is no prize:
Mr. Hayworth, a former sportscaster who rode the 1994 wave of conservatism into Congress, where he then served six terms, has political baggage. He was a very large recipient of both money and largess — like sports skyboxes — from the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. His loss to Harry E. Mitchell, a Democrat, in his 2006 re-election bid was humiliating, and underscored voter distaste for some of his more boisterous ways.
In interviews with roughly 20 Republican voters in Scottsdale and the conservative city of Gilbert, not a Hayworth supporter could be found.
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