“He who makes troubles in his own house shall inherit the wind.” — Proverbs, 11:29
We all love the story of David and Goliath. David was the underdog. He slew the giant. The difference between David and Madison Cawthorn is that Cawthorn is shooting himself in the face with the slingshot, while the GOP Goliath has tried to reason with him and failed. That’s why they’re turning on him, finally. He’s become far more trouble than he’s worth.
If Cawthorn could make laws half as well as he makes enemies, he might be viable to stay in Congress. As it is, he’s going down in flames next week — at least if his own party has anything to say about it. Going out to fight the dragons every day is one thing. Having to fight them, and the dragons in your own cave is quite a different story. Daily Beast:
“It’s definitely a hit job that I’m happy to be a party to,” a veteran North Carolina operative involved in the race told The Daily Beast.
“Most of the GOP universe has come around to align against this guy,” he added. “You’re seeing a full-court, state-based, establishment pushback against him. Get this guy out. Take him out. We’re gonna see if we can pull it off in eight days.”
A bit of conspiratorial conventional wisdom has taken hold recently among some on both the right and left: that the knives came out for Cawthorn in March after he alleged that unnamed GOP lawmakers were openly sniffing drugs and hosting orgies.
That may have been the last straw for some. But the reality is Cawthorn has spent the last year making enemies, from Capitol Hill to the corner of North Carolina that he represents. The congressman’s most recent string of unforced errors—from the coke-and-orgy comments to disparaging Ukraine’s president as a “thug”—merely helped to consolidate a powerful coalition of longtime foes and former friends.
The former group—led by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC)—has backed state Sen. Chuck Edwards, one of Cawthorn’s leading primary challengers, and has spent heavily on ads damaging the congressman.
Cawthorn is hated and his own party is trying to clean house.
Maybe they should have put more effort into keeping him out of office in the first place. They apparently didn’t do the homework, based on whatever they were told about him by people who must have wanted him out of town.