By now it’s old news that George LeMieux decided to drop out of Florida’s Republican Primary for US Senate.

Despite his statement, his decision to withdraw from the race was not borne out of some altruistic desire for the GOP to defeat Bill Nelson. Had he any genuine desire for that, he would have never waged an all-out character assassination campaign against the candidate who he knew all along was going to be the Republican nominee. Not only were most of his attacks against Connie Mack personal and unrelated to policy or issues, but in most cases they were false (per PolitiFact).

Conservatives welcomed LeMieux’s exit and hailed it as another victory in the ongoing battle against the Crist Circle of Crap. I agree that it is a victory, but by no means does it imply that the war has ended.

Leftist pukes, RINOs, progressives, backstabbers, and other such malcontents are like roaches: you can’t exterminate them even with a nuclear holocaust. And to you freaks over at “Media Matters for America:”  no, I’m not advocating anyone’s literal extermination or a nuclear holocaust. Jerks.

Anyway, what I mean by my comparing them to roaches is that no matter the defeat, they will always find a way to rise up and make a comeback.  George LeMieux is no exception (and neither is the Backstabber Charlie Crist, for that matter).

George LeMieux’s decision to run had nothing to do with winning, but rather setting himself up for a viable run in the future. He knew his connection to Crist was too fresh in everyone’s mind, so his race for Senate was merely an attempt to rebrand himself and put additional political history between his Crist past and his eventual run for something viable, be it a cabinet position that some current Republican refuses to seek reelection to, or perhaps a Congressional seat in South Florida.

LeMieux is reportedly leaving the race with a few hundred thousand dollars in his federal account, which he can use in a future federal race. Watch your backs, Allen West and Adam Hasner!

So part of LeMieux’s strategy this year was to tear down the eventual Republican nominee for this current race.  His decision to go personal was no coincidence. Connie Mack has had his occasional wander from the conservative reservation, which in a Republican primary is a relevant, fair and effective line of attack, but LeMieux rarely hit Mack on that. Instead, he chose personal attacks: Anything from totally irrelevant bar fights twenty years ago and questioning his Florida residency, to mockingly referring to him as “Mack the Fourth” and “Half Mack” in an attempt to belittle and make a caricature out of him–literally.

LeMieux ad depicting Mack as Charlie Sheen

The worst of the attacks, in my opinion, was his buffoonish video comparing Connie Mack to disgraced B-actor and known cocaine addict and deviant Charlie Sheen. Despite outrage by rank-and-file Republicans, LeMieux defended the video, and the campaign even continued referring to him as “Half Mack” in subsequent attack ads.

Quite the “class act” eh, Joe Gruters?

I would link to the video, but the LeMieux campaign designated it as “private” as soon as he dropped out of the race, knowing full well that those of us with political attention spans greater than a squirrel’s would in the future remind people of his tasteless attack to undermine the Republican nominee. Here is the script nonetheless.

Make no mistake. Those attacks were intended to give Bill Nelson and the Democrats fodder to use against Mack in the November general election. LeMieux knew the Democrats would never reuse an issue-based attack about how Mack voted the wrong way on some conservative issue, which is why his attacks against Mack were against his person and not his policies.

But why would LeMieux–a “Republican”–want to undermine his party’s nominee?

Because he needs Mack to lose so he can turn around and convince everyone that he would have been the stronger candidate. #thatsrightisaidit

“See? I told you Mack couldn’t beat Nelson. But even though I was right, I put the party first, fell on my own sword, took one for ‘the team’ and stood aside. You Republicans owe me.”

LeMieux said it himself. He declared a few weeks ago that Mack couldn’t win a “character contest” with Bill Nelson.

It remains to be seen whether or not LeMieux is right about that, but he sure did everything he could to give Bill Nelson the ammunition to prove himself right.

Regardless, I personally endorsed Connie Mack several weeks ago, not just because he stood the best chance to defeat LeMieux (or get him out of the race), but because he has a proven record as a conservative in congress.  His “Penny Plan” is a realistic approach to tackling the debt that even Democrats can get behind.

Unfortunately, though I personally admire Mack’s commitment to conservatism, he fails the Reaganista Florida Conservatives Litmus Test in that he backed Charlie Crist’s 2010 Senate race against Marco Rubio. To his credit, however, Mack did nothing for Crist (much less enable his treachery as governor) other than lend his name to the long list of politicians who endorsed him early on. In his defense, Crist had long-standing ties to the Mack family, since he was an intern for US Senator Connie Mack back (Mack IV’s dad) back in the day.

Under normal circumstances, Mack’s support of Crist at ANY point in the 2010 race would disqualify him from being #ReaganistaCertified, but since he’s been a good conservative as a congressman and (until recently) was running against backstabber Charlie Crist’s #1 enabler, cheerleader, advisor, and confidant George LeMieux, that’s enough to make an exception.