Editor’s Note: In this interview, J.D. Hayworth discusses his primary campaign for U.S. Senate against John McCain, his distaste for  Big Government, the need for border security, his “involvement” with the Birther movement, and more.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Congressman Hayworth, you have a monumental task ahead of you, namely defeating the 2008 Republican standard bearer in the 2010 primaries.  What is it that has changed in a year and a half that gives you confidence in this race?

J.D. HAYWORTH: What continues to change more than anything is John McCain, who I actually campaigned for way back in 2000.  He continues to abandon core conservative principles and the voters in Arizona have noticed.  There was a poll last year that showed that more than 60% of Arizona Republicans felt that John McCain did not share their conservative values.  After that, there was a Rasmussen poll that showed he and I running neck-and-neck in a hypothetical matchup.  Then you have to add the wonderful reawakening of this country’s patriotic base.  Obama has shown us what the future looks like if we do not get our act together and elect real, consistent conservatives to office.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: We all know that John McCain has an (R) following his name, but there has been a lot of speculation about his actual political identity.  He is a self-described “maverick,” but some say that’s code for progressive.  Is he a progressive Republican cut from the same cloth as Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Herbert Hoover?

J.D. HAYWORTH: You could certainly make that argument.  His voting record can be liberal on some items to moderate on others, and he seems far more interested in pleasing the readers of the New York Times than he does the voters of Arizona.  It is quite possible that John truly believes that Republicans are the party of open borders, bank bailouts, big government intrusion into our health care system, and higher taxes, but he and I are going to have to disagree on that one.  I think his votes on those bills were very wrong and I was on the other side of those issues from him.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Similarly, at this point there is a din of talking head echoes in Washington bemoaning a lack of bipartisanship.  As “the consistent conservative” in your race, what’s your view on bipartisanship and the lack thereof?

J.D. HAYWORTH: I think that bipartisanship can be a laudable goal when we are talking about issues where a healthy compromise can be found.  But can you find a compromise on spending $850 Billion to bailout the banks, including $150 Billion in earmarks?  I don’t think so.  I would be arguing, along with my conservative brethren, that we should not be spending that money at all, while senators even more liberal than John McCain might be arguing for $1 Trillion.  John McCain might consider $850 Billion a bipartisan middle ground, but it is a horrible vote and horrible legislative outcome.  In that situation, bipartisanship is not worth $850 Billion of taxpayer money.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: McCain is at this time sponsoring legislation called the Dietary Supplement Safety Act, regulating vitamins and supplements.  No one wants to be harmed by such a product, so why isn¹t this good legislation?

J.D. HAYWORTH: Again we see John approaching an issue with a Big Government solution.  To the Left, there is nothing that cannot be improved by establishing a bureaucracy to oversee it and hundreds or thousands of pages of rules to control it.  It also looks after the giant companies that can afford the legions of compliance attorneys at the expense of the smaller companies.  Look, when you create a new drug to fight cancer, you can patent it and have exclusive rights to the profits from the product for years and years.  That is lucrative enough that you can afford to go through the FDA approval process.  But these small companies are dealing with natural substances like Vitamin C.  You can’t patent Vitamin C or the rest of these natural substances.  So there is no great payday at the end, and there is no way to afford the process.  The McCain-Dorgan bill is not designed to protect people; it is designed to protect the big companies that do not like losing market share to natural alternatives to expensive medication.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: You were part of the Revolution of 1994.  When one looks back at the Contract With America, many of those planks went unfulfilled—such as zero baseline budgeting—yet they seem to be the prescription for treating the ailing federal budget.  Will you work to renew those ideas, or is something new the answer?

J.D. HAYWORTH: I think we passed a lot of good things while I was in the House, but not all of them were signed by President Clinton.  Still, what we had was an excellent framework for solutions that could still help us today.  I would definitely keep fighting for fundamental reforms because they are the only way that we are going to really change Washington, D.C.  We can tinker at the edges and not get much done, or we can pursue fundamental reforms and make a real difference.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: According to the ASU Morrison Institute, Arizona is about $1.5 billion in the red.  Likewise, cities like Phoenix are behind as well.  There are plans in the works around the state to lay off teachers.  There will be pressure to bring home the pork. How will you balance what’s good for Arizona with what’s good for the country?

