Saturday, April 14, 2012

My how the mighty have fallen: JD Hayworth reduced to talk radio in Fargo, ND

Life has been less than kind to former Congressman JD Hayworth.

He parlayed an undistiguished career as a TV weatherman and sportscasters into six terms in Congress, where he became a fixture on the lists of both the dumbest members and the most corrupt.

In 2006, he was unseated by Harry Mitchell, and the professional descent began.

He moved into talk radio, starting in AZ and then moving to NYC, an upward move definitely, but the last upward move since Arizona voters kicked him to the electoral curb.

After flaming out in NYC, he took his act to San Francisco - not NYC, but still a significant market.

Unfortunately, things haven't worked out there.

From the Arizona Republic's AZ/DC blog, written by Dan Nowicki -

Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., has lost the weekday radio talk show he had hosted for three months on KSFO-AM in San Francisco. But Hayworth, a broadcaster who served six terms in Congress, is still on the air on a new station in Fargo, N.D., called 101.9 Talk FM.

For comparison purposes:

Fargo proper has ~105K residents, and "metropolitan" Fargo has slightly less than 220K; in Arizona, the city of Scottsdale alone has ~220K residents.

ND has one Congressional district (the entire state) with ~680K residents; the 5th (out of eight, soon to be nine) Congressional district in AZ, the one that Hayworth (allegedly) represented, has ~640K.

Not saying that North Dakota is a small place and a step down (to be fair, many North Dakotans love their state the same way that many Arizonans love theirs), but as far as career paths go, SF to ND doesn't qualify as an upward trajectory.

No comments: