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The Water Cooler Title: McCain Poised To Crush Hayworth On Tuesday J.D. Hayworth sought to capitalize on Arizona Republicans’ anxiety about illegal immigration and the fervor of the Tea Party movement to unseat Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). But McCain ran a brutally effective campaign against the former congressman and now is poised to secure a crushing victory over him on Tuesday. “It’s over with,” said Jim Haynes, who directs the Behavior Research Center, a Phoenix-based polling firm. Two years after winning his party’s presidential nomination, McCain was in danger of losing his Senate seat in a primary challenge. His bid for the White House had drawn his attention away from Arizona and put a national spotlight on his support for immigration reform — a controversial issue in his home state. “It was always a long shot, but yes, a shot," Haynes said of Hayworth's challenge. "He had some opportunities with McCain’s immigration stance during his presidential campaign." To shore up his right flank, McCain drifted away from some of the issues he championed years ago. He gave a muted response to the recent Supreme Court decision that lifted restrictions he helped pass on campaign spending. He also stopped pushing for immigration reform and instead touted his support for increased security along the border — including a fence he once opposed. He also went on offense early against Hayworth, who had spent months blasting McCain from the studio of his talk radio show. Even before Hayworth officially got into the race, McCain’s campaign was already bringing up his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The McCain camp challenged Hayworth to disclose the donors to his Freedom in Truth Trust (FITT), which he set up in 2008 to pay down legal bills stemming from the Abramoff lobbying scandal. Hayworth responded by bringing up the Keating Five scandal, but he never used the issue in a TV ad. McCain, meanwhile, saved a TV ad linking Abramoff and Hayworth for the closing stages of the campaign — effectively putting the nail in the coffin of his rival’s effort. Once Hayworth was in the race, he started soliciting support from Arizona Tea Party groups. “I think it’s vital to have Tea Party support,” Hayworth told The Hill back in March. “A lot of people [are] getting involved for the first time. It’s 1994 to the 10th power.” Here he had some modest success, eventually getting the backing of more than a dozen local organizations. But McCain was able to neutralize that momentum by bringing in Sarah Palin, an icon of many Tea Party activists, for two rallies in March. “It’s a beautiful, grass-roots movement. It’s putting government back on the side of people,” Palin said at a rally in Tucson with McCain. “Everybody here today who supports John McCain, we are all part of that Tea Party movement.” The turning point came in June, when the McCain campaign released two TV spots that used footage from a 2007 infomercial for National Grants Conferences which featured Hayworth telling viewers that government "free money grants" were not "too good to be true." “It seemed like coinciding with that whole onslaught, all of a sudden you heard nothing from Hayworth,” said Haynes said, whose firm conducted polls before and after the ads aired. Hayworth eventually responded to McCain's infomercial ads with a spot accusing the senator of "lying" about his support for the "amnesty bill," but the damage was already done. A survey conducted after the infomercial ads went up on the air showed McCain widening his lead on Hayworth. McCain got 64 percent of the test vote, compared to only 19 percent for Hayworth, in a Rocky Mountain Poll by BRC released in July. An April survey by the group showed Hayworth getting 28 percent to 54 percent for McCain. “The people holding the purse strings saw that McCain was crushing him — Hayworth’s funding dried up,” Haynes said. Hayworth raised $413,000 in July, according to his Federal Election Commission filing, which was a slight drop from his second quarter monthly totals when he was taking in an average of $450,000. McCain raised an average of almost $765,000 in the final four months of the campaign. “That was an error in personal judgment,” Hayworth said about appearing in the infomercials. “I apologized for that.” In a television interview Friday, he insisted he would make “history” Tuesday by defeating McCain. If he doesn’t, there’s unlikely to be any sort of unity event. Hayworth would only say he’d “support the Republican ticket” — but not McCain himself — if he lost. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: Brian S (#0)
Couldn't Hayworth do one of those last minute telephone push polls questioning McInsane's sanity? There I go repeating myself.
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