John McCain Agrees to Debate J.D. Hayworth — Let the Games Begin

It’s on!

Senator John McCain’s campaign announced today that “The Maverick” has agreed to requests made by his opponent in the GOP Senate primary, J.D. Hayworth, to debate — thus ending the longstanding “debate over debates.”

The two will meet for two debates — one in Phoenix on July 16, and one in Tucson on July 17, the campaign announced today.

Hayworth has been trying to get McCain to agree to debate since March, when he marched into McCain’s campaign headquarters — media in tote — to issue his challenge in the form of a letter handed to a frightened receptionist.

“The Maverick,” as Hayworth admittedly knew, was not in the office when he issued his uber-public challenge.

McCain’s been delaying debates ever since but now seems to be an opportune time for Arizona’s senior senator to square off with Hayworth.

The theory among political strategists is that when you have a candidate with a lot of name recognition, like McCain, there’s no sense in putting them on stage with their lesser-known opponents to debate — things can only go wrong.

Now that Hayworth, the self-proclaimed “consistent conservative,” has been outed for his role as a pitchman for a now-bankrupt company that offered to help people get their hands on “free government money,” McCain no longer has to worry about being seen as the least conservative of the two candidates — a trait that doesn’t fly among most voters in the GOP primary.

Will the debates be enough to put the final nail in J.D.’s coffin? Or will it give him a chance to rejuvenate his campaign?

We’ll have to wait and see, but one thing’s for sure: For any political junkies out there, watching these two beat the political shit out of each other for a few hours sounds pretty entertaining, if you ask us.