The American Spectator

Matt X| 7.1.10 @ 6:20PM

I agree National Review's piece was a little harsh on Hayworth (and seemed a bit like "cut and paste" of a Matt Lewis column), and I'd be willing to give another guy a shot at least. There's always the next election if he turns out to be no good.

Eric Cartman| 7.1.10 @ 6:26PM

Ok, fine. He's a conservative (who pushed "how to get billions from the government and never pay it back"). But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, can save him from being a putz! He's a clown! Like I said, can't they BOTH lose?!

Patrick| 7.1.10 @ 11:32PM

JD Hayworth will be superior in his behavior, demeanor, ethics, intelligence and VOTING RECORD to 60 Senators at least 218 Congress-critter and the current WH occupant.

It is an utter and absolute OUTRAGE that McCain cannot run on his feeble RINO record but has to slam, slime, and bash JD ... WHERE WAS THE LONG KNIVES WHEN MCCAIN WAS RUNNING AGAINST OBAMA?

That tells you ALL you need to know as to why JD MUST WIN for conservatives to win.

George| 7.2.10 @ 12:52PM

Well, JD would be better than Al Franken. At least he'd be our clown.

I'm told by people I serve with that when you sit down with JD and discuss issues, he is thoughtful and insightful. I guess. But that sense never came thru on his radio show nor in his speeches.

For all McCain's shortcomings, he does have basic conservative substance.

Matt X| 7.1.10 @ 6:38PM

Eric,

Mark Levin has this to say over at his facebook page:

Meanwhile, McCain and his operatives have spent millions digging up dirt on Hayworth -- not corruption, not unethical activity, but dirt that will show him to be a hypocrite. Now, this is funny. McCain is flipping and flopping all over the place, but we are to be moved by Hayworth's appearance in that infomercial where he is pushing free federal grants. Until yesterday, McCain's official website was informing visitors how to secure all kinds of government grants and contracts and loans. I posted it on this site. Now they've apparently hidden it somewhere on his website's back pages.

Eric Cartman| 7.1.10 @ 7:49PM

Like I said, can't the BOTH lose? Hayworth is a putz - I mean a REAL putz - he is just terrible. Meanwhile, McCain is a RINO backstabber. It's just a toss up of who is worse. Gawd, a state that produces Jan Brewer has only THESE two clowns to offer? I don't believe it.

Dixie Pixie| 7.2.10 @ 11:42AM

Greetings Eric Cartman

For both to lose, that would mean a Obama Democrat as an Arizona Senator.
Not the best of outcomes.

Margie| 7.1.10 @ 6:45PM

I remember J.D. from the 90's when I used to watch c-span a lot. I was just discovering Rush and got interested in following politics. I always knew J.D. was one of the good guys and big darn deal if he does an info-mercial about gov. grants, if that's what it is. There are worse things.

And you're right, Quin. He's definitely a natural! (I know you said natural conservatism, but he's a natural guy, too). I really truly wish him well.

Matt X| 7.1.10 @ 6:47PM

I'd do info commericals for government grants too, if they paid me good money for it. Teh heh. I'lll sell out for money. Not for Dave Weigel though. But you knew that.

Kyle| 7.1.10 @ 7:02PM

Why would people be mad at Hayworth for letting people know what grants the government is offering? If not enough people took the grant money and there was a surplus, would the money have gone back to the tax payers? Wasn't it elected politicians who committed our tax dollars to these grants in the first place? Maybe even John McCain?

darcy| 7.2.10 @ 6:27AM

As a broadcaster, JD took on a number of jobs that employed his elocution skills, the now much- maligned infomercial among them.

I will be voting for JD on Aug. 24. I will dance in the streets when he beats McCain, of the ruling class, aka, the Republican establishment, the co-conspirators in our nation's descent into despotism. The man who was for amnesty before he was for building the dang fence needs himself to be fenced, as in being "put out to pasture." I will certainly be doing my part to usher him into a long-overdue retirement.

Matt X| 7.1.10 @ 6:50PM

It is kind of amazing how every politician seems to have some kind of skeleton in the closet or weird comment they've made in the past. But if Weigel is a great journalist by David Frum's standards, maybe we also set the bar to high with politicians?

Al Adab| 7.1.10 @ 7:37PM

McCain-Kennedy
McCain-Feingold

How can he explain those away to the voters of AZ?

serfer62| 7.1.10 @ 8:08PM

Its not the lesser-of-2-evils, McNasty is totally evil.
JD will be an upgrade for AZ & the USA reguardless of quibblings over assumed faults.

Nate| 7.1.10 @ 8:35PM

The idea that McCain is not a conservative because he's not a frothing reactionary nut-job is just weird. What exactly is your definition of a conservative? People who claim this label seem to have less and less of an idea about what it means. The anti-intellectual chickens on the right have come home to roost.

