Yes, that is Sparky the Sun Devil and the small turd next to him is John McCain (no, it is not a photoshop; is a real picture McCain himself put out on Twitter). As you may have heard, the Arizona primary was last Tuesday and McCain squeaked by the “serious challenge” of gasbag extraordinaire J.D. Hayworth. McCain beat Hayworth by 25 points. But for months, going back even well before Hayworth finally was forced to quit campaigning on his radio show and admit he was actually running, the national media clucking heads were yammering relentlessly about how McCain was “vulnerable” and “in the fight of his political life”. It was, as just about everything with McCain is, a complete gin job and fabrication by the national media.
Here is what I said in an email discussion with a number of colleagues back on February 24 after one of them started talking about McCain being in trouble:
I am telling you, I just do not, at least yet, see any giant tidal wave here for Hayworth. … It may change, but so far in Arizona, the Hayworth bandwagon is far overrated by the national chattering classes.
….
Again, the problem is there is a very established Republican party and attendant power and money machine here and they do not like JD Hayworth for shit and never did; they did not give a rat’s ass about him losing to Harry Mitchell, in fact if they had, he would not have lost. Quite frankly, McCain is not their favorite either in some regards; but he sure is compared to Hayworth historically. Plus McCain has Grant Woods behind the scenes again, and he is very good and pretty ruthless. Hayworth’s sound bites make for dandy fodder for FoxNews, MSNBC and, to a lesser extent CNN, but they do not mean diddly shit here. This is not a national election, it is an Arizona Republican primary.
I tried to correct the record with any number of places and people when I saw this meme, right up to the election; mostly to little avail. I am a native here and have been around a long time, there was just never a chance in hell that Hayworth could even get close to McCain; but you just could not stop the national political horserace chattering chowderheads like Chuck Todd, Chris Matthews, Chris Cillizza, the Politico boys etc. from perpetrating this pile of dung.
They were full of it as the vote total demonstrated. Now they have blithely moved on to compensating for their ignorance and/or incompetence by clucking about “yes, yes, McCain won big, but he had to sell out and be someone he wasn’t to do it”. See for instance USA Today, NPR, Reuters, and Dan Balz of the Washington Post.
It is all pure unadulterated rubbish. A con. McCain has always been a completely self serving grifter con who has never been dedicated to any principle or cause other than John McCain. McCain walked out on his first wife and family after returning from Vietnam, after she had waited for him the entire time and while she was crippled and laid up bedridden from a tragic car accident. Left her while they were still married and brought his flim flam carpetbag to Arizona because it provided what he thought was his best shot of anywhere in the country to get a seat in Congress and because there was a very cute and very rich beer heiress here whose family could provide him with the juice and credibility to get elected.
That is the kind of man McCain is and what he stands for. Always has been, always will be. John McCain is a supremely narcissistic self serving belligerent lout that cares about one thing, and one thing only, and that is John McCain. So, when senile political nitwits like Matlock David Broder blather baloney like this:
But now, as the 73-year-old senator prepares for what may well be his final term in a congressional career that began in 1982, the time has come for McCain to look to his legacy — and conditions are right.
In a Congress in which Democrats have pitiful approval ratings and Republicans even worse, McCain is one of the few names that does not draw instant contempt from the voters. The reputation he established for independence — for being his own man, no matter what the pressures — has survived the vagaries of an exceptionally long career.
choke back the appropriate gag reflex to puke and remember just who and what John McCain really is, the belligerent narcissistic turd of a Devil. McCain didn’t change to win this election, doing and saying whatever benefits John McCain at the moment has always been his calling card.
In other news and notes from the Arizona primary last Tuesday, it will be Jan Brewer versus current Attorney General and former Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard in the general election for governor. It is kind of amusing watching the same chattering media class described above talk about Jan Brewer like she is some political force to be reckoned with. Brewer has been around for decades, mostly as a harmless but batty state legislator. Locals called her “Kooky Jan” as far back as the 1980s because she was, well, kind of kooky.
Brewer’s newfound notoriety and prominence is accidental, not the mark of political shrewdness. She was basically the puppet template that a local right wing political strongman operative by the name of Chuck Coughlin ran for Secretary of State and fell into the governorship when Janet Napolitano was named DHS Secretary. Brewer also stumbled into the SB 1070 Immigration law issue and she and Coughlin were smart enough to know it was her ticket to fend off Joe Arpaio’s thoughts of primarying her and to get her name out as a power player who was capable of actually being reelected (which was not particularly the case before). Brewer is actually personally very nice and not particularly mean spirited, but she saw her ticket to staying in office and ran with it.
Terry Goddard is a good guy and a decent politician, but has little charisma and has been hanging around for so long that he just kind of has the patina of stale. Unless something changes, Kooky Jan is going to be comfortably reelected, which is more than a little mind blowing.
Another very important race is for Attorney General. The uber right wing political climber, and Joe Arpaio acolyte, Andrew Thomas thankfully was defeated in the primary. Unfortunately, the guy who squeaked out the win over Thomas by a few hundred votes, Tom Horne, is not all that much better. And Horne will have a solid advantage over the Democratic nominee Felicia Rotellini. This is a critical post because the Arizona AG decides how to handle the batshit crazy legislation that comes out of the Arizona state legislature. If you have any pull in Arizona, or friends there, give Rotellini some help.
Last, but not least, there is the matter of young Ben Quayle. Also known as Brock Landers. Quayle is an aggressive and incredibly duplicitous punk who needs to be stopped. Quayle at first denied he was party boy Brock Landers, then admitted he had lied. Word on the street here is that a LOT more about Quayle/Landers’ Caligula past will be forthcoming; it already is in multiple forums.
Doug Kahn and Howie Klein have been pounding on the absolutely horrid Blue Dog Gabby Giffords over at Down With Tyranny and supporting progressive Raul Grijalva from the shameless attacks by Giffords and the DNCC.
So that is an update on political life in wingnut hell, otherwise known as Arizona.