Triggered by the sudden upcoming resignation of Rep. Rodney Alexander, as previously
noted the race was bound to attract a lot of interest given that any Member of
Congress from the state who stays at least one term in office who runs for
reelection has not lost since the World War II period and, as a result, open
seats open up only rarely. This once-in-a-generation opportunity in the district
sucked
in 14 contestants, and perhaps six of them may be regarded as competitive –
state Sen. Neil Riser, state Reps. Marcus Hunter, Robert Johnson,
and Jay Morris,
Public Service Commissioner Clyde Holloway, and
Monroe Mayor Jamie Mayo.
Riser, Morris, and Holloway are white Republicans, Johnson is a white
Democrat, and Hunter and Mayo are black Democrats. The district’s registrant
composition is about two-thirds white, one-third black and about a half
Democrat and a quarter Republican, although in recent statewide and
presidential elections Republican candidates, as did Alexander in his
elections, have outpolled considerably Democrats.
Despite their racial and partisan differences, something else initially
unites many of these front-runners – they seem short on agendas and long on
whining, specifically that the timing of Alexander’s announcement and departure,
his subsequent appointment by Republican Gov. Bobby
Jindal to his administration and the quick coalescing of all of continuing
GOP House members behind Riser plus a few other state Republican officeholders
and even national
congressional Republicans, all constitute some sinister anti-democratic
plot to assist Riser. Interestingly, Republican Sen. David Vitter has remained
uninvolved, although he voiced slight agreement with this judgment, leading to
suspicion that he quietly might back someone other than Riser, perhaps Morris.
Morris and
Johnson complained
about it before qualifying, and Mayo alluded
to it, although displaying a little more maturity than the two white representatives
he added that what was done was done and he just needed to move forward.
Holloway presented the shrillest denunciation at qualifying and ending up
sounding much more like the Green Party candidate with his conspiratorial
assertion that there was a move afoot to have an “appointed” representative.
While the Manichean worldview that Republicans Holloway and Morris expounded
sounded more like the Democrats’ playbook out of the loony left that posits the
American experience is a rigged game favoring the few that only government can
combat and defeat, the district’s voters deserve more informed and substantive
argumentation about the actual issues. It also makes one wonder whether,
despite Morris’ and Johnson’s couple of years in the Legislature and Holloway’s
three terms in Congress over two decades ago and his many years on the PSC, they
truly understand how the American system works and believe in it, for it’s not
timings and endorsements in how the will of the people gets articulated, but
through votes cast, and over the next two months they have as equal chance as
anybody else to articulate agendas that will win them enough resources and
votes to get elected.
But if Holloway and Morris instead run campaigns more like a vendetta
against Riser and thereby articulate an ideology more similar to the major
Democrats in the race that plays to the populist resentment part of Louisiana’s
political culture, they open the door especially to allowing Johnson to win.
With Hunter and Mayo in the contest, the latter likely will outpoll the former
but the former will capture enough votes to prevent probably either from making
the runoff, in that the vast majorities of their votes will come from blacks.
Johnson will hide behind guns and God to present surface social
conservative credentials in order to mask
his support of redistributionist and statist ideology favored by national
Democrats in the White House and who control the Senate currently to get enough
of the white vote to make the runoff – voters who otherwise would go for Republican
candidates who explicitly reject that government has any right to intrude upon
the people’s liberty in order to pursue a collectivist agenda that concentrates
on favoring special interests. However, if Holloway and Morris spend so much energy
articulating their pessimistic narrative against Riser, voters will be
discouraged from voting from Riser and distracted from realizing that any of
those three represent a distinct choice differing from the likes of Hunter,
Mayo, and Johnson.
This would allow Johnson into the runoff, ideally for him with Mayo or Hunter
where he wins easily, but more likely with any of Holloway, Morris, or Riser
which gives him a close to even-money shot. In a runoff, black turnout would be
down more than white but almost all of their votes would go to him, thereby
meaning if he could just get half of the white Democrat vote he would win.
1 comment:
Which of the candidates are the whining "ignoramuses"?
You failed to tell us that.
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