Liberal Reader| 7.1.10 @ 10:13PM

Nate is a troll and thinks that he is credible. Even his friends find him a little unstable. Sorry, friend. OK his mom.

Matt X| 7.1.10 @ 8:50PM

McCain is as stupid as they come. He finished 3rd to last in his class at the Naval Academy. I wouldn't tout him as some kind of intellectual.

Nate| 7.1.10 @ 10:37PM

Matt X

I think you'd be embarrassed by this post if you knew Eisenhower's ranking at West Point. Although I suppose to be a conservative these days means to agree with the John Birch Society that Eisenhower was a communist .....

Ron Turner| 7.2.10 @ 10:07AM

Where did you finish at the Naval Academy Mr. X?

Matt X| 7.1.10 @ 8:52PM

Nate,

How about you tell us what a real conservative is? I don't doubt it's what you might call....a liberal.

Nate| 7.1.10 @ 10:34PM

Matt X

The overall sense of what it means to be conservative has changed greatly in recent decades.

Not to long ago, to be a conservative meant first and foremost to have a "Buy American" bumper sticker on your (American made) car. Ever since the conservative movement fell under the sway of the so-called neo-liberals and began to worship the Invisible Hand of the Global Market, we haven't heard so much about buying American from them because they're just tools of massive corporate interests that don't even have offices in the U.S.

I would think that being a conservative means favoring less government over more, and favoring federalist principles. It means favoring a restrained judiciary over an activist one, and it means honoring American customs, the military, and traditional morality.

But it was once far more animated by civic spirit. Civic spirit, mind you, is not the demented patriotic bathos you hear on right wing radio. It was a genuine belief in American institutions, one that was basically shared by Democrats and Republicans. Conservatism has always favored institutions over mobs. But there's been a change there too. Now conservatives mope and whine and bray about the evils of education, journalism, government -- essentially about any organization that nurtures long study and some kind of expertise. And it shows. Your heroes -- Michelle Bachmann, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, the bunch of them -- are morons.

McCain seems to me of an older type of conservative that doesn't fit into the revanchist mob of white nationalists the right has become.

Tim*| 7.1.10 @ 11:51PM

" Bachmann grew up in Anoka, graduating from Anoka High School in 1974. She graduated from Winona State University and later received her J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University and an LL.M. degree in tax law from the College of William and Mary's Marshall-Wythe School of Law. She was a member of the final graduating class of Oral Roberts' law school, and was part of a group of faculty, staff, and students who moved the ORU law school to what is now Regent University."

Ryan| 7.2.10 @ 8:00AM

What legislation has McCain sponsored that was conservative?

Matt X| 7.1.10 @ 10:55PM

Nate,

I appreciate your responses.

I want to point out that Eisenhower is not considered a conservative by any conservative I know. He is mostly remembered for not doing much, which, can be argue, isn't all that bad.

You touted McCain as an intellectual. I don't see how pointing to Eisenhower poor record in academics helps you make your case for McCain.

I never hear about the John Birch Society outside of liberals like you and disgruntled conservatives like Frum. I don't think they've been that mainstream, and I don't think any conservative, including the "evil" Joe McCarthy, accused Eisenhower of being a communist.

Nate| 7.1.10 @ 11:03PM

Matt

Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society, accused both Truman and Eisenhower of being active agents of the Soviets and communists.

I didn't claim that McCain was an "intellectual." I think he's obviously pretty smart, and he has wit. (Something lacking in 98% of politicians today.)

My larger point is that conservatives once sympathized with higher learning, high art, and cultural institutions in general. William F. Buckley used to play Bach on his harpsichord for dinner guests. Sarah Palin would cheer crowds to burn someone in effigy for being so "elitist" as to even now who Bach was.

Tim*| 7.1.10 @ 11:29PM

" Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public . "

SoCon| 7.3.10 @ 3:13AM

It's amazing to me that Nate the Commie clown is still here haranguing us about the pecadilloes of various Conservatives when Democrats are burying one of their own who was once a proud Kleagle of the KKK. Absolutely amazing.

Chutzpa, anyone?

You can call me a lot of things, but never a recruiting officer in the Ku Klux Klan.

You must be so proud, troll.

Matt X| 7.1.10 @ 11:04PM

Nate,

Your anti-free trade rhetoric reminds me of Pat Buchanan, although he can make the fair trade arguement more intelligently than you. Conservatives are pro-consumer, and if you are pro-consumer, you want to encourage a global marketplace.....more competition equals lower prices on the things we buy, and that's a good thing, especially the poor. This "buy American" mindset will only ensure you pay more for the things you need and want. Ironically, you accuse conservatives of being "white nationalists" in a post which you warmly embrace a "buy American" nationalistic and ignorant approach to free market theory.

