J.D. Haywoth, Hawking Government Grants

He's no question mark guy, but conservative Senate candidate J.D. Hayworth hawked government grants on an infomercial in 2007. Here's the video, which surfaced yesterday, courtesy of TalkingPointsMemo:

Tea Partiers seem to like this guy. He's a former six-term congressman and an Arizona radio and TV personality. He sounds the right notes. Small-government philosophy is displayed prominently on the "issues" page of his website. He links the national debt to national security, and he says we are right to be afraid of terrorists (because of the debt).

And yet he pitched "free money" seminars for a Florida-based company that, according to AZCentral, faced criticisms from multiple state attorneys general and the Better Business Bureau. Which on its face seems quite damaging, given that fiscal conservatives and Tea Partiers have fashioned most of their political ethos, and certainly their agitation at President Obama and congressional Democrats, around the passionate certainty that "free money" does not exist.