McCain Vulnerable to Challenge from the Right
Rasmussen Reports poll reveals John McCain to be pretty vulnerable to a potential primary challenge:
Senator John McCain’s future in the U.S. Senate may be a little less assured than previously thought.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely 2010 Republican Primary voters in Arizona finds the longtime incumbent in a virtual tie with potential challenger J.D. Hayworth. McCain earns 45% of the vote, while Hayworth picks up 43%.
This seems like pretty much terrible news for the world. The most likely path between Point A and Senate passage of a reasonable climate bill is for McCain to rediscover his interest in the issue. But that’s not the sort of thing a Senator worried about a right-wing primary challenge is likely to do. It would be different if, say, Janet Napolitano were mounting a strong challenge for the seat, but instead Democrats have no major contender in the field.
Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman have been working overtime to craft a climate bill that can attract significant GOP support. But they aren’t exactly scoring points with their mutual best friend in the Senate, John McCain. “Their start has been horrendous,” McCain said Thursday. “Obviously, they’re going nowhere.”The article says that "[f]ormer aides are mystified by what they see as a retreat on the issue, given McCain’s long history of leadership on climate legislation" but I don't find it surprising at all.
31 Responses to “McCain Vulnerable to Challenge from the Right”
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November 20th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Well, if McCain does get defeated, that would free him up realize his destiny of becoming a permanent every-week guest on all of the network and cable Sunday morning shows. As always, this is very good news for John McCain.
November 20th, 2009 at 11:55 am
I was pretty disappointed that both Napolitano and Sebelius were plucked from the Governor’s mansion in Phoenix and Topeka to be cabinet secretaries instead of them mounting Senate challenges. They are not necessarily the best choices as cabinet secretaries but they would likely have been the best the Democrats had for getting two more seats in the Senate in historically Republican territories.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
This seems like pretty much terrible news for the world.
But it’s great news … for John McCain.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
I also fail understand why Obama took Salazar out of the Senate.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
that’s not the sort of thing a Senator worried about a right-wing primary challenge is likely to do.
That’s exactly what I thought when I read this headline. Also, I had been wondering why McCain was suddenly so anti-cap & trade, when he has generally been good on the issue (aside from the “drill baby drill” antics of his presidential campaign. I seriously lost a lot of respect for McCain during the course of 2008). This will help complete his transformation from “maverick” to “standard right-wing mouthpiece”.
Of course, if we learned anything in 2008, it is that John McCain is very, very bad at being subtle, so I’m inclined to think that his almost certain attempt to pretend to be a teabagger in the face of his challenge from the right will ultimately result in his unseating.
If he’s smart, he’ll pull a Lieberman.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
If he’s smart, he’ll pull a Lieberman.
Actually, if he believes even 1/10th of his rhetoric about honor, leadership, and putting country above everything else, blah, blah, he would say, “I’m old, re-election isn’t that important to me, I’m just going to do what is right for the next year or so and let the chips fall where they may.”
November 20th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
@6. Yes but too bad McCain has proved himself time and again to be a politician utterly without principle and honor. In all things, John McCain’s ego comes first.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
#3 Brock FTW!
November 20th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
McCain’s always seemed like a self-deluding grandstander. IOW, just like Joe Lieberman.
I’ve read where the energy companies want a climate-change/energy bill that will reduce the uncertainties of the market. So, I can understand Toady Joe’s interest in such a
beast. McCain is up for re-election in a whackball state so I can understand why he isn’t.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
It would be a shame to lose McCain to a more right-wing opponent. He’s been one of the few Republican partners in the Senate on any type of climate change and immigration reform legislation, and he’d probably be replaced with a rookie who supports neither.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Good luck with that whole waiting for McCain to rediscover his interest in climate thing. McCain never had any interest in climate, it’s always been how to get to the chewy center of mavericky goodness with the press. Now that he knows he can say any goddamn thing and still get the press to hang on his every word (see Sunday shows) he’s just going to be the same stupid right wing prick he’s always been.
