The TexasFred Blog
News Opinion Commentary
This is The Header

Sen. McCain faces toughest re-election challenge

February 12th, 2010 . by TexasFred

Sen. McCain faces toughest re-election challenge

PHOENIX (AP) - Defeated just two years ago as the Republican presidential candidate and with his bonafides as a true conservative again being challenged, John McCain finds himself in a struggle to get even his party’s nomination for another term in the Senate.

Conservatives, independents and Tea Party activists are lining up behind Republican challenger and former talk radio host J.D. Hayworth, reflecting a rising tide of voter frustration with incumbent politicians. Only 40 percent of Arizonans have a favorable view of McCain’s job performance.

Faced with his toughest re-election battle ever, McCain has moved to the right on several hot-button issues, like gays in the military and climate change, and has built a campaign war chest of more than $5 million. Former running mate Sarah Palin and newly elected Republican Sen. Scott Brown, both popular with conservatives, are pitching in.

Hayworth, who will officially launch his campaign Monday, began using his talk show on conservative radio station KFYI to drum up opposition to McCain.

Full Story Here:
Sen. McCain faces toughest re-election challenge

Sarah Palin and Scott Brown are supporting the biggest RINO in the Senate. Isn’t that special?

I think it speaks quite well of both of them, and it gives the American voter a chance to see the Conservative bonafides that neither have! Supporting McCain is NOT sitting well with many on the REAL Conservative side of the equation.

“You have a consistent conservative challenger and an incumbent who calls himself a maverick but in fact is a moderate,” Hayworth said, outlining what he views as the central choice for conservative GOP primary voters in August.

I would have to disagree with Mr. Hayworth on one minor point here, calling John McCain a moderate is a bit of a misnomer. John McCain is a RINO, and when I say RINO I am referring to Republican In Name Only. And even that is a bit of a misnomer itself. John McCain is what I call a Republican when it’s convenient. John McCain is a Republican when it suits HIS purposes. I am convinced that he can’t even spell the word Conservative.

The four-term senator and his allies also are taking aim at Hayworth. In December, they filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission arguing that the talk show host was a de facto candidate and his radio station was providing a corporate gift by allowing him to campaign on the air. And they’re attacking Hayworth’s 12-year record as a congressman representing the eastern suburbs of Phoenix.

In other words, McCain and Crew are scared.

“When Arizona voters are reminded of Mr. Hayworth’s long record in Washington of liberal spending and questionable ethics, he will be defeated again just as he was in 2006,” said McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers.

C’mon Mr. Rogers, surely you don’t really want to go there? Accuse someone of having a liberal record? Your man McCain has never met a libber he didn’t side with. That ploy is going to take a lot of spinning to make viable, and could very well blow up in your face.

Democrat Harry Mitchell defeated Hayworth four years ago, winning the GOP-dominated district amid a rough national climate for Republicans and questions about Hayworth’s dealings with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Hayworth ran a conservative campaign emphasizing his opposition to illegal immigration, but he was dogged by a reputation for being an angry and combative partisan, highlighted by an editorial in the state’s largest newspaper recommending “Mitchell over the bully.”

Ahhh, Jack Abramoff. There’s a red flag boogieman! I think the mention of his name is supposed to strike fear into the hearts of all Christian people, or so Hayworth’s opposition believes.

So, let me ask this, was Mr. Hayworth indicted for his dealings with Abramoff? Was he tried in a court of law and found guilty of ANY wrong doing? Did he lose his job, his fortune or his standing in the community because of a conviction? Or, is the accusation, the implication of wrongdoing simply all that his opponents feel is necessary to make Hayworth look bad? A bit of mud slinging perhaps?

And for someone in the McCain campaign to call Hayworth “angry and combative“? When John McCain is your guy? Really? 

McCain wrote the book on anger and displaying it. He snarls better, and more often than Dick Cheney did. But I think Cheney is a very likable guy, and he’s NOT a blasted RINO!

Hayworth said he decided to quit the show and run for Congress in late January after holding “town-hall meetings five days a week” with his conservative listeners.

They are angry, Hayworth says, about McCain’s history of teaming with Democrats on key issues. In the past decade McCain has worked with Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin on campaign finance reform and with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts on an immigration bill that would have created a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

Mr. Hayworth is correct on this matter. McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, quite a few other areas that many felt placed John McCain squarely in the Dem/Libber camp, those birds are coming home to roost.

Many Americans don’t like John McCain. Many Americans have seen John McCain for what he is, a RINO, a wild card, and a highly unpredictable, angry old man that thinks these things make him a maverick.

The reality of the matter is, they make him look like the old fool he really is. McCain can’t be counted on to stand as a Conservative. Personally, I feel that his biggest supporters, Palin and Brown, may well be cut from the same cloth. That’s just MY opinion.

What’s that old saying about sleeping with dogs and waking with fleas? What do you wake up with if you sleep with the RINOs?

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Bookmark and Share
Return: Top of Home Page

12 Responses to “Sen. McCain faces toughest re-election challenge”

  1. comment number 1 by: Robert

    Well I can see Brown doing some of the same things McCain has done, I’m not so sure about Palin. I don’t think Palin would be liberals friend on ANY issue but that’s just a gut feeling, not based on anything more. Sarah is stumping for McCain for one reason, she owes him. She has come out publicly against the things we have mentioned about McCain. Brown on the other hand I believe is more Olympia Snowe than McClintock….

    I’m not sure how things are in AZ, but whoever wins needs to understand the anger and frustration the people of the entire country are feeling right now. McCain needs to be voted out, along with ALL incumbents if need be…A serious RESET is needed and if that means we lose a few GOOD ones for a couple of years to send a message then so be it.

  2. comment number 2 by: Ron Russell

    J.D. could present a strong challenge to McCain, perhaps one of the strongest he’s had in some time. Little doubt about McCain being a RINO and thats why the MSM often fond over his every word, except when he’s up against someone like a far-left guy like Obama, then and only then do they ignore him. Little doubt about it McCain is a poster boy for the “hands across the aisle” folks. I don’t believe in any compromise with those on the left. “Middle of the Road” and “compromise” do not sit well on my shelf. I look back at history and the so-called “great compromises” such as that fostered by Henry Clay. Those compromises never work out in the end and just push things further down the road until in the end they collapse and the damage caused is even greater than it would have been without them to begin with. If I lived in Arizona I would have to vote for J.D.

  3. comment number 3 by: BobF

    McCain’s bringing in Palin and Brown in hopes of convincing people in Arizona he’s a Conservative. During his campaign, he constantly said he was a Conservative. A true Conservative doesn’t need to go around the country trying to convince everyone he’s Conservative.

  4. comment number 4 by: HoosierArmyMom

    McCain is a Progressive RINO and his daughter is yapping her mouth and showing she is a Progressive too. All us old people need to step aside and let her have Health Care. I think Meghan has been taking some heavy drugs! But she learned that BS someplace!!!

  5. comment number 5 by: Malinda777

    J.D. Hayworth was the keynote speaker for our Lincoln Day dinner last evening…I was VERY IMPRESSED with his take on things. I wish him much luck in AZ.

  6. comment number 6 by: Vigilante

    If you remember, right after Brown was elected in Mass. and the news was showing him hanging with Mccain and saying he was especially thankfull to McCain for guiding him along the way, I said then that he was going to be just like that old bastard.
    He was holding hands with John F”n kerry and dingy harry also, all smiles and probably had a tingle goin up his leg. Then palin spent too long a time with the old shitbag and now, she won’t come right out and say it but then again she won’t deny it either that she’s all for this amnesty shit. Screw these F****Kin assholes. What is so g’dmd hard for the politicians to understand about chasing these bastards out of our country and saving the taxpayers 300 billion a year? It is getting DAM frustrating of trying to tell them it’s what the people want, NOT what they want. CHRIST!!!!!!!!! Lock’n'Load

  7. comment number 7 by: Bloviating Zeppelin

    This isn’t necessarily going to be a “vote out only the Demorats” year.

    This is, as I indicated, going to be a basic “vote out the Demorats AND, while we’re at it, vote out pretty much ALL the incumbents” year.

    Because, for the most part, the Republicans are as cohesive and united as jello nailed to a tree.

    BZ

  8. comment number 8 by: minuteman26

    HAM - Have to agree with you on McCain’s daughter. She tells you all you need to know on how he really thinks and what goes on a the “supper table”. The daughter is one of J.D. Hayworth’s biggest assets. If that was my kid I’d find a way to have her committed.

  9. comment number 9 by: Don

    McCain’s daughter is an idiot. There, I said it

    But I can see Palin endorsing McCain. I mean she is in a no win situation on that one. Had he not picked her as his VEEP candidate she would in all likelihood still be up in Alaska and not on the national scene. She probably feels loyalty to him, and I admire that. The easy thing, politically for her to do would be to back Hayworth or to stay out of it all together. But she is being loyal to McCain. While I don’t agree with her endorsement, I can see why she did it. Will her endorsement get McCain elected? Nope. His record is working against him, so nothing she could do will alter that.

    Is McCain a conservative? Only on national defense, I would say. Other than that, he leans too much to left for my tastes.

  10. comment number 10 by: cary

    Speaking as one who has been “represented” by McCain for far too long - he is an angry old washed up politician. Palin is his buddy, and Scott Brown, while very conservative in the eyes of Massachusetts, is not even conservative enough to be considered less than progressive in the rest of the country.

    While JD may bluster and bully, he’s doing it to keep the conservative ideals out front and in front of the people. He’s doing it to get the idea across to the libbers that the status quo ain’t good enough for the people the representatives are supposed to be working for. He’s not blustering and bullying to get a pet bill passed, unlike a certain old washed up politician I could name.

  11. comment number 11 by: Patrick Sperry

    Cary stole my thunder! As far as I am concerned, McCain,as I have said for many years, lost any support whatsoever when he came to Colorado post Columbine,and said that we needed more gun laws… Like eighteen felony’s committed before the shootings wasn’t enough..? Like any more laws would have stopped those maniacs?

    Get rid of McCain AZ, the nation needs you to do that!

  12. comment number 12 by: Right Truth

    I wrote earlier that McCain is Palin’s RINO problem, and that if she campaigns for him it will be a big negative for her. I realize that she is doing it out of a feeling that she owes him for putting her on the ticket with him, but this is a mistake on her part.