McCain Gets Nervous

Ben Smith reports that John McCain's re-election campaign is looking nervous:

This isn't a sign of confidence:

John McCain’s campaign manager Shiree Verdone and part-time deputy campaign manager Mike Hellon are both leaving their posts, the campaign confirmed to POLITICO Sunday....

The strategy team including Rick Davis, Charlie Black, Mark Buse and Mark Salter remains in place in the same roles, Rogers said.

The move came days after McCain unveiled a new television ad stressing the importance of stronger border fence to combat illegal immigration. "Complete the danged fence," McCain says in the ad, which features McCain walking along the border with a county sheriff.

The spot was widely mocked as a dramatic reversal from his position during the presidential campaign, when he told reporters that "walls and fences" were not part of his plan.

The campaign of his primary opponent, former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, seized on the phrase to launch a website, The Complete Danged Truth!, highlighting the incumbent's modified positions during the primary campaign.

McCain is doing everything he can to run from the "maverick" label he embraced during the presidential campaign because with no independents and Democrats to vote for him in the GOP primary, he's got to convince conservatives he's one of them. It's a tough sell given McCain's support for a lot of things conservatives don't like, like the McCain-Feingold legislation that infringed free political speech and the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill that would have greatly compounded our illegal immigration problems. Add to that the Gang of 14 which effectively stopped some of President Bush's conservative judicial appointments and you have a record of a politician who has been anything but consistent.

Arizona could do better.

Anybody Seen John McCain?

Because the guy running for Senate in Arizona doesn't sound anything like the John McCain we knew two years ago (from Morning Jolt):

John McCain 2010's Next Attack Ad Will Target the John McCain of 2008 

How badly does John McCain want to win his Senate primary? Well, he's now got a get-tough-on-the-border commercial that completely ignores his previous positions, statements, and attitudes and that would probably bring tears of joy to Tom Tancredo.

At this rate, next week he'll denounce McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform as an unconstitutional restriction on the First Amendment.

Allahpundit is left sputtering: "I don't know what to say, guys. I'm genuinely speechless. Pandering is one thing, shameless careerist pandering is something else, and then there's John 'Goddamned Fence' McCain marching along the border in a badass Navy baseball cap looking like he could choke out a coyote with his bare hands. And you know what? If he thought he'd get a few points' bounce from it, I bet he'd do it too. How long before he's spotted on the trail wearing a 'Viva Los 1070' T-shirt? Consider this a preview of the 2014 'Reelect Lindsey Graham' ad campaign, featuring Grahamnesty piloting a Border Patrol chopper and lending a hand on an oil rig."
Doug Mataconis: "I really don't know what else there is to say. In the face of a stronger-than-expected challenge from the right from a candidate who has flirted with the birther movement and made rather bizarre comments about gay marriage, McCain has effectively abandoned any semblance of the politician he claimed to be in the past, even to the extent of denying that he had ever called himself a maverick. It's really rather pathetic."

I would note that the Obama campaign put up a ludicrously over-the-top attack ad against McCain in 2008 that accused him of anti-immigrant pandering and racism, a charge so wildly untrue that even the mainstream media had to declare "real factual problems." In other words, all of McCain's previous efforts to appear sensitive, moderate, and welcoming of immigrants, legal and illegal, were tossed out the window once the Democrats needed votes. If you're a Republican, your record is irrelevant; your opponent will call you racist and xenophobic, guaranteed. Perhaps McCain is realizing that if you're going to be called a xenophobe no matter what your position is, you might as well court the voters who want a more secure border.

John McCain is in full-blown pander, hoping that the voters of Arizona don't remember who he really is. Sadly, they seem intent on sending him back to Washington where he'll revert to his frequently RINO ways and once again the voters will be stuck for six years.

As far as that wall goes, look for McCain to lose his enthusiasm for it just as soon as the primary is completed.

