The new Rasmussen poll for the 2010 Arizona GOP Primary-John McCain 45%, J. D. Hayworth 43%-will generate a fair amount of buzz. But August is a long way away, and I assume that when McCain gets back to Arizona and campaigns, he'll pull it out.
Still, who could help McCain beat back a populist conservative challenger? Sarah Palin. I predict that Palin will come to Arizona next summer to campaign for McCain, will make an impassioned case for him, and will help him win. She will thereby repay McCain for his confidence in picking her last year, help keep McCain as a crucial voice in the Senate for a strong foreign policy, and get credit for being a different kind of populist conservative-a Reaganite, not a Buchananite, populist-than the immigration-obsessed, voter-alienating (he was ousted in 2006 in a Republican district) Hayworth.
