Underdog Hayworth says he'll rap McCain on illegal immigration

“If [Obama] really wanted a grand public works project, building and securing the border and ports of entry makes common sense," he says. "It’s unconscionable [that] we spent almost a decade after 9/11 and have failed to protect our border.”

Hayworth has the endorsement of Chris Simcox, a cofounder of the Minutemen, a leading advocacy group for border protection. Mr. Simcox himself had planned to challenge McCain, but he dropped his own campaign on Monday and threw his support to Hayworth. Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan is also supporting Hayworth.

One issue McCain has already raised is Hayworth’s connection, while a member of Congress, to disgraced Washington insider Jack Abramoff, sent to prison for defrauding the Indian tribes he represented as a lobbyist. Hayworth’s political action committee received $101,620 in donations from Mr. Abramoff between 1999 and 2005, a time when Hayworth was cochairman of the Native American Caucus in Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan political research group.

The US Justice Department investigated Hayworth in 2006 regarding Abramoff but never filed charges. Today, Hayworth says he is vindicated by the outcome. If McCain continues to bring up the incident during the campaign, he warned during the interview, he will bring up Charles Keating, a convicted banker and McCain friend. McCain was accused of trying to sway federal regulators who were investigating Mr. Keating in the 1980s.

The McCain campaign "may think they’re scorching the earth, but it would be wise to keep on the issues rather than the litany of false accusations,” Hayworth says.

There is a bit of a disconnect in Hayworth’s desire to appeal to upset conservatives: Many of the stars of the far right, such as Ms. Palin and newly elected Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, say they will campaign for McCain. Palin’s decision is an “impulse of gratitude, politically,” says Hayworth, who adds that there is a growing Facebook group of voters who say they admire Palin but are supporting his campaign.

He credits Palin for saying in her recent book that primaries are the sign of a political party’s vitality. Their common interest, he says, is to appeal to “newly awakened Americans” who are dismayed by the “onslaught of the left.”

“People are pulling back on the reins and saying, ‘We have to take a big right turn,’ ” he says.

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