Just days before Arizona’s primary election, Sen. John McCain’s primary opponent has played one of the dirtiest political cards, introducing age discrimination into the campaign.
“I’m a doctor. The life expectancy of the American male is not 86. It’s less,” Kelli Ward told POLITICO. “There are things that happen physiologically with the body and the mind. One of them is control over your anger and he’s already known as an angry man.”
McCain will turn 80 on Monday. His mother, who lives in Washington, D.C., turned 104 earlier this year.
McCain called Ward’s attack a “dive to the bottom.”
Ward is trailing badly in polls and is expected to lose voter-rich Maricopa County by a huge margin on Tuesday.
Ward, a conservative former state senator, had been attacking McCain’s length of service in Congress, 37 years, until this week when she turned the issue into his age.
Super PACs supporting McCain have paid for extremely negative ads against Ward.
One of them called her “Chemtrail Kelli” for being open to investigating whether the government is spraying Americans from airplanes.
McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, is looking at an expensive and negative battle with Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick in November.
Kirkpatrick says it is unlikely she will follow Ward’s lead and bring age discrimination into the fall campaign.