Thread: John McCain fighting for his political life in Arizona

John McCain fighting for his political life in the Arizona desert

John McCain, the senator and former presidential candidate, is fighting for his political life in Arizona after a challenge by "JD" Hayworth, a talk radio host.

By Alex Spillius in Phoenix, Arizona
Published: 8:00AM BST 25 Apr 2010

John McCain

Senator John McCain addresses the crowd during a campaign rally in Mesa, Arizona Photo: AP

Just 18 months ago John McCain was narrowly leading Barack Obama in the opinion polls and stood every chance of becoming the leader of the free world.

Then the banking collapse and the greatest recession for 70 years put paid to his hopes of reaching the White House, and eight weeks later his bid on the national stage was confined to history.

Now the veteran senator is instead fighting for his political life in the desert heat of his home turf of Arizona – against a right-wing former talk-radio host who is attempting to seize the Republican nomination for this autumn's election.

Forced to scrabble for votes across the state at fund-raisers, town hall meetings and luncheon appearances with all the intensity of a first-time candidate, supporters of the 73-year-old Sen McCain admit that he faces an unexpectedly serious challenge for the Senate seat he has held for 24 years.

He has even had to ask Sarah Palin, whom he catapulted to fame as his vice-presidential nominee but whom some advisers came to despise, to appear alongside him to beef up his support in the Republican primary.

"There's no doubt it's a challenging race," said Wes Gullett, a long time friend of Sen McCain and deputy manager of his failed 2000 bid for the Republican presidential nomination. "John clearly thinks so because he is working his ass off."

Bruce Merrill, the state's pre-eminent pollster and political analyst at Arizona State University, said: "John is taking this race very seriously indeed. It wouldn't be shocking if it was very close, or if he even lost."

On Friday Sen McCain was in Phoenix, the state capital, to drum up support from the city's chamber of commerce. "I love campaigning, I love a good fight and we're having a great time," he told The Sunday Telegraph.

But like other moderate Republicans facing re-election in November's midterm polls, he is under attack from the Right of the party that has rediscovered its voice in opposition to President Obama's health care reform and lavish spending to prop up the economy.

In Arizona, that challenge has come in the colourful form of John "JD" Hayworth, a former Republican congressman and broadcaster with broad shoulders, excellent vocal projection and Trump-like hair.

"It's not personal, but four terms in the Senate is a long time. People are saying let someone new get this done," Mr Hayworth told The Sunday Telegraph.

Embracing the Tea Party values of low tax and small government, he is riding a wave of anti-Washington sentiment that threatens long-serving politicians across the country. The recession, which in the Phoenix area has pushed 50 per cent of homes into negative equity, has strengthened the wind at his back.

Portraying himself as the only "consistent conservative" in the race, Mr Hayworth is anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage and sceptical about man-made climate change.

He routinely attacks Sen McCain on immigration, a sensitive issue in a state bordering Mexico. Violence from the criminal gangs behind human trafficking and drug running have spilt across the frontier while large areas of Phoenix have become Spanish-speaking ghettoes.

Sen McCain, says Mr Hayworth, has stopped listening to his base. "Woe to any constituent who stood up to talk about border security. They would receive a lecture from John. John has basically decided that what John thinks is the way it ought to be.

"Washington sees immigration as a policy problem. It's not. It's an invasion, a national security threat and a personal security threat to people living on the border and inland."

His message is well received by the well-heeled members of the Palo Verde Republican Women's Club, whom he addressed on Thursday at a lunch.

Demonstrating rhetorical talents learnt in his years as a television sports presenter, Mr Hayworth added scholarly flourishes to his performance, quoting Disraeli and impersonating both Winston and Clementine Churchill.

Afterwards, ladies nearly half his 6'5" frame and quite a bit more than his 51 years queued up to squeeze his hand and offer support.

"It's such a big year because the whole fabric of our society is being challenged," said Joyce Worrall, over salad, chicken and walnut cake. "It's like restaurants in London – you just don't hear English any more. The kids don't speak English. There used to be assimilation but it's not happening now."

To such voters, McCain's greatest crime was coauthoring an immigration reform bill in 2007 with the late and very liberal Democrat Edward Kennedy. Shot down in flames of indignation, critics said it offered 12 million illegal immigrants what amounted to an amnesty.

Such bipartisanship won McCain plaudits nationally and defined his Senate career, but in Arizona it has won him disdain from hard-core party activists, the 30 per cent of local Republicans who see the senator as a liberal in disguise, or a "Rino" – a Republican In Name Only.

Unfortunately for him, they are the voters most likely to take part in primary elections, which select a party's candidate.

The McCain campaign's internal polling has him 15 to 20 percentage points ahead, but other polls have put the gap at only eight to 10 for the vote in August – a dangerously slim margin.

"JD does very well with people that tend to vote in a primary, so this will be much closer than people think," said Mr Merrill.

To try and win back diehard conservatives, Sen McCain has undergone what his opponent calls a "campaign year conversion".

He has backed a draconian "stop and search" Arizonan law to clamp down on the state's estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants that was criticised by President Obama on Friday for undermining American values.

He now criticises the highly unpopular $700 billion Wall Street bail-out bill for which he voted – saying he was fooled by the Bush administration – and in another change says the Guantánamo Bay detention centre should stay open.

Brian Rogers, a spokesman for McCain 2010, responded: "He has a very consistent record, and was a fiscal conservative for a long time before it became fashionable. What is more, McCain has been a thorn in the side of the Obama administration on health care and the stimulus."

Mr Hayworth enjoys name recognition but carries baggage of his own from 12 years in Congress and in 2006 he lost a very safe seat to a Democrat. His booming style earned the sobriquet Foghorn Leghorn, after the large rooster in the Looney Tunes, and none of his former colleagues in Congress from Arizona have endorsed him.

"The only exception I take to my opponent is he claims he is a conservative," said Sen McCain, adding that Mr Hayworth, when in Congress, regularly voted for overindulgent government projects.

Sen McCain survived five years in a North Vietnamese prison and, more recently, two bruising national campaigns, and Wes Gullett is convinced his old warhorse of a friend still has the stomach for battle.

"He would rather not have this fight, but he has, and he has never backed down from a fight in his life. In fact, it gets him fired up," he said.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/25a487s

He should give up as he is only holding back the Republican Party. We don't want to see the party die.

If the truth about "songbird' McCain's war record was exposed, he would not even be in the running.
I've read where many people backed him only because he was a war "hero". He was not. He was a traitor and has managed to hide that fact all these years.

McCain needs to retire...he's obsolete and basically irrelevant!

Source link provided above doesn't work correctly so will post this for the record:
www.telegraph.co.uk

McCain claims in a campaign ad that he's "been working on closing the border for years and years." Then why is it still wide open?

McCain is currently introducing SB 3081 the "Enemy Belligerent Bill" written by McCain and Lieberman, which will allow the government to arrest and detain indefinitely any American citizen whom they deem to be "belligerent." Tea Party members have already been accused of being belligerent and violent, even though their protests are peaceful, unlike the protesters in Phoenix this weekend who rioted at the state capitol and threw water bottles at police officers (the bottles did hit them) because the illegal alien advocates oppose AZ SB 1070. Yet the unbiased media stated this riot was not violent. Just who will be appointed to be the judge of who is belligerent?

http://www.kvoa.com/news/protestors-say ... efends-it/

TUCSON - Protestors were downtown Saturday are targeting a controversial bill introduced by Senator John McCain.

The flak is over Senate Bill 3081, called the Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010.

The proposed law would allow the military to detain suspected enemy belligerents.

It was introduced on March 4, and now sits in a Senate judiciary committee.

Protestors argue the constitutionality of the bill saying no charges or trial would be required, and it would also restrict government money from being used to prosecute those suspects.

In a statement, Senator McCain says because the Al Qaida terrorist who tried to blow up an airplane on Christmas day had the right to remain silent, we lost potentially valuable intelligence that could have made us safer.

McCain says the goal is to prevent near-disasters like the Christmas day inciden from ever happening again.

"They're using the word Al Qaida in there but really that could be anyone they determine an enemy belligerent," says Russell Smith.

"I love this country and I don't want to see it go into a police state," says Betty Thompson.

"It bypasses the judicial system, it bypasses the police force. Anybody could be considered a terrorist based upon their profiling," says Carlos Prophet.

Below is Sen. McCain's statement in its entirety:

On Christmas Day of last year, an Al-Qaeda terrorist nearly blew up an airplane full of civilians on American soil, and because this Administration told him he had the right to remain silent, we lost potentially valuable intelligence that could have made us safer. Americans are furious about this, and the goal of this bill is to prevent disasters like that from ever happening again. This bill recognizes that we are at war, and that the military should be in charge of holding terrorists we capture and trying them in military tribunals. This bill is not focused on American citizens, but rather terrorists who are at war with America and want to murder innocent civilians. This bill is completely consistent with the U.S. Constitution and the Supreme Court's interpretation of it. This bill does not give the U.S. government any additional authorities to detain American citizens and hold them without trials. This bill protects the Constitutional right of all Americans, even those who have been captured by our government for making common cause with terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, to challenge our government's detention of them before a judge in a court of law.