Conservative radio hosts see Arizona incumbent Sen. John McCain losing to challenger J.D. Hayworth by a landslide, despite early polls to the contrary. | AP photo composite by POLITICO Talk-show titans take on McCain

Early polls suggest Arizona Sen. John McCain leads former Rep. J.D. Hayworth by a healthy margin in the GOP primary. Among conservative radio talk show hosts, however, McCain is losing by a landslide.

As McCain gears up for a vigorous challenge from the former six-term House Republican, national conservative talkers are picking up where they left off in the 2008 presidential campaign, blasting McCain as insufficiently conservative and unloading on him with all the bombast they can muster.


Hayworth, himself a former talk radio host, is the beneficiary.

“This is a race about a conservative versus a phony, so let me be the first national host to say it,” blared best-selling author and radio personality Mark Levin on his nationally syndicated program.

"McCain is not a solid conservative. You want to send a signal that will be heard all over the world? Elect J.D. and defeat McCain," Levin concluded.

Earlier this week, popular Fox News television and radio host Glenn Beck — who once said McCain “would've been worse for the country than Barack Obama” — offered his unvarnished take on the Arizona senator during a radio interview with Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).

"I'm convinced that John McCain is going to be one of the guys who pushes through a health care compromise," complained Beck. "And I don't want any health care through the federal government. Because you know and I know, Senator, that they're going to build this damn machine whether we like it or not," he continued.

"And they're going to build it one piece at a time, and a progressive like John McCain will help them build it," Beck asserted.

When DeMint signaled he was staying out of the Arizona primary, Beck expressed a sigh of relief.

"This is great news to me. So you are not endorsing him or helping him in Arizona?" Beck asked.

"No, I'm not. I know J.D. well, and they can have their own race," DeMint replied.

That conservative talk radio would be focused on the Arizona GOP Senate primary six months before it’s due to take place is a testimony to the hard feelings some conservatives have when it comes to the 2008 GOP presidential nominee.

The nationally syndicated Michael Savage, who "sadly" endorsed McCain in 2008 but at the same time called him a "dunce, a dummy and a walking schmuck," has also lined up behind Hayworth.

“We know McCain is a shame. We know McCain threw the election to Obama,” Savage said Monday, when he hosted Hayworth on his show.

Toward the tail end of a 13-minute long interview where Hayworth welcomed the help of the “Savage Nation,” the host granted his blessing, saying “I believe you should win, and I believe the listeners will support you, J.D. Hayworth.”

Some of the listening audience is only too happy to hear McCain get whacked.

“Part of me just wants to be a spectator and sit back and watch. I’ll have no problem watching McCain fight for his political life," said Erick Erickson, founder of the conservative blog RedState.com.

Republican strategist John Weaver, a former McCain adviser and close confidant, dismisses the effect of the talk show attacks.

"They're for ratings. They're not representative of the Republican Party. They're businesspeople. They'll rattle their listeners, but they don't elect anybody. And it's a shame because John's the conservative in the race. Tell me the past people they've elected," Weaver contended.

“If you’re not a listener to them, you’re not going to be influenced. If you are, you already have your mind made up," he added.

Despite the potshots McCain has taken, there are some lonely pockets of McCain support on conservative talk radio.

Bill Bennett, the radio talk show host who served as President Ronald Reagan's education secretary, has broken with his colleagues and embraced McCain.

"There's a primary in Arizona. I usually don't get involved, but sometimes I do," Bennett told his audience recently. "I'll be involved in this one. I'll be supporting John McCain and not J.D. Hayworth."

“ Hayworth’s views, if you put them both on paper, are probably closer to my views, but I’ve got to support McCain because he’s the man. He’s the man who stands in the breach, stood in the breach on Iraq. He’d rather lose the election than the war. He’s the only guy who really stood up last week that I noticed, probably a couple others, on this "don’t ask, don’t tell." He would want my support; he would ask for it, I believe, and he’s going to get it.”

Townhall.com's Michael Medved also sided with McCain, telling his radio listeners Monday that Hayworth's "scandal-scarred background" makes him an "unworthy primary challenger."

"His deep involvement in the Abramoff lobbying disaster, and six-figure payments to his wife through a political action committee, led voters to scorn Hayworth in 2006," Medved opined, raising a 2006 investigation of a campaign contribution Hayworth received from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

"In the unlikely event that Hayworth won the primary, he'd be unelectable in the fall — just as in his last congressional race — handing a crucial Senate seat to Democrats," he concluded.

The one conservative radio talk titan who hasn’t yet indicated a preference in the McCain-Hayworth showdown also happens to be the most influential: Rush Limbaugh.

“At the end of the day, it’s Rush Limbaugh people pay attention to," said Erickson, who prefers Hayworth but hasn't decided if he'll make a public endorsement. "If a voice like Limbaugh were to get involved, you could see J.D. rake in a lot of money and a lot of volunteers.”

Conservative blogger Matt Lewis agrees that Limbaugh is the most notable host to keep any eye on.

"He has never liked McCain and has recently been critical of him," Lewis noted.

Few expect Limbaugh will suddenly embrace the four-term senator.

"Rush has hammered him every day for 10 years," Weaver lamented.

Yet even if the provinces of conservative talk radio aren’t a natural constituency for McCain, he can’t afford to cede it to Hayworth.

McCain must still closely monitor the radio rhetoric to avoid the fate of Dede Scozzafava, the upstate New York GOP special election nominee last year who became a national punching bag for conservative radio hosts, and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who's been harangued by conservatives for his hug with President Obama.

"There is a very dangerous tipping point, and McCain must be very, very careful with the narrative," Lewis said. "The good news is that Hayworth is not Marco Rubio and McCain is not Crist. But there is a tipping point."