Hayworth Launches Challenge from the Right
The GOP’s Tea Party insurgency has officially set its sights on 2008 GOP Presidential candidate John McCain, its most ambitious target to date.
Earlier today, JD Hayworth, former “class of 1994” Congressman and Arizona talk radio host, officially entered the Arizona Republican Senate primary.
As if to brandish his far-right (and immigration hawk) credibility, Hayworth took the stage today in Phoenix with Sherriff Joe Arpaio and Minuteman Militia founder and (now former) GOP Senate candidate Chris Simcox.
Hayworth then cast his candidacy as a populist uprising against Washington:
You and I will be part of what will be a classic political match-up, with confrontation: John McCain and the Washington establishment on one side, and “WE THE PEOPLE” on the other. The other side has the establishment but we will take you – and everyone else.
For a majority of the speech, the former Congressman channeled the far-right’s most common complaints about McCain, slamming the Arizona Senator’s support for a proposed spending freeze, the 2009 economic stimulus package, cap and trade legislation, the shuttering of Guantanamo, and, of course, McCain’s own 2007 immigration bill.
Hayworth is McCain’s first serious primary challenge since entering the Senate. Rasmussen’s most recent survey gives McCain a large lead over Hayworth, but the challenger may gain momentum after his announcement.
The big question, however, is whether Hayworth can harness sufficient GOP grassroots anger at McCain and Washington to upend an Arizona and national political institution.
Though McCain has carried Arizona with large victories in the past, his statewide victories relied heavily on moderates, independents and voters from both parties and not the Republican rank-and-file.