Angry Johnny, Meet The Hoffman Effect

John McCain lost the Presidential race, but he's still a shoo-in back home for Arizona's senior Senator in 2010.

Or is he?

A new Rasmussen poll finds that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) could potentially be in trouble with Republican voters back home in Arizona, where he's often faced criticism from the right for his views on immigration.

In a potential Republican primary for his 2010 re-election, the 2008 GOP nominee for President is in a dead heat with former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, a hard-line conservative who lost his seat in the 2006 Democratic wave.

The numbers: McCain 45%, Hayworth 43%, with a ±4% margin of error. A third candidate who is already in the race, former Minuteman leader Chris Simcox, gets 4%.

From the pollster's analysis: "For McCain, the GOP Primary appears to be his biggest challenge since no major Democrats in the state have stepped forward yet to run against him."

Now the problem here is that J.D. Hayworth hasn't even actually decided to run yet. He'd be in one of those statistical dead heats with McCain if he did.

In other words, McCain just became a shining beacon of a target for the Hoffman Effect.  Now, in Arizona, that may be enough to see the GOP win, depending on who's running for the blue team.  But Arizona is trending a bit blue lately (or more blue than it was) and that means it's possible that the Dems could have an opening here.  Maybe.

But Angry Johnny McCain?  He's probably pretty mad this morning.  Pretty mad indeed.