McCain Verses Hayworth

Robert Stacy McCain at the American Spectator (doing great work, by the way, subscribe to their magazine) writes about the Senate primary race in Arizona. A couple money quotes:

“Obviously, the gulf between my opponent’s rhetoric and the reality is so great it exceeds the geographic dimensions of our own Grand Canyon,” Hayworth says. “It’s more than a credibility gap, it’s a credibility canyon.… If he was really concerned about [the influence of political contributions], he certainly seems to have gotten over it very quickly.”

Whether McCain’s big money will be enough to secure his re-election, it undoubtedly gives him advantages against Hayworth, whose low-budget campaign doesn’t expect to match the incumbent dollar-for-dollar in the five months between now and the August 24 primary.

“We know we’re not going to out-raise him,” Hayworth says. “We’re not going to out-spend him.”

No way! John McCain is using big money to win an election? I thought he wanted money out of campaigns?

And then there is the recent hard tack to the right. It seems John McCain suddenly finds the border issue an important law enforcement issue:

But 2010 is not 2004, and in the intervening years, McCain led a legislative push to grant amnesty to illegal aliens — a very unpopular stance in Arizona, especially with Republican and conservative-leaning independents. (Arizona election law allows registered independents to vote in either party primary.) A Rasmussen poll last year found that Arizona voters considered immigration a more important issue than health-care reform and 65 percent said “enforcing the borders is more important than legalizing the status of those already living here.”

The immigration issue has “gotten bigger” in Arizona recently, Hayworth says, after a Cochise County rancher was found shot dead Saturday near the Mexican border, a crime that law-enforcement officials suggest was committed by illegal aliens or smugglers who have made the border an increasingly dangerous place.

“Border security is national security and it is time that we enforce the law,” Hayworth said in a press release reacting to the killing of 58-year-old Rob Krentz, whose family has owned a cattle ranch near the border for more than a century. “For thousands of Arizonans, border security is also quite literally a matter of personal security.”

Allah is amused:

I came thisclose to headlining the post “comedy gold.” What miracles hath this Hayworth primary challenge wrought!

From the man who once famously groused about conservatives’ desire to build a “goddamned fence” and then denied voting for it when pressed by Univision during the campaign, I give you John McCain – border warrior:

This is why primaries are so important. I’m guessing the reason that John McCain is finding his conservative soul is because his internal polling looks terrible.

So many of these politicians have sat in Washington, ignored American sentiment, and ignored their own constituents. There are many races where I feel less than enthusiastic about the primary challenger, but the incumbent has such a long history of betraying fiscal conservatism and self-aggrandizement, that I want them to go.

Politics should not be a lifetime sport with lush retirement package. But that’s how it goes now, in DC. Politicians get into office, get bought off by big interests, and then stay in office with the money received from those big interests. John McCain’s McCain-Feingold act made the problem even worse–but it turned out better for John McCain. The law protected incumbents.

Well, there should be no protection for incumbents. They should have to defend their positions, defend their votes and be at least marginally responsive to their constituents. I mean, at least pretend you give a damn what your voters think. Man.

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