Who would have thought the first
guy out of the gate for the 2015 governor’s race would have been Democrat state
Rep. John Bel
Edwards? There’s a reason for that – and while it’s not what he says it is,
it has everything to do with the perceived dynamics of a putative contest.
There is some merit to an early
start. After the 2011 embarrassment where state Democrats could not get a
quality candidate to run – the Democrat who ate the least amount of Gov. Bobby
Jindal’s runaway reelection dust was nearly 50 percent of the vote behind –
Edwards or any Democrat knows an early start, short of having the ability to
self-finance, will be essential to have any hope of capturing the open seat in
a state where attitudes have swung decisively against the left on a statewide
level. Edwards
is personally part of the one percent but not wealthy enough to abjure
having to call in chits and sticking out his hand for more.
But, compared to when a typical,
serious gubernatorial campaign starts, 18 months earlier? Edwards says he let
the cat out of the bag because he wanted to give an honest answer when asked
during a radio interview about his future intentions in that regard – which
nobody of voting age or older should for a moment believe. It would have been
perfectly believable had Edwards said he was giving it “serious thought” or
that he “had received a lot of encouragement to run” but left it at that. Why
let it out so far in advance, and seeming off-handedly (not in a news release
or a well-publicized news conference or rally, but to a tiny, local audience
composed almost entirely of political junkies and the bored)?
Because Edwards did as all ambitious politicians do when announcing
their availability for higher office – to the greatest strategic effect. Consider
that Edwards is probably the most vocal and visible liberal Democrat in the
state Legislature. That might get you elected in a backwater district located
in one of the most populist tracts of the state remaining, and to a position where
you can emphasize local connections and your ability to bring home the bacon,
but that won’t cut it in the biggest statewide contest of all in Louisiana post-Republican
majority realignment …
… unless you are such a true believer of the leftist creed that you
eagerly swallow the pablum from the White House and party elites, regurgitated
by a compliant media, that tries to convince the political universe that there
is an inevitable national realignment towards Democrats of the liberal ilk –
even thought this is a likely temporary phenomenon driven by the ephemeral
ascendancy of low information, low interest voters at the national level.
And the reason you think you can catch the wave in a state that so recently and
so rapidly rejected that is because of its peculiar political history.
There’s credibility to the latter thought that Edwards ought to know
better than most. Coming from a political family in the populist tradition, he
would know that only now is Louisiana getting its first taste of genuine
conservative economic policy, which defies the prevailing state political culture
that defines government that governs the least governs the best – except when
it’s transferring wealth and services to me that I don’t have to pay for. Less
visibly during his first three years, but much more aggressively and openly in
the past two, Gov. Bobby Jindal has challenged
that attitude without trying to secure its entire abandonment.
What may have given Edwards a thrill
up his leg was Jindal’s attempt to transform the culture has now resulted
in middling approval ratings in decline, as reported recently. That he may
interpret this as agenda rejection and heralds a return to his populist
bailiwick that aligns upon liberalism’s lodestar of tax-and-spend (which, in
comments after his surprise admission he acknowledged with his assessment of
Jindal’s no-new-taxes-not-revenue-neutral stance “that cutting [government
spending] is not the answer in and of itself”), this may mean he thinks he’s
got a public now receptive to that more traditional persuasion in Louisiana’s
political culture.
And by coming out now, Edwards steals a march on the assumed, if not in
reality actual, “moderate” Democrats (who don’t take his approach of
full-throated defense of liberalism, because they are not as cagey in how they
present it, so they try to obfuscate it) that would be presumed to have a
better chance at winning support of Democrats and fellow-traveling partisans in
this contest against Republicans. By moving early, he can hope to move the
playing field further to the left by setting himself up as the “authentic”
voice of dissent to the Jindal (and a substantial number of legislators who
agree with Jindal but are glad the governor is taking all of the heat) transformation
machine and making himself the visible figure around which to rally electoral
support based upon opposition to the transformation, cutting out others on the
left.
But he is entirely mistaken if he believes the tectonic shift being
experienced in Louisiana has run its course or been reversed as a result of
negative publicity and transitory polling result. It is error to conflate views
of the messenger Jindal, doing the dirty work of restructuring state government
away from its populist foundation and irritating pseudo-conservatives who have supported
him in the past, with Democrats’ dogging of him every step of the way amplified
by the media, and of the message itself that increasingly has found favor among
the state’s electorate. As nationalizing social forces continuously buffet the
state’s culture, and with the emergence of vanguard politicians who are
succeeding in illustrating the internal contradictions to liberalism generally,
this has spilled over specifically to dilute the populist appeal. Ongoing
policy evolution will buttress that trend.
Consider: by 2015, the charity hospital system will be vastly
diminished; the correctional system will be smaller and more efficient;
three-quarters of the Medicaid population will have been served by the premium
support program Bayou Health for three years or more; at least one university system
will be leaner and more efficient; the scholarship voucher program for elementary
and secondary education will be larger and more mature; substandard teachers already
for the first time ever in significant numbers will be losing their jobs due to
the new evaluation system in place and accountability scores for schools will
have continued their rise, and, the signature achievement, income taxes at the
very least will be gone for corporations and much lower for individuals, if the
latter hasn’t disappeared as well. Contrary to the left’s dream, Louisiana will
not have fallen apart from all of this, and while some on the right will snipe
at Jindal’s managing of this transformation from the sidelines, they will
embrace it. Most significantly, so will the public.
In other words, those unsullied by having to be the implementers of the
transformation but who believe in and rode it Edwards will have to run against
if he stays in the race. Edwards may have thought he can strike when the iron is
hot, but does not realize it’s not hot at all. Or perhaps he does have his
doubts, but that with such an early start thinks things could break better his
way; after all, you can’t win if you don’t play, and there’s plenty of time to
get out if you find yourself mistaken.
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