I stoled that one from MacAoidh, who put it on his Facebook. It was too good not to steal.

Because this is the second time that the “arch-conservative” dude in the Senate race has directly jumped in to somethin’ which has zero to do with him durin’ this campaign and directly made a goof of himself.

The first time happened back in November of last year. That was when we had a piece here on the Hayride about Mary Landrieu and her vote to kill the filibuster, and how the Democrats had gone around like fascism was comin’ to America over the Republicans thinkin’ about doin’ that back in 2005 – so how come Mary ain’t a fascist now?

And we threw this bad boy into the mix…

So what happened after that was Cassidy’s campaign manager Joel DiGrado tweeted out, to his personal Twitter that like 100 people follow, a link to the article that had that pic with it. And Landrieu’s people decided they’d start one o’ them nontroversies about how Cassidy was callin’ Mary a Mussolini and how he ought to apologize.

In pure Italian fashion, Cassidy’s response was somethin’ like “Va F’anculo.” You can go ask your pasta-eatin’ neighbors what that means. So that was the end of it until this Maness came back a couple days later and demanded the same apology Mary didn’t get because the image Cassidy had nothin’ to do with was offensive to World War II veterans. Or something.

MacAoidh put up a post at the time sayin’ that wasn’t particularly impressive for an “arch-conservative” Senate hopeful to be sayin’, and gave a little more by way of analysis…

One would imagine that if Maness was the “real” conservative in the race, and he couldn’t help himself but to march into this controversy, he would have attacked Landrieu’s camp as ridiculous for demanding an apology – and decried the lunacy of political correctness that exists on the Left; after all, if a three-term Senator can’t take a little lampooning once in a while after a particularly atrocious vote, she doesn’t belong there and it’s time to put a real American like a Rob Maness into that seat.

Right?

Instead, we get more scolding from the Thought Police directed at Cassidy, who has zero to do with this laughable “controversy.” Maness, the Republican, took the side of Landrieu, the Democrat, over Cassidy, his fellow Republican, for something Cassidy didn’t even do.

And by doing so, to the extent anybody actually cares what the Maness campaign says he’s now aiding Landrieu’s attempt to deflect attention away from that vote killing the filibuster. By participating in that distraction and whining about a satirical image on a blog post, he’s taking attention away from something substantive that should damage her chances at re-election. Which, one would expect, he’d find to his benefit.

It’s so stupid it’s suspicious. Maness might be a first-time candidate and this could be a rookie mistake – but if that’s all this is, are you really capable of beating a three-term incumbent with  press releases about blog posts?

So all that’s a rehash of old stuff. But it’s relevant again, because Maness did it again. Cassidy was quoted in Environment and Energy Daily News as sayin’ Harry Reid runs the Senate like a plantation. Here’s the quote…

Reid “runs the Senate like a plantation,” Cassidy said. “So instead of the world’s greatest deliberative body, it is his personal, sort of, ‘It goes if I say it does, if not it stops.’ Senator Landrieu’s first vote for him to be re-elected means that every other wish for a pro-oil and gas jobs bill is dead. Reid will never allow a pro-oil and gas jobs bill.”

As Big Deals go, this one kinda makes you say “meh.”

There’s a whole lotta ways you could describe how Harry Reid runs that Senate that would be more uncomplimentary than a “plantation.” Plantations were, in some cases, productive, and a lot of ’em at least had some charm about ’em from an artistic/architectural standpoint. What would be meaner is to say he’s runnin’ a bordello up there, or a crackhouse.

But he called it a plantation.

So Reid said Cassidy’s like Donald Sterling. That makes about as much sense as everything else that stupid ol’ bastard says, an’ he’s the last guy who ought to be makin’ accusations of racism out of thin air seein’ as though he’s got his own problems in that regard. If I was Cassidy’s media dude, I’d go tweet that Reid doesn’t know right from Wong and he ought to shaddap.

So here’s Maness, and he could say “I dunno about a plantation, but I sure do know that Harry Reid pretty much sucks an’ he’s gotta get tossed out of that job, and the best way to toss him out is to dump Mary Landrieu in favor of a real conservative like me.”

Maness didn’t say that. He said this…

“Congressman Cassidy may not realize this but the language he used included a term that is incredibly offensive to many Americans and he should immediately apologize,” said Maness in a news release. “It’s this type of over-the-top, out-of-bounds ignorance that drives so many people away from the Republican Party.  We need to be better than that.  We need to be the party of thoughtful ideas and common-sense reforms – not extreme rhetoric and ignorant comments.  We all make mistakes and when we do, we should have the fortitude to own up to them.”

Which brings to mind a couple things. First, Rob Maness ain’t from Louisiana. If he was, he wouldn’t think that the word “plantation,” especially bein’ used as a crappy, backward place to have to go work, is some kinda racial epithet. We have road signs all over the state pointin’ people to plantations they can go see as tourist traps. Some of ’em are haunted, even.

Like I said, “meh.”

But you think you might could get traction off somethin’ like this if you’re a Yankee carpetbagger whose campaign team is all from places like New Jersey an’ your idea of local flavor is the Cajun seafood special at Red Lobster. That would make you do things like wrestle alligators in your TV ads and bottom-feed off somebody’s accusation that Reid runs a plantation in the Senate.

But the other thing is what MacAoidh said.

Not only is this twice that Maness has made himself a Democrat by bumblin’ into a fake controversy that had nothin’ to do with him, it’s the second time he’s done so tryin’ to play Thought Police when us actual conservatives are really, really sick of bein’ told what to say by control freaks who mostly reside on the Left. This dude might run out there with all manner of stuff he says is more conservative than Cassidy is, but give him half a chance an’ he’s every bit the joyless scold you might get off the faculty at Wellesley or Berkeley.

Sure, there’s a shameless attempt at opportunism goin’ on here. But opportunists pick their spots, and a guy who is actually #OneOfUs isn’t all that likely to see jumpin’ in on faux PC donnybrooks like these as his spots. But Maness does. He’s as PC as Michael Dell, this guy.

Maybe somebody ought to call PETA about him wrestlin’ those alligators. That’d serve him right.

Meanwhile, here’s some art to look at…