Nate| 7.1.10 @ 11:07PM

Nate,

I'm pretty sure your anti-free trade rhetoric is something the John Birch folk support. What you are trying to do is what Weigel was hired to do.....try to paint conservatives out as radicals by associating us with groups that are not that conservative and few people even know about. I understand what your debate trick is.

John Thacker| 7.1.10 @ 11:11PM

McCain was willing to oppose Bush and the Republican trend-- both for good (prescription drugs, spending in general) and for ill. Hayworth is someone with team player instincts who went along with the crowd-- both for good and for ill.

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

Matt X| 7.1.10 @ 11:14PM

Given your irrational hatred for conservative talk radio, most of which is not too fond of McCain, I would conclude that you may be pretending to be fond of McCain now, after you voted for Obama, of course. He's just your prop to attack conservatives, but I don't think even John McCain would call himself an intellectual. If you want to make that case, go for it.

Conservatives do criticize government when it overreaches, but that does not mean we are anti-government and think it has no role in society. You present a classic false choice.

We criticize journalism when it's sloppy and biased while pretending to be otherwise...this is what citizens do, and it does not mean we see no role in society for journalism....we criticize bad journalism because we want objective journalism. Again, you present another false choice.

You do the same with education. No conservative criticises the need for education....I went to college and earned a degree in mechanical engineering, but if we go by your irrational rhetoric, somehow I'm anti-education? When we criticize education, we criticize the flaws in the systems, in the hope they will be improved, so everybody attains a better education. This is what good citizens do.

Matt X| 7.1.10 @ 11:24PM

Nate,

It appears that the John Birch Society, which you call "conservative", is actually more in line with your anti-free trade rhetoic. They also seem to believe in some kind of NAFTA superhighway, which I think was proven to be a conspiracy theory....I believe Rand Paul took some heat being one of those guys. Teh heh.

From the John Birth website:

Stop the NAFTA Super Highway
Posted by: john_lyon56 on May 15, 2010

I spoke to Arizona Senator John Nelson on the evening of 5-10-2010 at the monthly meeting of the LD12 GOP. He did not remember dealing this session with any bill proposing to repeal legislation passed last year regarding the NAFTA Superhighway or an "inland port" with Mexico. I sent the following e-mail to refresh his memory and to ask for an update:

Hello, Senator Nelson,

I am curious about the current status of SB1383, which was proposed in February of 2010 to repeal the Arizona International Development Authority (AIDA), the bureaucracy SB1320 created last year to oversee the development of Arizona's part of the NAFTA Super Highway. Besides being unconstitutional, AIDA goes against the legislature's own request to Washington, D.C.:

In 2008, the Arizona Legislature--along with other states--enacted a resolution (HCM2003), urging the federal government "Not to enter into construction of a North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA] superhighway system or a union with Mexico and Canada and to reevaluate existing treaties and agreements for compliance with this memorial."

SB 1383 was supposed to be debated in the Natural Resources, Infrastructure and Public Debt Committee, where you are chairman. I hope you will support efforts to repeal any legislation dealing with a NAFTA Super Highway, or any "inland port" connected with the North American Union.
With our federal government firmly in corrupt hands, state legislatures must be ever vigilant to protect the American people from unconstitutional encroachments. I hope the Arizona legislature will do its part.

Matt X| 7.1.10 @ 11:29PM

William Buckley and Ronald Reagan are every liberals favorite conservative. Being dead is the only thing that makes liberals like conservatives. :)

SoCon| 7.3.10 @ 3:16AM

Being dead or being a "maverick conservative." Liberals just love them some Repub mavericks.

Vinylcam| 7.2.10 @ 2:01AM

Nate - what a maroon you are. Eisenhower was a Manchurian President if ever there was one. He gave a lot of puffed up flag waving speeches that were nothing more than bread and circuses and smoke and mirrors to cover up the treachery and the cozy relations with some of the most notorious Communists that this country has ever seen. And the man's track record of destroying conservative Republicans is despicable. I don't think you are anything but a malingerer posing as a self described 'conservative'. I suppose you'd think Nelson and David Rockefeller were conservatives as well. Interesting how the 'John Birch Society' always comes up as a pejorative to ridicule people on the right that have a take and have common sense. It's even more ironic when you come to find out that Senator Joe McCarthy and JBS have been vindicated by history. Oh, and thinking that today's Government, Academia and Journalism are legitimate institutions is like saying Barack Obama (aka Barry Soetero) is the same kind of Democrat as Hubert Humphrey or Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Ken in People's Republic of MD| 7.2.10 @ 7:12AM