J.D. HAYWORTH: Less government and more money in the pockets of our citizens is good for Arizona and the country.  Ending bailouts and earmarks, cutting regulation, and pursuing pro-growth policies is good for Arizona and the country.  Secure borders and a federal government that pays for its failures to secure them for the last several decades is good for Arizona and the country. Arizona spent more than $2 Billion last year to deal with the costs of illegal immigration, and that is money that our federal government should be reimbursing us.  But they don’t, and now our state government has to be making these tough choices because of it.  I will make reimbursing Arizona a top priority.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Arizona is of course a border state on the front lines of illegal immigration.  Conventional wisdom says that Hispanics are opposed to any attempt to bring order to the border, and “comprehensive” immigration reform is waiting to resurface, probably in early 2011.  What’s the alternative to blanket amnesty?

J.D. HAYWORTH: Conventional wisdom is certainly wrong.  There are tens of thousands of conservative Hispanic and Latino voters who want our borders secured, not just for economic reasons but for reasons of national security. They have supported our efforts in Arizona to improve enforcement of our laws and to deny taxpayer-funded benefits to those here illegally.  I’m grateful for the support my campaign has from these voters as well.  Now, does that mean that John McCain and Barack Obama don’t still want an amnesty plan?  Of course not; they certainly do.  But John isn’t going to push it while we are in this primary. He will wait until 2011 if he is re-elected.  And that’s another very good reason why we need to thank John for his lifetime of service, but welcome him home, and replace him with a consistent conservative who will vote to protect our country and secure our borders.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: In the area of energy policy, Arizona might stand to benefit from green technology.  There¹s a lot of sun there, so much so that the state could be a leader in solar energy.  Is it practical, and is it the right course of action if the goal is to free the country from the turmoil of the Middle East?

J.D. HAYWORTH: Energy independence is a very worthy goal, and solar is one part of the puzzle.  But its not the only part.  Which is why it was troubling to see John McCain vote against domestic energy production and against drilling in ANWR.  He even gave the Hard Left a PR coup by comparing drilling there to drilling in the Grand Canyon, an absurd comparison and a damaging statement when the goal should be energy independence and greater national security.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: As a member of the media in recent years, you are an opposition researcher’s dream with hours and hours of recorded statements.  As such, a bit of a controversy around the so-called “Birther” movement has arisen around your campaign.  Would you like to set the record straight?

J.D. HAYWORTH: The McCain campaign has been pushing this manufactured controversy for weeks, trying to distract from John’s very public flubs on his being “misled” on the bailouts and on how he suspended his presidential campaign because President Bush “asked him to.”  So they’ve gone back to my old radio program and found times when we talked about the issue and tried to make something out of nothing.  Look, as a radio host it was my job to talk about the things that my listeners cared about, and the topic of Barack Obama and his birth certificate was certainly in the news for some time.  But the idea that because we talked about a topic, so I am therefore automatically an advocate for one position or another is false.  Obama is the President, and that’s a fact.  John McCain is a big-spending moderate who calls himself a maverick and that’s another fact.  Is it any wonder he wants to change the subject?

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Finally, how can people find out more about you,
and the campaign?

J.D. HAYWORTH: So glad you asked!  http://www.jdforsenate.com/is the website and you can learn more there.  You can also make a contribution, sign up to receive our campaign updates, or get more involved in any number of ways.  I hope that all of your readers visit the website and sign up, no matter where they live.  This is the most important Republican Senate primary in the country, and we all have a stake in its outcome.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE

SENATOR SANTORUM: The biggest threat to our nation’s security is the war against radical Islam.  Since 9/11/01, I have said that we need to accurately identify our enemy so that we can effectively defeat it.  The radical Islamists who are hell bent on destroying our way of life and prosperity aren’t just simply terrorists – terror is a tactic – they are an
ideological enemy who will use their own people as weapons.

I also believe that a nuclear-armed Iran and its rogue president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an enormous threat to our nation’s security.  However, one bright spot is Iran’s Green Revolution. It continues to grow and could lead Iran into a revolution that may end Ahmadinejad’s reign.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE:  One thing that your organization has pointed to as a problem is Shariah Law, or Islamic Law.  In Europe there has been a push to recognize this in cases such as a ruling in Germany a couple of years ago that allowed a man to beat his wife.  As a watchdog against this, have you observed any such rulings or policies in the United States?

