Can McCain Be Picked Off By the Democrats?

Highly unlikely. See J.D. Hayworth: A toast to McCain’s imminent defeat!

This race is interesting on a lot of levels. First for a faction of conservatives that just hate McCain have again overestimated the McCain hate among GOP voters. They did it in the general and again earlier this year did it as to the AZ GOP primary. Anything can happen I suppose but I think it is a safe bet that McCain beats Hayworth..McCain has pretty much ran a brilliant campaign.

Now to the general.

Democratic contenders and other observers say they believe that McCain has turned off too many voters by shifting hard to the right in his fight against Hayworth and by taking inconsistent positions on immigration and other issues.

Democrats often seem to pick up some conservative spin that McCain is some moderate GOP guy. In reality he is pretty consistent in his voting patterns which tend to the conservative side.

On immigration McCain is really not saying anything new. He recognizes that the voters before considering any pathway to Citizenship want the border secure. McCain was never a "ppen borders" guy.

The problem Dems will if they wish to portray him as extreme on the border issue if the Giffords Congressional race. Giffords the Democrat is in a tight and important House race. When you look at her statements it is hard to tell the difference in positions on the issue. So the Democrats can hardly run ads against McCain trying to portray him as extreme on the immigration issue without hurting Gifford. As usual the immigration issue is a lot more complex than either the right or the left outside AZ likes to portray.