Ladies and gentlemen, the fact of the matter is that there is no longer a "true" conservative out there, at least by any standard of which I am familiar. My limited understanding of the term "conservative" is that it means limited central government, personal responsibility, rugged individualism combined with a deep sense of team play and I am sure I've overlooked much of what a conservative is(or isn't). Indeed, you wouldn't think it very difficult to define conservatism.
So what we have is no perfect conservative candidate. Many so-called conservative politicians don't have the intestinal fortitude it takes to make the tough decisions of being a true conservative. Bush the younger is a prime example. He ran as a conservative, but when it came time for the tough decisions, he moved to the middle, or even over the middle to the left. The irony of Bush is that people do not like him, not because he was too far to the right, but because he governed as a compromising centrist. So the country elects someone who promised hope and change but who in reality continued the worst of the Bush policies and philosophies and pushed them far, far to the left.
So, you don't get hope and change, but more of the same.
I believe the time is coming, and very soon, that true conservatives, whomever or whatever they might be, will break off from the mainstream Republican party and start their own party. Not quite Libertarian(frankly, some of those people have some strange ideas) but certainly not moderate.
The funny thing is, this country, as indicated in poll after poll, thinks itself to be more conservative than anything else. My question is, do these people who consider themselves to be "conservative" really know what that means?

darcy| 7.2.10 @ 1:33PM

After reading your comments, Ken in PRoMD, it occurs to me that you might find the article by Angelo Codevila in month's American Spectator very interesting. It's title is America's Ruling Class and the Perils of Revolution (you can see it advertised at the top of the screen, on the right). I read it last night -- took me two hours to digest the whole thing -- and I think it should be required reading for all conservatives. Mr. Codevila pretty well describes the tangled morass we've created of this nation, how we got here, and he even offers some counsel on how to proceed to extricate ourselves and right this ship.

martin j smith| 7.2.10 @ 7:44AM

I am not from Arizona,I am not a "true conservative,( I consider myself an independent--conservative on the economy,national defence, and patriotic for America ( less conservative on social issues ). Now, I think from little I know of JDH and more so of John McC the people of Arizona are being badly short changed. But, having said that --both of these guys are losers. But, I would like to see John McC out. the main reason is that he ran a poor presidential campaign and left us with what we have. In addition, he poor campaign reflect in my judgement aspects of his "maverickness" such issues as McC-Feignold,Immigration ,and even issues around the interrogation of terrorists. JDH may be a short term fix but sometimes you have too deal with change in stages--first one being get rid of McC.

Siegfried X| 7.2.10 @ 7:58AM

John McCain would win even if he married both Obamas and started sleeping in their bed. Because he was a P.O.W. and that's all that matters to a lot of Republicans.

gibor| 7.2.10 @ 10:14AM

I am not from Arizona, I consider myself a conservative in every aspects. I watch politics very closely. I read about Hayworth a lot and watched McCain for a long time. My conclusion is this: Hayworth is probably a real conservative, Mc Cain is definetely not. I would go even further, I do not think Mc Cain has any political conviction other that his personal political ambitions and interest.

Dixie Pixie| 7.2.10 @ 10:43AM

I still like the “Demon Sheep Ad”.
It so nice sums up McCain's political and moral character.

I just hope the good people of Arizona retire McCain for good.

Dixie Pixie| 7.2.10 @ 11:47AM

The above line should read:
“It so nicely sums up McCain's political and moral character.”
Sorry about that folks.
I really should learn to proofread better.

Oldefarte| 7.2.10 @ 1:32PM

I love it when these morons [liberals] bring out the INTELLECTUAL card, which is typical of this imbicilic lass of subhumans. Let see, we now have a president who they would profess to be the smartest/most intelligent in our nation's history [and gee wiz, he just happens to be African-American to boot, so we get a twofer]. As a testimonial to his superior intellect, we have his economic [non] stimulus, welfarecare, and soon-to-be businesstake-over legislation; with our economy facing 10% [no truly 20%] unemployment [except of course in the public sector where ever moron with a IQ of -20 has a job performing typically unnecessary street/road reconstruction], tanking stock and real estate markets, lack of consumer spending due to fear of losing their job [if they have one], negative business spending and instead repurchasing of their stock shares,etc. This intellectual genius defeated his opponent who graduated from Annopolis, but of course he/McCain didn't attend Columbia and Harvard with student loans that were miraclously paid back on a COMMUNITY ORGANIZER'S salary of maybe $20000/year; and he/Obama refuses to allow same universities to release his published papers, writings,grades, courses taken,etc. McCain didn't have the intellectual knowhow to associate with the likes of Wright, Ayers,etc either. Gee wiz, what a dumbars McCain etc must all be for not having the mental ability to not be a blazing star genius like Obama THE CHOSEN ONE!!!!!