About two weeks ago, the former head of the Andrew Thomas rah-rah squad, and current director of social media for the J.D. Hayworth Senate campaign, claimed that a poll putting John McCain ahead by 45 points in the race was "doctored."
After making the accusation on her blog, Intellectual Conservative, Rachel Alexander then called on Scott Rasmussen to come save the day and conduct a "realistic" poll.
Rasmussen conducted a poll, but Alexander might not like the numbers, either: Hayworth is trailing "The Maverick" by 20 points -- just three days before early polling begins.
Hayworth and Alexander both said they expected Hayworth's numbers to improve after he had a chance to plead his case to the public during televised debates. The debates, however, appear to have had no effect on Hayworth's poll numbers.
Today's Rasmussen poll is the third straight poll to give McCain at least a 20-point advantage over Hayworth.
Another interesting tidbit from the poll: McCain leads Hayworth among voters who identify themselves as conservative by 13 points -- 50 percent to 37 percent.
That's bad news for Hayworth, who has billed himself as "the consistent conservative" and criticized McCain's centrist leanings.
It seems -- yet again -- that Hayworth's chances for a victory in the primary are slim-to-none. His downfall -- by our estimation -- can be summarized in three words: "free government money."
