That features Rep. Vance McAllister, who invited disgrace
this April when discovered that he was committing marital infidelity with a
staffer/family friend. At first, he said he would not run for reelection under
those circumstances, saying he needed time to repair his family relations and
should concentrate on that. But, lo and behold, in record time he seemed to get
his mind right and his family reconciled and suddenly by the beginning of July
said he was rested, relaxed, and ready to go for another term.
It’s not that McAllister deserves
approbation because of his extracurricular activities, for as long as those did
not interfere with the performance of his duties, he needs
to be judged on the merits of his policy preferences, which are partially
but not entirely problematic. It’s that he said he would do one thing – not run
for reelection to work on his personal life – and then
announced he didn’t really mean it and did another. People vote for
candidates because they trust them to do what they say. Events show that you
can’t trust McAllister.
Such a damaged candidate state
Republicans did not want. Making it worse for them was his inconsistent policy
preferences – not just deviating from conservatism, but in that he
claimed that in Congress they were among Members votes generally up for sale,
and then demurring to give any evidence to back his assertion. Having an
untrustworthy Member of Congress on the issues becomes worse when his
assertions become clownish and apparently designed more to gain attention than
to contribute to serious discussions of policy. Constituents prefer that their
representative be a grownup prior to taking the job.
But with his reemergence out of
the slime the fear
among GOP activists was that by virtue of his incumbency, which to a nontrivial
slice of the electorate is the only data point it finds relevant in
decision-making, he would command a sufficient portion of the vote that he
could finish second or better in the general election runoff, and that the
opponent would be a liberal Democrat. The Democrats played their part by having
just one of them, and a quality one at that in the presence of Monroe Mayor Jamie Mayo, qualify. Thus, Republicans
had to hope that a quality candidate from their party would emerge during the
campaign. In this fashion, GOP support could coalesce around that one
individual, but the more who entered, the less likely one individual could
emerge decisively enough, increasing the chances that Mayo’s uncontested
Democrat support and McAllister’s regnant
inattentive-but-vote-in-every-election somnambulant button-pushers would
deliver that duo into the runoff.
This consensus candidate had yet
to make himself known at qualification, although some appeared to have that
potential. Then, just before qualification began last week Holloway began to
hint that he’d have a go at it. After all, he was sitting on around $150,000 in
a federal campaign account that by Louisiana law could not be used in a state
campaign, and he apparently held a fundraiser in late June that scooped in
thousands more into that account. And what about the billboard promoting his
candidacy that has stayed up on I-49 near Alexandria long after the special
election that McAllister used to gain office late last year in which Holloway
finished fourth with 13 percent of the vote? Then he carried through at the
last minute, saying that by his
reading he was the only guy who could defeat McAllister.
The problem is, Holloway was in
this situation once before and failed to deliver. In 1991, he ran for governor
as a principled conservative alternative to populist conservative former state
Rep. David Duke and sitting (like McAllister in unreliability to conservatism,
but unlike him in personal comportment) Gov. Buddy
Roemer. He racked up a measly 5 percent of the vote and was unable to
prevent Republicans from, if not helped produce (by taking votes from Roemer)
their experiencing the nightmare runoff scenario of Duke vs. former Gov. Edwin
Edwards. And this time, ensconced in one of the lesser vote-rich portions
of the district, he’ll have to compete around that southern portion with the
first candidate to enter, former Grant Parish District Attorney Ed Tarpley.
Republicans’ day already had
gotten worse when Monroe attorney Jeff
Guerriero, who ran well in a state senator race in 2011 and lent himself almost
as much as Holloway has now sitting idle in a state campaign account that he
can finesse towards spending on a federal campaign, jumped in. These unexpected
entrants will take few voters from McAllister and mostly cannibalize from the others,
only increasing his odds of making the runoff and of bringing about the GOP’s
nightmare scenario.
So Holloway is unlikely the
candidate that can surpass McAllister, but is a candidate who can dilute
support for others who otherwise could. That reality seems lost upon him in
what appears to be a messianic fantasy. He thinks he can “save” the party from
McAllister, when it is more likely his campaigning will contribute to
McAllister probably retaining his job. And it is worth pondering that Holloway
did endorse McAllister last time when he was defeated by him.
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