I understand why many Arizona Republicans would want to dump John McCain for a more conservative Senator, but I’ve never understood those who argue that J.D. Hayworth is the conservative who should replace McCain. Hayworth, after all, was a top recipent of donations linked to corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and was a reliable vote for President Bush’s big government agenda.

The weakness of Hayworth’s claim to be a small government conservative was brought into sharper focus with the release of this 2007 infomercial that Hayworth recorded for the National Grants Conference, which offers seminars on how to people can get free money from government through grants.

The video clip below, reported  Dan Nowicki (and which I saw via Dave Weigel) features people bragging about how they get money from the government.

“I was able to get a grant for $13,000 for my roof, for the electrical work — I don’t have to pay any of this money back,” one woman boasts at the beginning of the video.

Hayworth chimed in, “You may think what you’ve heard is too good to be true, but let me assure you, it is real. It’s available. And it’s something you should take advantage of.”

Even more disturbingly, Hayworth invokes Ronald Reagan to justify it and argues that people deserve all of this government largesse because it’s really their money. This takes a completely collectivist view of taxes and doesn’t take into account how much any given individual actual pays to the federal government.

You can watch the whole sorry thing below.