Old and busted: “Caveat emptor.”  New hotness: “I regret my association with this firm.” Perhaps J. D. Hayworth can be forgiven in thinking that his Mathew Lesko turn, sans freaky suit, would be a minor tempest in a teapot for a run at John McCain’s Senate seat from the right, but this is the wrong election for the idea that a conservative would celebrate — and profit from — massive amounts of federal government grants:

Reeling from a storm of national criticism, U.S. Senate challenger J.D. Hayworth on Thursday issued a written apology for his involvement in a 2007 infomercial promoting “free” government grant seminars that consumer advocates have slammed as a rip-off.

The apology came days after the GOP candidate’s initial response to the furor, which was that the infomercial simply was a broadcasting job and that viewers should have taken a “buyer beware” approach to its claims. …

“I believed . . . this to be a reputable firm, but I did not completely check out the organization,” said Hayworth, a former six-term congressman and radio talk-show host running against Sen. John McCain in the Aug. 24 primary.

“As a former broadcaster, I would often make ads for clients, but I regret my association with this firm.”

On Monday, the day the infomercial became an issue in the Senate race, Hayworth did not sound so repentant.

“I always say about any product or service, one of the staples I learned growing up is ‘caveat emptor’ – ‘buyer beware,’ ” Hayworth said in a webcast titled “Round Table Politics.”

The problem for Hayworth is twofold, which he seems to have belatedly realized.  First is the idea of promoting “free money” in an era where that concept has entirely died, thanks to massive budget deficits and economic hardship.  That certainly doesn’t sound conservative, which makes Hayworth look like someone willing to sell out his principles for a quick buck.

The second is related to that point, as Hayworth fronted for a firm that defrauded its customers and couldn’t even bother to apologize for using the trust he had built with Arizonans to unwittingly help them do it.  No one can make TV commercials plugging the virtues of a firm and entirely escape scrutiny if the company is exposed as a fraud, even when they’re not running for public office.  Celebrities have been sued for that in the past.  Issuing a “caveat emptor” sounds a lot like “Let them eat cake” in that context.

A new poll out from Magellan, via RCP, suggests that Hayworth may have apologized a little too late. In an automated survey of over 1100 likely Republican primary voters, John McCain leads Hayworth by 23 points, 52/29.  Seniors represent almost half of the voters in the primary, and McCain has a 32-point advantage among that demo.  Hayworth does best with men between 18-54, but even there he trails by 3.  McCain’s favorables are 60/37 for a +23; Hayworth has a 38/50 for a -12.

This poll could be an outlier; Rasmussen’s poll prior to the “free money” issue had McCain up by eleven points, not 23.  This poll was taken the day after the scandal broke, too, and prior to this apology and after Hayward’s caveat emptor remark.  It is, however, an unusually large sample by a well-established polling firm.  It indicates that Hayworth may have waited too long to show remorse over his connection to National Grants Conferences.