SENATOR SANTORUM: I am very concerned about issues related to libel tourism, Shariah-compliant finance and attempts by the United Nations to employ “defamation of religion” to silence the critics of Islamism.  These issues
are much worse in Europe, but we must be particularly vigilant here because these issues have a tendency to migrate to the U.S. For this reason, it is especially important for the U.S. to lead the way in speaking out about the dangers of Shariah Law.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Lately Sarah Palin has dominated political conversations once again.  Before her VP nomination, you advised in an op-ed that it was “better for John McCain to be safe than sorry.”   What was your initial reaction and what is your assessment of the pick in hindsight?

SENATOR SANTORUM: At the time, I felt Senator John McCain made the right choice for his vice presidential nominee.  Governor Sarah Palin had the conservative credentials that Senator McCain needed to balance out some of
his more moderate positions.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE:  Speaking of hindsight, you went to the Senate riding the wave of the Revolution of 1994, which was the first time in half a century that Republicans controlled Congress.  Looking at the Contract with America, there were a number of good ideas that never made it to fruition, such as zero baseline budgeting.  Whatever happened to the Contract with America?

SENATOR SANTORUM: If you look at the Contract with America, we were able to achieve many things we set out to do.  For example, we passed welfare reform, which empowered millions of Americans to leave the welfare rolls and enter the workforce.  But with that said, did we accomplish everything we set out to? No, but we did a great deal.  Unfortunately, the further we got away from 1994 and the principles that brought us those electoral successes, the more difficult it became to pass important conservative legislation.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE:  You have walked in Senate chamber.  Will the proposed healthcare plan make it past that body?

SENATOR SANTORUM:  This legislation is so deeply flawed and will change the course of our nation’s health care system for the worse for generations to come.  We cannot allow it to pass.  It’s very important for Americans to
realize that this thing is not over yet.  Folks all over this country should continue to speak out to their Senators and Representatives to voice their opposition to this bill.  Particularly now with President Obama backtracking on his promise to ensure the negotiations would be transparent and televised for all to see, many more Americans are becoming skeptical of this legislation.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: What would Cap-and-Trade do to a coal and steel state like Pennsylvania?  Might it have electoral implications?

SENATOR SANTORUM: Absolutely.  That bill would destroy a coal state like Pennsylvania.  Over tens of thousands of Pennsylvania families are directly or indirectly impacted by the coal industry.  It is frightening just how focused the President and Congress are on destroying this industry.  Rather than focusing on energy technology, this Congress is trying to recklessly eliminate an entire source of energy.  There’s a reason why the United States is called the Saudi Arabia of coal, and it’s because we have decades of coal reserves that can be utilized for electricity generation and
coal-to-liquid fuel technology.  Not only is this an energy issue, but it is an economic and national security issue.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: In a similar vein, Pennsylvania flirted with George W.  Bush, and McCain seemingly staked his entire campaign on it, yet in the end a state that John Carville once described as “Philadelphia and Pittsburgh
with Alabama in between” looked much less like the latter and more like the former.  What is your assessment of Pennsylvania’s status as a blue state?

SENATOR SANTORUM: I think Pennsylvania will continue to be a swing state for many years to come.  Just look at how aggressively both President Obama and Senator McCain campaigned in Pennsylvania, which I think demonstrated that
they both knew Pennsylvania wasn’t a given either way.  The issues that matter to Pennsylvanians are very dynamic and change from region to region, ensuring that Pennsylvania will be a competitive state for elections to come.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Is Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter finally on his way out, or will he survive yet again?

SENATOR SANTORUM: Senator Specter is the ultimate political survivor.  His decision to switch parties was made so that he could survive another race. While I think he’s going to face a tough challenge from Congressman Sestak, he cannot be counted out.  However, if he does survive the primary, he may not survive a general election against Pat Toomey.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Have you thought about running for office again?

SENATOR SANTORUM: Yes, I have been traveling around the country and am considering a run for higher office.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: On a personal note, you are the proud father of seven children. How do you find the time to balance that with your public life?

SENATOR SANTORUM: My loss in 2006 was a mixed blessing.  I’ve said this many times since 2006 that God gives you what you need, not necessarily what you want.  And while I didn’t want to lose my race in 2006, I’m thankful that it
has allowed me to spend more time at home with my wife and kids and focus on what’s really important.  That has been a real blessing.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Finally, how can people find out more about you, the EPPC’s Program to Protect America’s Freedom, and your work?

SENATOR SANTORUM: You can find more about me by visiting  www.ricksantorum.com or http://www.eppc.org/programs/ppaf/.