J.D. Hayworth, conservative talk show host, leaves KFYI

     J.D. Hayworth, a conservative radio talk show host, left KFYI 550 AM on Jan. 22 as he appears to be preparing to run against Senator John McCain in this year’s Republican Primary. Hayworth, a former six-term member of the U.S. House of the Representatives, has been hosting “The J.D. Hayworth Show” weekdays from 4-6 p.m. for the last three years.

     In his last broadcast, which can be heard on podcast at www.KFYI.com Hayworth said “you will hear from me again and it will be from the public arena,” stopping short of announcing his intention to run against McCain.

     Although he has admitted to being interested in returning to public office, he has not yet declared his candidacy. Even so, McCain has been running radio attack ads against Hayworth after a Rasmussen Poll stated that if Hayworth were running now he would be tied in a race with McCain, which apparently did not sit well with McCain who has held his Senate seat since 1987.

     Hayworth and McCain are Republicans, but occupy opposite ends of the Republican political spectrum on key issues, such as immigration reform, which Hayworth fought against daily on the air. McCain and the late Senator Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., tried to secure passage in 2008 of a controversial immigration reform bill, but it failed after massive public opinion mounted against in part due to the efforts of Hayworth and other conservative radio talk show hosts across the country.

     Political stories are seldom black and white and often have many characters. This one has a plot and various subplots as well and an interesting character in the name of Grant Woods, a former Arizona attorney general and a former aide to John McCain during McCain’s run for the presidency in 2008. Woods supported the immigration reform bill. Hayworth also referred to Woods at times on the air as a “failed talk show host.”

     Woods precipitated Hayworth’s departure from KFYI by filing a complaint in January with the Federal Elections Commission against Clear Channel Communications, KFYI’s owner, saying that Hayworth was using Clear Channel’s airtime as an undeclared campaign contribution to test the waters in a possible run for McCain’s Senate seat. Hayworth in his podcast called the complaint frivolous, but that it must be taken seriously as the corporate lawyers plan a response.

     What’s even more interesting is that Hayworth has often been critical of the very campaign reform finance law - co-authored by McCain - that Woods claims Hayworth and Clear Channel have violated.
Finally, that same law precluded Hayworth from talking about the Federal Elections Commissions complaint on the air during his show, prompting him to suggest that the complaint may have been filed in an effort to silence his conservative voice.
“If done in an effort to intimidate me, those who might have thought that are wrong,” Hayworth said in a quietly confident tone.

The headline of this article orginally said that J.D. Hayworth left KTAR, which is not correct. He left KFYI.