There’s no hope for any of this shit unless the Senate gets fixed so I’d stop having fantasies about a rational John McCain and rediscover your loathing of the filibuster and get the message to the big wigs at CAP. The Senate is fucked and nothing is happening until it reverts back to something like majority rule.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Hmmm. The GOP doesn’t usually treat its failed candidates this badly. Bush 1 and Dole, for example. With this and NY-23, I guess their establishment really has lost control.
Too bad for Mitt.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
It would be a shame to lose McCain to a more right-wing opponent.
Why? McCain’s a careerist and a creep.
If he actually had been a “maverick” he could count on enough support to win anyway. He wasn’t.
Who cares what happens to his seat?
November 20th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
You have to take a longer view. A lunatic non-incumbent Republican is likely to lose in 2010, and then you wouldn’t have to take the quarter-loaf that McCain represents on a good day.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Actually, if he believes even 1/10th of his rhetoric about honor, leadership, and putting country above everything else, blah, blah, he would say, “I’m old, re-election isn’t that important to me, I’m just going to do what is right for the next year or so and let the chips fall where they may.”
That would make him honorable. I was just stating what he should do to “be smart”, i.e. “get re-elected”. I suppose I should have been clearer.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Dark nights when saint John McCain tosses unable to sleep he can appreciate that he gave the world both Sarah Palin and J The P. Now that, my friends, is legacy.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
If McCain loses his seat I, for one, would not be unhappy. In fact, I’d be rather delighted.
If he loses it in a primary to a right wing tea party type, I’d be even happier.
If the right wing teabagger loses the general to even a moderate Dem, I’d be ecstatic.
My only wish is that I could sell tickets to watch the Republican self-destruction circus. Then I could make a profit from all of this in true capitalistic fashion.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
[...] Yglesias flags an important aspect of this: This seems like pretty much terrible news for the world. The most likely path between [...]
November 20th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
“If he loses it in a primary to a right wing tea party type, I’d be even happier.
If the right wing teabagger loses the general to even a moderate Dem, I’d be ecstatic.”
Well, hey, as long as we’re wishing, what if the right wing teabagger lost the general to you? Then you’d be really happy!
The real question is, how happy would you be if the right-wing teabagger won the general election, which would seem to be the most likely outcome in Arizona. Every election is not going to turn out like NY-23, you know.
November 20th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
If McCain supported the Health Insurance reform he might win support from Democrats in AZ, but if he votes against it he won’t get a single Democratic vote.
November 20th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Have you seen how much trouble states are in right now? Napolitano was faced with a legislature that would never raise revenue as long as there was still one public service left to gut. She’s pretty savvy, and got out while the getting was good, rather than face an electorate that decided to scapegoat her. Her replacement, former secretary of state Jan Brewer, is a true-blue wingnut, and even she’s been frustrated with the legislature’s scorched earth policies. I don’t know if Sebelius would have been more bulletproof, but it’s plausible that she didn’t think so.
Then we’d have a not-very-bright far-right anti-choice warmonger as a senator from Arizona. And with the possible exception of immigration issues, no one would be able to tell the difference. Seriously, guys, the incumbent is someone who’s to the right of where Barry Goldwater ended up. Could we please stop pretending that McCain is a moderate?
November 20th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
What do JD Hayworth and Sarah Palin have in common? They both started their careers as Sportscasters. (And long, long, before I knew anything about him as a pol, I would change the channel to get away from JD’s pompous, loudmouth persona.) He also just may be both dumber and ignoranter (sic) than Palin!
November 20th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Both 6 and 7 hit the bullseye, which is too bad. The country could really use a Republican with balls.
November 20th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
No way that fat-ass, dim-witted hick JD Hayworth takes out McCain. If he did and managed to win the actual seat, he’d do two things; He’d embarrass the otherwise great state of Arizona, again, and he’d make a fool out himself, further associating the Republican Party with idiocy and incompetence.
It would be somewhat fitting. In twenty years you won’t be able to get elected in Arizona without a Spanish last name, so the twilight of the white Arizona Republican douchebag era would come to a close with Senators Kyle/Hayworth – the finest specimens of the species.
November 20th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
I live in Arizona’s 5th Congressional district, which Hayworth represented for 12 years (12 years!). His previous job (as TheSophist pointed out) was as goofier-than-most sportscaster on local-yokel Phoenix TV. In a just world, that would have been his Peter Principle position.
