Tea Party Celebrities Should Stump Against McCain

It has been widely published that the two biggest faces of the tea party movement will head to Arizona to stump for John McCain in his Senate primary against former Congressman J.D. Hayworth.  Both Sarah Palin and newly elected Senator Scott Brown will endorse McCain sometime in the near future.
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I’ve got a serious problem with this, both as an Arizonan and a tea party supporter.  Here’s why:

Palin has become a household name by representing the heart and soul of America.  Her ability to stick to her principles and not shy away in the face of elitists’ attacks makes her a perfect face of a movement that relies on regular, hardworking Americans.  Brown ran successfully against the Washington establishment and business as usual.  His embrace of tea party ideals made him an unlikely winner in the most unlikely of places.

McCain, while mostly a powerful conservative voice of reason, is the epitome of a Washington insider.  In stark contrast to both Palin and Brown, he is a member of the good-old-boys network and is overly fond of reaching across the aisle in the name of bipartisanship.  He is a prominent and powerful member of the political royalty, an exclusive group of tenured lawmakers who rule the roost around Capitol Hill.  While it is advantageous for Republicans to have an influential voice in negotiations, McCain is beholden to a system of paybacks and deal making that is ultimately damaging to Republican interests.  For all the good that McCain does in propagating the conservative agenda, conservatives know all too well that he will inevitably return to his maverick ways (see McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy).

Worse yet, McCain has roped Palin and Brown into the same system by asking them to endorse his primary campaign.  No doubt the message to both went something like this: “You’re nothing without John McCain.  Without him, you’d still be in Wasilla and aimlessly racking up miles on your compact truck.”

As politicians, Palin and Brown have no choice but to comply with the collective back scratching required to survive in Washington D.C.  The same power that rose two nobodies to national prominence can wreak havoc on their political prospects in the future.  For that reason alone, I believe Sarah Palin and Scott Brown are headed to the desert for John McCain.

According to their anti-establishment rhetoric, McCain is the very type of politician that Palin and Brown have campaigned against.  Their position as the most recognizable and popular faces of the tea party movement should be enough to send McCain a simple message: “Thanks for the help, but we don’t have your back in this one.”

Since his candidacy is still rather young, it remains to be seen whether or not J.D. Hayworth is the model of tea party perfection.  Until then, Palin and Brown should recuse themselves from the campaign and wait for a true conservative to prove themself as the champion of conservative ideals.  McCain is the established, default GOP pick, a fact that should garner the same sort of skepticism other machine-built candidates have received.

As they have done before, Sarah Palin and Senator Brown should put principle before politics in this race.

Addendum: For the record, I’m torn in this race.  When I agree with McCain, I love the guy.  He is a great advocate for whichever cause he throws his weight into.  On the flip side, when I disagree with McCain, election day couldn’t come any sooner.  The bottom line is, there is a movement going on in American politics and when push comes to shove, I don’t trust McCain.  He is always a risk for going all maverick on us again.  There is a huge handful of young, fresh lawmakers who can fill the big leadership shoes McCain would leave behind.