Primary Foe Makes McCain Look Like the Smart Choice

Tea Party activists don't like John McCain, but they'd better vote for him, because tea partier primary opponent JD Hayworth is “toxic,” writes Michael Gerson in the Washington Post. Hayworth's main claim to fame is his crusade against Mexican immigration—and not just the illegal kind. He pledged to “stand up for our culture” against the coming Aztec state. And now he wants to run in an 18% Hispanic state?

Hayworth's also a birther who has accused President Obama of “identity theft.” Of gay marriage he said, “I guess that would mean … you could marry your horse.” Besides, the last time voters sent Hayworth to Washington, he held fundraisers for Jack Abramoff and backed an avalanche of earmarks, including the Bridge to Nowhere. If the Tea Party movement embraces him, “it will not only prove itself extreme,” writes Gerson, “it will prove itself gullible.” (More John McCain stories.)