Since
then, Cassidy has become considerably older and wiser, as his lifetime
American Conservative Union voting record of nearly 87 attests, higher than
the chamber’s GOP member average of around 84. Yet among some conservatives, he
still remains suspect with all sorts of convoluted and unconvincing efforts to
paint his as the same as the incumbent that he challenges Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu, no doubt rooted on by
the Landrieu campaign that hopes this results in discouraging enough of the
conservative vote to fail to turn out to vote in Cassidy and/or has his
campaign waste resources by feeling it must respond to the baseless charge that
he is not conservative enough.
Only
this past week another presumed answer for the small cabal calling Cassidy
impure, state Rep. Alan
Seabaugh, passed
on a candidacy and then endorsed Cassidy, while new Louisiana resident Rob Maness picked up the first
substantial endorsement from conservatives that Cassidy has not gotten, which
gives
him a chance to pull in third-party spending of about 10 percent of what
Cassidy has on hand. And don’t be surprised if it wasn’t Landrieu opposition research
that found the 1988 letter to the editor now being publicized.
If
so, it’s because Landrieu instinctively understands what David Horowitz recently
and brilliantly laid out as to why Democrats can win campaigns despite
having a message contrary to the reality majorities perceive, precisely because
liberalism is not built on reality but appeals to emotion. Horowitz, who began
his political life as a committed Marxist, understands well that the political
left is built on faith, not reason, with a true belief that it is on the side
of history’s inevitable path, and that apostasy to that faith is a sign of
immorality whose adherents must be crushed. This panting need to affiliate behind
the use of government to bring this transformation provides exceptional unitary
impetus.
By
contrast, conservatives don’t see themselves as part of a transformational
movement simply because they see government not as something to alter human
nature (which is immutable and therefore this attempt brings tyranny), but as a
necessary evil to temper the worst aspects of human nature. There’s no call to
collective action rallying around faith that dislodges reason and unites as in
the case of liberals, but instead engages in critical appraisal of
government-as-Prometheus, precisely because when unbound it can produce
collective action that threatens freedom. This rejection of sublimation of
individuality to pursue the collective in favor of equipping individuals to
fight sublimation by the collective makes it naturally harder for conservatives
to pursue a unified agenda and arouses suspicions that real or imagined “backsliders”
already have submitted to sublimation.
Thus,
the left tries to exploit these divisions for its own gain, and some are more than
willing to be the useful idiots being played. There’s nothing wrong when there
is healthy debate and dissent within the right, because this is the strength of
conservatism in America in that its ideas are tested and proven through this
process, whereas the left hangs on to its bromides regardless of the facts and
logic that expose their invalidity, with its preferred method of debate being to
shout down opponents by indulging in name-calling, shifting to non sequiturs, and proclaiming
inconvenient truths as illegitimate. But at the same time, among Republicans creation
of false controversies (egged
on by Democrats) and elevating trivial differences over issues into schismatic
ruptures only plays into Democrats’ hands.
The
Maness campaign is a classic example of this tendency, highlighting a few
narrow differences between him and Cassidy, then using this as the basis to
declare Cassidy and Landrieu as largely indistinguishable. No serious or
studied observer would buy this. In this particular race, with credibility one can
campaign on conservative credentials, ability to influence policy, electability,
and candidate image, but there’s none with proclaiming Cassidy a RINO.
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