J.D. Hayworth

Helpfully, McCain’s campaign included a link to the ad, which had, indeed, been running on the top of the Drudge Report for about an hour. It features McCain, painted to look like a Navi’i warrior, from the movie “Avatar.” (Get it? Because the Oscars are coming up, and McCain is up for “best conservative actor” in the ad?) If they hadn’t done that, of course, it’s not clear anyone would have ever seen the image that got Kyl so worked up; I hadn’t, until I got the press release in my e-mail, and within about 10 minutes, it had been replaced on Drudge with a Netflix promo.

Not long afterwards, McCain aides sent out another statement, from campaign manager Shiree Verdone. “Ex-Congressman J.D. Hayworth should immediately apologize and and take down his latest online ad, which is an outrageous offense to John McCain’s lifetime of honorable service to our state and nation, and insulting to Native Americans here in Arizona and across America,” Verdone said. “Mr. Hayworth is welcome to debate the challenges facing our state and nation, but this kind of character assassination has no place in the Republican Party, and Mr. Hayworth should ashamed of his campaign for running it.”

To be fair, Hayworth’s camp says there were two versions of the ad — one, in which McCain’s face was tinted blue, made it a little more clear that he was supposed to be an “Avatar” character, while the one the McCain campaign linked to just looked like he had paint on his face. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers brushed off a question about the movie reference. “Whatever it is, it’s insulting!” he e-mailed.

Here’s the original version (the all-blue version is at the top of the story):

At any rate, the volume of the response showed how eager McCain’s team is to crush Hayworth. The two men didn’t like each other much when Hayworth served in the House (and constantly needled McCain over immigration, back when McCain supported reforming the nation’s immigration laws), and they don’t seem to like each other much in the campaign (in which Hayworth is… constantly needling McCain over immigration). Considering Hayworth trailed by more than 20 points in a poll in January, McCain may be sending him more attention than he needs to at the moment by highlighting the ad.

Meanwhile, Hayworth advisor Jason Rose said the ad was “moving the needle” on fundraising. But in the first hour it was up on Drudge, Rose tells Salon, it brought in about $3,000. Sure, that’s only an hour, and McCain may well have helped promote the ad. But at that kind of fundraising pace, Hayworth should be competitive financially with McCain by 2015 — maybe 2014 if he really steps it up.

McCain advisors say their polling finds many Arizona voters don’t consider Hayworth an entirely serious candidate; obviously, a Web ad that tags him as dumb seems to play directly into that. When Hayworth served in the House, he often came off as a blowhard, portentously calling for over-the-top legislation on immigration and border control without actually getting any of it done. That helped Democrat Harry Mitchell beat him in 2006 in a marginal district (that, and Hayworth’s ties to Jack Abramoff). The Arizona Republic called Hayworth a bully in endorsing Mitchell.

Which would all seem to argue for a strategy of ridiculing Hayworth in the primary. The tactic has worked, sort of, for McCain before; the Web ads advisor Fred Davis made in the summer of 2008 mocking Barack Obama helped narrow the presidential race in August and early September. And Obama is a much harder target for lampooning than Hayworth.

Instead of focusing on reminding voters how much they disliked Hayworth in the past, and how absurd he can be, though, McCain has simultaneously done that and run to the right to protect himself as if Hayworth was a perfectly credible candidate. In the process, he’s exposed himself to some ridicule, for the way he’s reversed himself on immigration and the military’s ban on gay soldiers. The campaign has shifted into areas that could be more favorable to Hayworth — like border security — in part because McCain has jumped over to Hayworth’s side of just about every debate. 

The political climate this year is obviously pretty dire for incumbents, including in primaries; just ask Bob Bennett or Arlen Specter. But Hayworth isn’t even getting the Tea Party support some Republican challengers have. Clearly, Hayworth isn’t breaking through to voters the way other GOP insurgents did – McCain is still up by 20 points in the polls, despite his long Washington résumé in a year when that won’t help you. Maybe soon he’ll realize that.