McAllister earlier this year got busted in a
tryst with a married woman not his wife, leading to his disclaiming of intent
to run for reelection. He seemed to hedge
on this recently,
but any reversal on his part cannot be taken seriously and would lead to his electoral
defeat.
Besides being heavily in debt
and short on cash,
additionally unsubstantiated rumors about a potential bimbo eruption plaguing
him should more than discourage his participation. And after having announced
deferral to improve familial relations at home, it seems hardly credible that
in a short period such repairs would have been made. Voters will see through
this and gauge his reanimated interest in the office more for power’s sake than
anything else such as genuine desire to serve constituents. He cannot win under
these conditions.
Thus far four others have announced
for the contest, of which two given their past connections could be
competitive. Former Grant Parish District Attorney Republican Ed
Tarpley,
who left that job in an unsuccessful bid for state Attorney General, had
planned to run regardless of McAllister scandals or intentions, claiming he was
not conservative enough and pointing specifically to his acquiescence to the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Monroe-area government board member
Republican Harris Brown recently made his declaration to run.
Tarpley had supported area Public
Service Representative Clyde Holloway in the 2013 special
election,
but then switched to Republican state Sen. Neil Riser who made the runoff against McAllister.
Brown is a second cousin of another failed candidate, state Rep. Jay Morris and the son of
former state Sen. Billy Brown, whose enthusiastic support of current Sixth
Congressional District candidate Prisoner #03128-095 in the days when he was
known as Gov. Edwin Edwards might not be
such a liability on the fortunes of his son as, outside of Acadiana and urban
areas, northeast Louisiana was the most friendly territory for the Democrat Edwards.
Holloway has said he will not run and Morris seems unlikely to risk a repeat of
spending relatively much of his own money for relatively few votes.
Already, slots based upon
geographic loyalties and personal relations to prior candidates have found pegs
in these two, but a big one should be filled by a prior candidate himself,
Monroe Mayor Jamie Mayo. Given the
district’s demographics he is an unlikely winner, but the state party is likely
to invest more into his candidacy this time around as a part of the strategy including Edwards
and, if possible, prominent black Democrat politicians who would not have to
surrender their current posts in order to run such as Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover to run for
Congress in order to stimulate turnout for the troubled reelection
campaign
of Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu.
And almost as certain to run is
Riser, who holds superior
name recognition in the district left over from the special election and polls
very well.
If so, he becomes the
instant favorite
– but he was also less than a year ago yet McAllister upset him. If nothing
else, he might get a boost from a sense of buyer’s remorse among the
electorate.
However, that scenario of a total
political outsider swooping in to ride anti-politician sentiment seems
extremely unlikely to repeat. McAllister’s antics poisoned that well where
somebody who has some experience in elected or appointed government positions –
as all of Brown, Mayo, Riser, and Tarpley have – sends a reassurance that
whoever gets there knows how to comport himself to prevent frittering away
meaningful political capital. Therefore, this makes small the chances of
somebody like pharmaceutical representative Zach Dasher, a member of the
Robertson family of television’s “Duck Dynasty” fame whose ardent and public
support of McAllister gave him credibility and outsized ability to attract
votes, being able to capture lightning in a bottle as did McAllister.
A similar dynamic may doom the
chances of anybody connected to McAllister which, ironically, also provides
rehabilitative impetus for Riser. A reason McAllister’s nonpolitician airs
seemed acceptable was the perception among a small but significant part of the
electorate that Riser benefited from the sudden calling of the special election
due to former Rep. Rodney Alexander’s surprise departure, as if skids had been
greased for him. Apparently left somewhat adrift by all of this was Alexander’s
former chief of staff, Adam Terry who among elites expressed interest in
succeeding his former boss, who later hooked up with McAllister’s campaign and
found himself as McAllister’s chief of staff as well. Now the tables are
turned: Terry looks discredited as a presumably experienced but power-hungry
guy who attached himself to someone he allowed to make a very basic mistake,
while Riser seems absolved of his assigned sin of allegedly stealing a march as
a cat’s paw of a reputed power elite.
While it’s three months to
qualifying for the contest and almost as long after to the election, in the end do
not expect the likes of McAllister or somebody like him to win that one.
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