Arizona Doing a Lot of Things Right These Days

First they passed a law removing the requirement for permits to carry concealed weapons, and now they've passed a tough illegal immigration law:

Lawmakers in the Arizona Senate voted 17 to 11 to approve the bill, widely regarded as the toughest measure yet taken by any U.S. state to curb illegal immigration.

The state's House of Representatives approved the measure last week. Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, has five days to veto the bill or sign it into law.

Immigration is a bitterly fought issue in the United States, where some 10.8 million illegal immigrants live and work in the shadows, although it has been eclipsed in recent months by a healthcare overhaul and concern over the economy.

The law requires state and local police to determine the status of people if there is "reasonable suspicion" that they are illegal immigrants and to arrest people who are unable to provide documentation proving they are in the country legally.

It also makes it a crime to transport someone who is an illegal immigrant and to hire day laborers off the street.

"I believe handcuffs are a wonderful tool when they're on the right people," said Russell Pearce, the Republican state senator who wrote the bill.

We want to "get them off law enforcement and get them on the bad guys," he told Reuters.

When the legislature is done in Arizona, maybe they can come across the border and fix California.

I wonder how Senate candidate John McCain feels about this new immigration law?  He was a big proponent of an amnesty program a few years ago, but I have a feeling he wouldn't promote that today.  He's made a pretty sharp move to the right to try and combat the challenge from JD Hayworth.  My guess is he'll be fully supportive of this new law...now.

Thank You, John McCain

On this day when Sarah Palin is campaigning for McCain in Arizona the courts remind us of why we'd prefer to see JD Hayworth take over McCain's Senate seat:

The Republican National Committee has lost its bid to raise soft money, the unlimited contributions from corporations and individuals banned by a 2002 campaign finance law.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court in Washington ruled Friday that it lacks the authority to overturn a Supreme Court ruling upholding the ban on soft money fundraising by the RNC and other national party committees.

That ban is a cornerstone of the so-called McCain-Feingold law—and one of the few major parts of the law to survive court challenges.

The RNC had argued that it should be able to raise soft money for state election, congressional redistricting, legal costs and other activities that it said had nothing to do with federal elections.

I understand why Palin is campaigning for McCain - it's all about loyalty and the fact she'd be a nobody if he hadn't plucked her out of relative obscurity to be his running mate. I can forgive her for all of that.

However, McCain is not the answer for Arizona or the country. We need a consistent conservative in that seat, and Hayworth is the guy.

JD Hayworth Makes the Case Against John McCain

At RedState former congressman JD Hayworth explains why he is challenging John McCain in the GOP primary. Here's part of it:

I have the utmost respect and admiration for what John McCain has given to our country over the years. And this election will be about serious policy differences, not personalities. Let me begin by detailing where I think John McCain has gone wrong. For starters, John:

• Voted against the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 (which I helped write), echoing liberal Democratic arguments that they were tax cuts for the rich;
• Voted for an $850 billion bailout for banks and car companies, which was loaded with special interest earmarks totaling $150 billion;
• Proposed spending $300 billion to buy up every bad mortgage in America, which National Review called a “full bailout for lenders” (McCain said he got the idea from Hillary Clinton!);
• Supports a cap and trade scheme that the Wall Street Journal called “an expensive, invasive government bureaucracy” - indeed, McCain once proclaimed, “I don’t know how any conservative cannot support cap and trade;”
• Wrote the campaign finance law just struck down by the Supreme Court that denied free speech rights to groups like the National Rifle Association while carving out an exception for media corporations like the New York Times;
• Opposes drilling in ANWR;
• Opposes the use of the enhanced interrogation techniques that we know prevented at least 4 major terrorist attacks; and
• Helped write an amnesty plan that would let illegal aliens qualify for Social Security and Medicare, and which the Heritage Foundation estimates would cost taxpayers “at least $2.6 trillion.”

This is not the record of a true conservative, much less a fiscal conservative.

You can read the whole thing at the link. I like Hayworth and while I think McCain has served his country admirably, but it's time for him to go home.