The crucial difference: whether a worldview's core tenets involve honesty

It's not of earthshaking importance to avoid sounding smug about the point I want to make with this post, but it would be helpful to my ability to disseminate it.

You see, ideologies like Leftism and radical Islam are fine with misleading those they want to either convince or conquer, because they see mendacity as serving a greater good: leveling everybody and everything before the Great Ideal.

Real conservatives by nature can't do this.  There are principles that are being defended, and there must be nothing to sully their defense.  I'm not saying they can't be hypocrites (Mark Sanford, anyone?), but they won't tell the public one thing with the intention of imposing on it something quite different.  (Plus, the conservative worldview involves a strong tragic element - that is, it takes into account the fullness of human nature.)

This difference plays itself out in a number of ways in our time:

Conservatives expect their candidates not only to stand on principle (sometimes to a fault) but to shout their intentions from the rooftops.  Strategic evasions and efforts to delicately frame issues that may present problems with parochial electorates are frequently angrily renounced as betrayals of the cause.  Liberals, by contrast, understand that many of their ideas would be unpalatable to centrist voters if stated explicitly, so they're willing to tolerate -- if not openly encourage -- many of their candidates to talk a center-Right game on the trail.  He doesn't really mean that, but he has to say it, because most voters aren't as enlightened as we are.  We see this time and again.  Feel free to campaign as a "pro-lifer" in a pro-life state, as long as you veto the pro-life bill when it crosses your desk.  Feel free to "oppose" same-sex marriage, as long as you "evolve" to your true position right quick once the coast is clear.  Feel free to vow to oppose healthcare bills like Obamacare, or make reassuring promises that you know can't be kept, as long as you cast that crucial deciding vote when it's go time.  That's why Democrats are perfectly content that Michelle Nunn is lying about not being sure whether she'd have voted for Obamacare in Georgia.  That's why Democrats are delighted that Democrat-turned-independent Greg Orman is holding open the possibility of caucusing with Republicans if elected to the Senate.  Deceiving voters is a feature, not a bug.

And so the James O'Keefe video exposing Alison Lundergan Grimes campaign staffers acknowledging that she has to lie about her position on coal because of the rubes and bitter clingers that comprise the Kentucky population will only have an impact if there is a critical mass of that population that takes offense at being lied to by a Senatorial candidate.  Which will tell us a few things about America in general.