I’m a big fan of the rough-and-tumble of political debates. When debate becomes character assassination I worry about the consequences for the health of our political system.

I’m sorry, but I’ve about had it with the repeated mailings from the McCain campaign about JD Hayworth. Now I happen to believe that Hayworth has the heart of a scoundrel; but I also believe that once McCain has pointed this out he should move on to outlining plans and programs for the next six years.

Assuming he’s elected, that is…and the rancorous progress of the Republican primary makes that less likely. How many Independents and quietly middle of the road Republicans are going to swallow McCain’s avidity for office? His rejection of hands-across-the aisle cooperation with Democrats in the interest of what’s good for the nation? The loss of his fabled status as a “maverick?” Your guess is as good as mine.

By the same token he has probably put paid to Hayworth’s chances, which leaves the Republican Party in bad shape.

And what about the third wheel in the campaign, Jim Deakin? He’s despised by the Hayworth supporters, because they are afraid he will take votes from Hayworth and hand the primary to McCain.

Frankly I can’t see a nickel’s worth of difference between the Tea Party convictions of any of them. Why not vote for Deakin?

The Tea Party conservatives are as interested in defeating McCain (in the primary) as his potential Democratic opponents would be (in the general.) For the sake of defeating McCain they are willing to risk sacrificing a Senate seat.

Before this primary season I’d have bet the farm on the proposition that no Democrat would be able to defeat McCain. But now the Democrats have a field of talented and aggressive candidates, any one of whom could defeat Hayworth or Deakin; and anyone of whom stands a great chance of beating McCain, should he survive the primary.

Hard times ahead for the Republican Party.

Reposted from TheDataPort.blogspot.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 at 10:02 am and is filed under Politics, State Politics. Tags for this post: Arizona Republican Primary, Attack Ads, Deakin, Hayworth, McCain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.