Hayworth's Phony Conservatism

Today on the radio, Mark Levin blasted John McCain as a "phony" and praised his challenger JD Hayworth as the "solid conservative" in the race. But Hayworth falls short even by Levin's own standards.

Not content to lose a House seat for the Republican Party, J.D. Hayworth now wants to help us lose a Senate seat, too. In what is shaping up to be an embarrassing display of ritualistic cannibalism, talk radio is coalescing around Hayworth in his race against John McCain. The most noxious of the declarations of support for Hayworth came, predictably, from Mark Levin.

“This is a race about a conservative versus a phony,” said Levin. So far, so good: there is indeed a phony running against a conservative. Alas, Mr. Levin stumbles into confusion as he keeps speaking: "McCain is not a solid conservative. You want to send a signal that will be heard all over the world? Elect J.D. and defeat McCain."

In case anyone has forgotten, J.D. Hayworth is the man who used his PAC money to pay his wife a six-figure sum, and was the top recipient of illicit loot from the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He's the man who broke his term-limits pledge as a congressman and actually had the gall to repeat the same pledge as he entered the Senate race. He appeals to birthers. He's the man who promises to break with his party in the right way, unlike McCain -- and yet he voted for the unsustainable Medicare, Pt. D expansion that McCain voted against. He's the man who voted for the infamous pork-stuffed Highway Bill of 2005 -- the bill containing the notorious Bridge to Nowhere. By Levin's own standards, isn't Hayworth a statist?

McCain is not a "solid" conservative in the mold of Jim DeMint. To that extent, Mark Levin is right, I guess. But J.D. Hayworth is cynical to the core -- not to mention a proven loser. We could indeed nominate J.D. Hayworth. And by doing so, we'd send a signal that would be heard all around the world, alright: that we as a party have utterly lost our minds.