We booted him to his hate-radio gig in 2006, replacing him with blue dog Dem Harry Mitchell.
Harry’s ok, though — he voted for the HCR bill in the House, and mostly he’s a blue dog cuz he’s a fiscal conservative. Harry’s about as left-leaning as we could actually get elected in the district, what with Scottsdale being the core and all. I worked on his campaign in ‘06 and ‘08, and he will never be a safe incumbent.
Hayworth could beat McCain in the primary, definitely (it’s a closed primary). He’s every bit as pompous and buffoonish as Limbaugh, just double-digit IQ points lower (that’s hardly a deal-breaker for the R base). Still, the R base in AZ has never trusted McCain as a “real” Republican — to them the stupid “maverick” thing (as bullshit as it is) just means he compromises with the socialists too much.
I don’t believe the Dems have much chance of winning the general, though, whether the opponent is Hayworth or McCain. Our only top-tier guy with name recognition here (Attorney General Terry Goddard, Phoenix mayor back in the ’80s) has decided to run for Governor instead of Senator. I’d prefer Hayworth over McCain just for the entertainment value — it’s not like he’ll actually do anything besides bloviate and vote lockstep in the Senate.
Even the ever-increasing percentage of the population that’s Hispanic here (almost entirely Mexican-descent) won’t be enough to help the Dems much in 2010, I’m afraid. This group is just far less likely to vote (especially in a non-presidential year) than my Scottsdale neighbors, and a solid majority of even the white working class in the Phoenix area (which has well over half the state’s population) is reliably Republican. We’ll be lucky to hang on to our current slight House majority in the state (5 Dems in 8 districts).
20 years from now, as N says? Who knows. We’re not Alabama (sounds like a good slogan) but right now, and for the foreseeable, AZ remains pretty solidly Republican.
November 20th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Hurrah, no more McCain hopefully, now we can get someone inthere that Is CONSERVATIVE. I live in Alaska and believe me global warming is the biggesdt crock of BS I have ever heard. We had the coldest year on record last year and it is ahead of itself this year. The Glaciers are NOT receding, the polar bears are just fine. (5000 in 1979) 20,000 now.
This whole thing is just a farce as is fat old Al Gore who uses 1000 times more energy thaqn the normal person,
November 20th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
I think we all know the phrase du jour: “You can’t fix Stupid!”
Welcome, Stupid, at #26!
November 20th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
@#24 No way that fat-ass, dim-witted hick JD Hayworth takes out McCain. If he did and managed to win the actual seat, he’d do two things; He’d embarrass the otherwise great state of Arizona…
Oh, great. Then AZ would have two embarrassments in the Senate. Did anyone catch John Kyl’s act in the Judiciary Committee hearing with Holder? What a moron. Not only did Holder hand his head to him, Lindsey Graham shamed him, as well, just by being serious.
November 21st, 2009 at 12:15 pm
John McCain will go down in the history books of America as the worst President America never had.
And the one, at age 72, choose someone that could have caused a small town amateur to replace him.
That, his first decision as a future President, to choose his possible successor was a disaster. Even now he cannot admit what a national and international security risk that was and could have been.
Senator McCain should retire now and leave the Senate.
He has proven to be too weak to lead. Time for some new blood from Arizona.
God Bless the United States.
G DeWolf Shaw
Montreal, Canada
November 21st, 2009 at 12:17 pm
John McCain will go down in the history books of America as the worst President America never had.
And the one, at age 72, who chose someone that could have caused a small town amateur to replace him.
That, his first decision as a future President, to choose his possible successor was a disaster. Even now he cannot admit what a national and international security risk that was and could have been.
Senator McCain should retire now and leave the Senate.
He has proven to be too weak to lead. Time for some new blood from Arizona.
God Bless the United States.
G DeWolf Shaw
Montreal, Canada
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:43 am
Good Riddance to McCain…a grandstander at the least…no maverick, doesn’t stand for anything anymore really, blows with the Republican wind…lost respect for McCain..he is a patronizing fool, sorry to see him fail in his old age…but fail the American people he has…his political pick of Palin with a “country first” mantra…dunn him in…he’s gropping for straws now…a strawman…weakened…RIP McCain.