State Sen. Elbert Guillory, a Republican,
clearly rests on the back foot, reporting a less
than zero balance. While adept at social media campaigning and able to rely
upon the historical ability of black candidates to operate with a high voter
per dollar rate, two factors will crimp his chances going forward, both having
to do with his opponents.
One is that Baton Rouge
Mayor-President Kip Holden
not only is black as well, and therefore Guillory has no advantage over him
with that considerable segment of the statewide vote, but also and unlike
Guillory is a Democrat. That alone makes Guillory’s job tough because he could
be competitive with those voters with resources to back his message, but he
obviously doesn’t have the money at this point. Holden doesn’t have much
either, cribbing off his local office account to have around
only $30,000, but black Democrat candidates have the highest voter per
dollar potential and he won’t need to raise a large amount to make a runoff –
if he were the only black in the race. As long as Guillory continues in it, he’ll
need to do somewhat better to get there.
Better, but not on the order of the
two white Republicans, former candidate and past Plaquemines Parish Pres. Billy Nungesser and Jefferson Parish
Pres. John Young, with the former topping
the $2 million mark and the latter not
that far from it. Either could claim to have the more impressive
performance: Nungesser has around $400,000 more but Young’s total raised about
equals the amount Nungesser financed himself, even as Young’s came over many
years in public office and the two raised roughly the same amount from others
in 2014.
They comprise the second reason
Guillory faces a problematic quest, both having more than enough resources to squeeze
out the presently penuriously-campaigning state senator among Republican and
conservative voters. All together, expecting that Holden will pick up the fundraising
pace as chronic Democrat donors open up their wallets, these figures reinforce
the conventional wisdom that Holden should hang onto enough black voters with
non-black liberals to make the runoff against one of the big-spending
Republicans as the pair carves up most of the conservative and Republican vote,
with Guillory low on gas floundering to get enough of these voters to add to
some black support to make it instead.
Perhaps recognizing that he needs
an edge, Nungesser has revived his strategy
from his 2011 attempt, which has worked well for Republicans in Louisiana
for national and statewide offices, trying to make the contest one about
ideology and ideas. Case in point, in a recent speech he talked
of doing away with the state income tax, even as the office he seeks has
nothing to do with those kinds of matters – or much of anything ideological, as
it is the most issueless of all statewide elected offices in those terms, with
the official portfolio consisting of overseeing tourism matters.
That strategy didn’t work well
enough in 2011, not only because ideology has little to do with the office, but
also because he faced another major Republican competitor, the incumbent Jay Dardenne who will abandon the office
in an attempt for governor this year. When a clear contrast can be made, almost
by definition meaning the main opposition from which one seeks to differentiate
has to be a Democrat, the strategy has proven effective.
And the value of such an approach
diminished further precisely because the major issue of the office is managerial
competence, leaving partisanship in the minds of most as adequate to capture
the ideological component that for them only matters when partisanships are not
the same between a pair of candidates. So it means nothing when your major
competitor for the slice of the electorate that can get you to a runoff against
a candidate from another party is of your party.
However, Nungesser is trying to
create an extension to salvage the ideology matters approach by arguing as
lieutenant governor he could form a policy-making team with the governor – and
the leading candidate for the top job at this point, Sen. David Vitter, did give his support to
Nungesser last time, but whether that came because his opponent then was
Dardenne who Vitter correctly figured would run for governor now building on
reelection momentum or whether Vitter endorsed out of genuine fraternity with
Nungesser is another matter. But no governor would share policy-making power
with anybody voluntarily, so this ploy for support by Nungesser rings hollow.
Perhaps the best way to
differentiate comes in pledging superior management of the culture, recreation,
and tourism portfolio, such as in money-saving
efforts through privatization. While Nungesser’s approach failed to defeat
an incumbent also of the GOP, this time the member of the same party that is
his major competitor is not an incumbent, so whether this makes a difference
remains to be seen. Regardless, the battle to see who gains traction over who,
Nungesser vs. Young with the winner between them likely the next lieutenant governor, should turn out as the most fascinating part of the
campaign, and the finance numbers to date confirm that.
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