Republican J.D. Hayworth runs against John McCain in Arizona

Arizona’s Republican primary may not be until Aug. 24, but as March dawns in the Grand Canyon state former Congressman J.D. Hayworth is working hard to win voter support in his uphill conservative primary challenge to Sen. John McCain.

At the Daisy Café in Litchfield Park outside of Phoenix, Hayworth tried out his stump speech. He began by asking those among the three-dozen or so onlookers who have served in the military to stand and be recognized. Praising their service, he used the opportunity to praise the service of the man he hopes to defeat, John McCain, and the military service of McCain’s two boys currently enlisted.

Though he denies it, Hayworth seems to be trying to neutralize McCain’s military advantage. The McCain family’s military exploits are long and legendary, and Hayworth goes out of the way to make clear he is not diminishing McCain’s service to country in any way by challenging him for his Senate seat. Irrespective of this service, however, Hayworth says its time for Arizonans to say: “Thanks, John. Welcome home.”

On the day I followed him around, Hayworth was making a concerted effort not to attack McCain negatively. Throughout his three town hall meetings on March 1 he liberally used phrases like  ”to put it politely” and “not to be disrespectful” as he ripped McCain’s record. The reason for this, in part, is that Hayworth understands that he came across as too angry during his failed 2006 bid for re-election to the House.

During that election, the Arizona Republic, a newspaper that had endorsed Hayworth during his six previous elections to Congress, endorsed his opponent, Democrat Harry Mitchell, in a scathing editorial entitled “Mitchell over the bully.”

“He may not yet have reached the point where you can’t take him anywhere, but you certainly can’t take him to a calm, civil discussion,” the editorial read. “During this past term, Hayworth has devolved from a windy and sometimes cartoonish politician into an angry demagogue.”

This time, Hayworth is steering away from anger and embracing a strategy lifted from the Bible in his race against Arizona’s senior senator, “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”

Well over six feet tall and with a frame that reminds one of the college football player he once was, Hayworth is an affable figure with a booming voice. Before being swept into Congress with the Republican wave in 1994, he was a sports broadcaster. After his 2006 defeat for reelection, he hosted a talk radio show on Phoenix radio station KFYI. Given his background, it is no surprise that Hayworth feels at home in front of an audience. A showman, he does impressions of Jay Leno, Tip O’Neill, Ronald Reagan and Charlie Rangel during his town hall meetings. Hayworth likes to talk, a point he readily admits to audiences in his campaign stops. In 2006, he won second place for “biggest windbag” in the House of Representatives in Washingtonian’s Best and Worst of Congress issue.

It is on the issues that Hayworth believes he can take down McCain. It is not a secret that John McCain is no doctrinaire conservative. In contrast, Hayworth calls himself the “consistent conservative” and he points to issues like McCain’s votes against the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, his support for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, which Hayworth calls “amnesty,” and his vote for bank bailouts as out of touch with the conservative base in Arizona.

Hayworth also differentiates himself from McCain on war on terror policy. While McCain has voiced support for closing down the terrorist detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and stated his opposition to the enhanced interrogation methods, which he considers torture, Hayworth has staked out the opposite positions. In fact, Hayworth goes even further, claiming that McCain’s position on these important issues has enabled what he sees as Obama’s radical war on terror polices.