McCain camp links Hayworth, 'extreme groups' (McCain says opponents of illegal immigration "bigots")

Sen. John McCain's campaign is calling on his primary challenger to disavow the backing of an anti-illegal immigration group that the campaign says permits the use of derisive epithets sometimes used for immigrants on its website.

But the North Carolina-based Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC) tells POLITICO those phrases have only appeared in a discussion board on their site and said no member of their group has ever used the offensive terms. 

ALIPAC organizer William Gheen said the group did not delete the term "Operation Wetback" from postings because it referred to President Dwight Eisenhower's historical effort to remove a million illegal immigrants from the country in the 1950s.

"The term wetback appears on our website as well as 90,300 other sites, according to Google," Gheen said. "The moderator didn't remove it because it wasn't used as a pejorative racial slur. Our moderators do their best to remove any racially insensitive comment but the website is clearly marked as an open-source comment section."

It's the latest iteration of one of McCain's most consistent messages: that Hayworth, a vocal immigration hawk, holds views that go beyond the conservative mainstream and into the fringe. Earlier this year, McCain's camp blasted Hayworth for comments that appeared to question President Obama's citizenship, and for a web ad that showed an image of McCain in "Avatar"-like face paint that the senator's supporters called offensive. 

"Let's be clear: Congressman [J.D.] Hayworth's continued flirtation with extreme groups that condone racism only opens the door for liberals to falsely paint all opponents of illegal immigration as bigots. Congressman Hayworth should immediately disavow this group’s support and commit to never again associating himself with groups that accept this kind of hateful and counterproductive rhetoric," McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers said in a statement Friday.

While Hayworth insisted he did not doubt the president's citizenship and called the web ad an Oscar-themed joke, he has shown no signs of backing away from the ALIPAC February endorsement, or returning the $1,000 it contributed to his campaign. Jason Rose, a spokesman for the former congressman, scoffed at the McCain campaign's request to disavow ALIPAC.

"Because of comments someone made in a comments section of a website? That would be quite a new standard. Is John McCain a KKK sympathizer because their members supported him in 2008? Of course not," said Rose.

ALIPAC is pushing back hard on the McCain campaign's attack, too, arguing that the derisive terms in question—"wetback" and "pepper bellies"—have only appeared in a discussion board on the group's website and not in official materials.

The McCain campaign contends, however, that the ALIPAC forums in question are monitored by an "ALIPAC executive officer" who could remove any terms that actually offended the organization.

"Groups have filters if they don't condone such activity on their website. ALIPAC clearly condones it. Hispanic Republicans here in Arizona are obviously offended. Groups like the Anti-Defamation League are offended. If Congressman Hayworth isn't offended, that’s his deal," Rogers said.