McCain Muscle? J.D. Hayworth Leaves KFYI

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There has been a lot of speculation if Hayworth would enter the race against McCain. As to date, Hayworth hasn't. There was no official statement to the fact.

A supporter to Hayworth has said:

Former U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth gave up his talk radio show Friday, and a key political supporter says it's because Sen. John McCain muscled him off the air.

Hayworth has been considering a possible Republican primary challenge to McCain and now that he is off the air, he can enter the race without concern for his job. Earlier this week, Hayworth, a relentless McCain critic, said he no longer could discuss McCain's candidacy or the Senate race on his weekday afternoon KFYI (550 AM) program on the opinion of lawyers for station owner Clear Channel Communications.

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In a KFYI appearance Thursday, Hayworth also referenced McCain's connection to the Commerce Committee and talked about an environment where cautious industry executives say, "Oh, let's not upset John McCain."

While McCain is a former Commerce Committee chairman, he has not sat on the panel for a year.

"Maybe Mr. Rose should get his facts straight before throwing around baseless and blatantly false character attacks," said Shiree Verdone, McCain's 2010 campaign manager. "This kind of character assassination is typical of Mr. Hayworth and Mr. Rose's negative campaigning in the past."

Regardless, Rose said station management clearly was concerned about McCain's "influence and power."

Smokey Rivers, Clear Channel's director of programming and operations in Phoenix, acknowledged Hayworth's on-air activities raised legal questions. He did not blame McCain.

"J.D. was living in an area that was somewhere between being a citizen and being a candidate, based on some of the actions and some of the words that he transmitted via the radio show," Rivers said. "I'm not certain if he's going to declare his candidacy or not, but I do know this: Now he's free of any shackles that he may have had via his radio show to go do as he pleases. This is something that J.D. and the radio station thought was best for each of us respectively."

If Hayworth does enter the race, he will have to make up for lost time. A Rasmussen Reports poll released Friday indicates he is trailing McCain among likely Republican voters by 22 percentage points, 53 percent to 31 percent. The poll, conducted Wednesday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.. How this plays out with the voters in Arizona? We shall see.

If J.D. Hayworth does decide to run, then it puts Palin against the Tea Party and then it will become a battle between Palin and the grassroots effort.

The continued battle will result in Palin losing support...

I stated that this would become her Waterloo.................