Sequel to November 4, 2014

As the ads hit the airways in anticipation of the LA runoff election for US Senate between Dr. Bill Cassidy and Mary Landrieu, musings have come to mind. It seems necessary first to put to bed the issue of Republican candidates who stayed in the race until the bitter end, long after it was apparent that all they could be was a drain on the frontrunner on election night. They stayed, nonetheless, and did siphon enough votes away from Cassidy to prevent an outright win against the liberal democrat. Had those peripheral candidates been more motivated by the greater picture, I believe we would not be here, revving up for another vote.

The system in Louisiana does not provide a primary where same party candidates can challenge one another. It is up to each one to manage a campaign effectively enough to become the viable choice against the opposition party before election day. Col. Maness did not manage his campaign successfully enough to achieve this goal. As an unknown political entity, he had to have known he had a problem with name recognition. Even so, he announced his intention to mount an effort to unseat a three term senator in May of this year. His grassroots campaign was admirable enough, and he gained the rather average results for respectable third candidates-about 15%. It was a similar percentage of votes that Ross Perot, in his narcissism, pulled from George H.W. Bush in his reelection bid that gave us Bill and Hill Clinton-a national misery from which we are still suffering. My recommendation to Mr. Maness would have been to run for congress or state office to get his feet wet, gain familiarity, and demonstrate his conservatism through a voting record. At the very least, he should have analyzed his position, withdrawn and supported the frontrunner, Dr. Cassidy, as did the other substantive republican candidate, Paul Hollis. Mr. Hollis not only withdrew in July as he watched the polls, but he prevented public republican infighting and threw his support behind Cassidy. In my estimation, Mr. Hollis performed more dutifully. The wisdom he displayed will serve him well in any future political aspirations he may have.

Mr. Maness, on the other hand, has made himself suspect, especially after Landrieu’s elaborate and pointed thank you to him on election night as she gave her spirited speech on the runoff ahead. Was he a democrat plant from the first to split the republican vote enough to give Landrieu the outright win or was she stumping for his voters? His insistence on wading through to the bitter end, at best, seemed self serving and unwise. Dear folks have argued conscience at this point. However, the argument fails in the clear path to a win it provided for a pro-abortion liberal democrat feminist, over a pro-life, traditional values republican.

Maness has a way out of this mess. He should immediately announce his support for Dr. Cassidy, appear in Cassidy’s behalf somewhere, and encourage his own voters to get out the republican vote during the runoff. Thankfully, the carelessness and risk Maness exposed the state and the country to in terms of senate control and slowing down Obama’s destructive agenda were abrogated by the historic win November 4. However, no majority can be too small. A Maine republican is not the same as a Louisiana republican. It is still important that republicans increase their majority to allow for defections from more moderate senators, and to provide for fewer seats to defend in the next go round. We are all familiar with the shenanigans of democrats, from votes by dead folks to buying votes with vodka and cocaine. How careless to provide the wily Landrieu with more time.

An overtime win is still a win, but it is an added, unnecessary risk. We should have and most probably could have won this thing in regulation. It is a rather perpetual state of war for the constitutional governance of our nation in which we find ourselves, making it even more surprising that the military man could not see that the strategy he chose could have cost us so very much. Maness could be part of the push for a nine seat majority. Whether his initial intentions were motivated by self or country will be obvious by his next and immediate political actions.