Posted on 01/27/2010 10:49:42 AM PST by Maelstorm
Former Arizona congressman-turned-talk-radio-host J.D. Hayworth has resigned his gab-festing gig in order to challenge Sen. John McCain in the 2010 Republican primary. (Although he has not officially launched his campaign, Hayworth recently told the AP, "We will formally announce at a later time, but we're moving forward to challenge John McCain.")
In these strange political times, such an extraordinary event -- McCain was the GOP presidential nominee just 15 months ago -- seems normal to the point of predictability. So, too, were the unsurprising responses within the political firmament. Democrats were delighted, movement conservatives were energized -- and not always in secret. Already, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) has endorsed Hayworth, and numerous conservative blogs and Web sites are giddy about his candidacy. I'm not sure they should be. Get the new PD toolbar!
Hayworth has a chance to catch fire for one simple reason: Conservatives, the people most likely to vote in a GOP primary election, have long been suspicious -- and in many cases, even contemptuous -- of McCain. (I have long been critical myself of his quixotic attempts to limit free speech via McCain/Feingold.)
The issue most likely to hurt McCain in Arizona, however, is his 2007 advocacy for the unpopular Kennedy-McCain immigration legislation -- a bill many conservatives still view as offering nearly unlimited "amnesty" for illegal aliens without doing anything to secure America's borders. In fact, McCain's support of this legislation nearly cost him the GOP's presidential nomination. Few issues arouse as much emotion as this one, and while the controversial co-founder of the Minuteman movement, Chris Simcox, is also in the race, he lacks the gravitas to pose a legitimate challenge to McCain. But Hayworth, a former member of Congress, seems well positioned to exploit this issue -- and even parlay it into national exposure and fundraising success.
The real issue for me, however, is that while John McCain has many problems, there's no reason to believe Hayworth is the solution. As conservatives look to young leaders with fresh ideas, Hayworth is a step backward. For starters, he was heavily involved with former "super-lobbyist" Jack Abramoff. Although he later cooperated with federal investigators and was never found to have done anything illegal, Hayworth was the largest recipient of campaign money from the now-convicted Abramoff.
Even more disquieting from a conservative philosophical point of view, Hayworth was supportive of the Bush era's big spending -- much more so than the fiscally prudent McCain.
Two things tainted the Republican brand: Corruption and spending -- and Hayworth is tied to both of them.
Hayworth's support of Bush's big-government polices included voting for the No Child Left Behind Act; the paperwork- and red-tape-friendly (and business-unfriendly) Sarbanes-Oxley Act; the pork-laden 2005 highway bill that included the infamous "bridge to nowhere"; and, most expensive of all, a Medicare drug benefit that created more than $7 trillion in unfunded liabilities. What is more, his support for a monstrosity known as the 527 Reform Act, which was intended to close "loopholes" in McCain/Feingold, and which was arguably worse for conservatives than the original article.
So Hayworth opposed McCain/Feingold, but supported the 527 Reform Act. This is telling, because the Republican leadership supported the latter. Hayworth's backing of it, therefore, shows his willingness to bend to the will of his party's establishment. This is hardly the record of a bold and independent conservative.
My take: As conservatives seek to remake the GOP, and simultaneously oppose President Obama's liberal policies, they should worry more about getting ahead and less about getting even. The truth is, we live in a world of limited resources. As such, conservatives must shepherd their political capital. There are numerous conservatives who deserve -- and need -- the support of grassroots activists and conservative donors. But every dollar donated to a J.D. Hayworth equals one dollar that does not go to a Marco Rubio, for example.
And let's be honest: John McCain most likely won't be running for re-election six years from now. Hayworth, on the other hand, would likely be in the Senate for the next 20 years. In other words, call me when Arizona congressmen Jeff Flake or John Shadegg decide to run statewide. Until then, I can certainly live with John McCain.
This campaign cycle is going to be one nasty ride for McCain. His troubles will come from his own failure to uphold his duty as a public servant to the people. The pain he will feel because of that failure will make him wish he were still a POW in the Hanoi Hilton.
The only hope I have for McCain is that he undergoes a transformation by the fire of battle. He needs to get an insight into the reality of conservative values.
While J.D. may not be the best thing since pop corn or sliced bread,
He is a hell of a lot better than the RINO p.o.s. McLame.
Very good post. Many people around here are so blinded by their hate of McCain that they cannot see that Hayworth has serious issues of his own. As far as I can tell, the impetus behind the support around here of Hayworth is because he is to the right of McCain on immigration.
Anyone who has been paying attention has know that McCain has been at the forefront of the opposition to Obama - be it on healthcare, spending, the stimulus, even cap and trade. That’s a far cry from what people predicted - saying that McCain would be the “bridge builder” and the “Republican enabler” of the Obama agenda. Far from it.
Like many, I have had my issues with McCain over the years. However, it makes zero sense to toss him in a primary over a very flawed Republican who’s only real advantage over McCain is that he is to the right on immigration.
But that's where we are on FR. We have a certain segment who really believe you can't have principle and sound tactics in the same movement. They could care less what Reagan said about politics by addition, and if you posted some of his strategic advice without telling them who said it, they'd probably say it was written by Juan McCain or Olympia Snowe.
So, of course, in their world anyone who doesn't consider Palin a RINO and Hayworth the new Reagan is a total lib scumbag.
I think it can be argued that without the base saying “My guy is an awesomely awesome bag of awesomeness and I won’t coalesce behind anyone else” until we were down to Romney and Huckabee as “conservative” alternatives, there would have been no nomination for McCain.
It’s also worth noting that Shadegg isn’t running for Congress again.
Good try but it’s not working with me. I live in AZ and can’t wait to vote for JD. I’m sending him some money too. It will give me great pleasure to help retire RINO McCain.
See post 37.
No matter how much of a RINO Juan McCain is, no conservative should be linking arms with Howell Heflin.
>> I’ll still take JD over McCain.
J.D. is much younger and still shaping his career. He has experience both in and out of Congress. He strikes me as the kind of person who learns from the mistakes made, and is willing to adapt and grow.
John McCain will govern according to his established record. Regardless of what he says today, he will continue to compromise and legislate as before.
..and when he announced he wasn’t running, he made a cryptic statement about possibly fighting the battle from a different platform.
In all fairness to Hayworth, the author needs to tell us: O.K., which one of those things did McCain NOT support.
With regard to the author's concerns about lobbyists (petitioning your government, via collective action through your associations) and their campaign contributions go;
if it is a corruption simply to "lobby" for particular legislation AND also financially support the legislators who support your cause, then unions have the most, most often and deepest corrupt lobbying association with Congress, and they don't even have to call themselves "lobbyists" to achieve it.
People hate lobbyists mostly because of how the entire area of "lobbyists" is portrayed by the media, and, in that regard, how it is always portrayed as a loss for the "public interest" when a piece of legislation has been formed in a manner some "lobbyists" are happy with.
Often, the resulting negative connotation about "lobbyists" results from the media supported public ignorance of the facts, of what the legislative alternatives were (the ones the media said were good), of what would have been the actual "unintended consequences" of those alternatives, the economic and legal principals involved, and how the populist desire to "take it out on the big guys" often is against the real "public interest" in the long run - what corporations "pay" in "taxes" is passed on in what they charge in prices; and usually THOSE results (cascading) affect most those of us with the least. If one wants to consider REAL corporation, via "lobbying" then consider how Mister Murtha has purchased his seat in Congress with campaign funds supplied overwhelmingly with money from a few defense contractors to whom Murtha - via his role on the House defense appropriations committee - has supplied perpetual, one vendor, monopoly defense supply contracts.
I hope he runs. No baggage.
I can't tell you how many times I've said this recently.
2nd pro-McCain post today.
The attacks have begun.
The Keating Five were investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee. The Committee’s work, however, was made difficult because at the time there was no specific rule governing the propriety of members intervening with federal regulators. During the investigation, McCain said, “I have done this kind of thing [intervene] many, many times,” and said the Lincoln case was like “helping the little lady who didn’t get her Social Security.” In 1991, after a lengthy investigation, the committee cleared McCain of impropriety but said he had exercised “poor judgment.” Some of the committee members were concerned that letting the senators off lightly would harm their own reputations. Nevertheless, the existing Senate rules did not specifically proscribe the actions taken by DeConcini, Riegle, Glenn, and McCain. After the finding, McCain admitted his poor judgment and would write in 2002 that attending the two April 1987 meetings with Keating was “the worst mistake of my life.”
Yes, he is and he should. But the lesson that people learned about who the Rat party really is had to be learned and they would not have learned it if McLame has become president. Instead we would have a RINO president who would have gleefully pushed socialism lite and the people would have remained asleep and ignorant.
Bleh. It's time we reaired all that dirty laundry.
He's old. All he's ever done is sneer at conservatives and posture and sell us out every chance he got. He's famous for legislation that got thrown out for being unconstitutional.
The only thing you might inspire me to do, Maelstrom, is to pull up stakes and move to AZ so I could crawl over broken glass to vote for J D Hayworth.
Actually, I don't think he has to, either to be fair or to defend his point. The whole "elect JD" thing is based on the idea that McCain is the worst of the worst and if he loses the primary we'll still keep the seat for the GOP. Since JD's boosters act like he's a conservative white knight and the author's point is that JD is flawed rather than that McCain is good, McCain's record is largely irrelevant. If he had a rock solid conservative voting record we wouldn't be having this conversation.
What do you think primaries are for? They are so the members of a party can debate who is the best candidate to run in the general.
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