Attack ad volley won't alter Tarver path to win

Unsurprisingly and inevitably, first one then the other shoe dropped in Shreveport’s mayor race, muddying up a contest the candidates had kept clean while leaving its trajectory essentially unchanged.

Last week, a radio ad began circulating on stations with larger proportions of black listeners that highlighted Democrat state Sen. Greg Tarver’s past marital difficulties. It claimed his first two spouses accused him of abuse, and that one shot him “to save her own life.” That may be conjecture; what we do know publicly is nearly 35 years ago after returning from a legislative session Tarver entered his residence where his second wife was and a short while later exited with gunshot wounds. No charges ever were filed but a divorce was not long after, followed by his marriage to his third and present wife.

Upon this surfacing, Tarver alleged runoff opponent Republican Tom Arceneaux had leverage over their appearance. Apparently, a group called Watchdog PAC LLC had produced it, which Tarver said also had produced attack ads on behalf of vanquished candidate Democrat Mayor Adrian Perkins prior to the general election. Contrary to statute that requires any entity spending at least $500 in an election cycle that, among other things, opposed a candidate to register with the state and to produce donation and expenditure reports, while a similarly-named political action committee run by a longtime Republican political operative registered with the state through 2017, this group isn’t currently registered.

Despite that paucity of information about the group, Tarver claimed Arceneaux supporters were behind it. For his part, Arceneaux said he hadn’t any control over the group that wouldn’t respond to a specific appeal to halt the ads’ broadcast – he also issued a general condemnation of them – and Tarver’s claims that Arceneaux was not an innocent bystander to it all was false.

Then, days later a television ad appeared repeating statements from court documents about Arceneaux’s divorce from his first wife decades ago. That former spouse went on the record that Arceneaux had been physically and mentally abusive of her and physically and verbally abusive of their son. Another said he had made a deal with Perkins to win his endorsement. He denied the substance of both.

These ads came from a group called One Hundred Percent. It also, contrary to the law, is not registered with the state. Their timing appears coincidental; it takes time to do the legwork and political ads can’t be last-minute given the lead time required for stations to have slots available prior to an election. In fact, buzz about both sets of ads had emanated for weeks within area political circles.

Note how the two candidates behaved differently faced with the same negative campaign event. While Arceneaux denied the substance of the negative ads against him, Tarver didn’t with the one against him. And while Tarver alleged Arceneaux’s involvement in that, an ad which Arceneaux condemned, Arceneaux didn’t attack Tarver over the ad against himself nor did Tarver disclaim any connection to it nor deplore its deployment.

Given that election dynamics favor Tarver, Arceneaux or those favoring him would have to go negative at some point, with the intent of discouraging turnout for Tarver. Whether the line of attack chosen will work is debatable. Not only did it dredge up something ancient and hearsay that really has nothing to do with the job at hand, but also something more salient exists: Tarver’s connection to the conviction of Prisoner #03128-095, once known as Democrat former Gov. Edwin Edwards. Tantalizingly, Tarver’s campaign social media site contains an endorsement from Democrat state Sen. Cleo Fields, who federal investigators a quarter-century ago recorded receiving a bag of cash from Edwards. As a matter of record, investigators believed Fields intended that to go to Tarver as part of a vote-buying scheme for a river boat casino license and put Tarver on trial for that, but because for some unknown reason prosecutors didn’t charge Fields and present him at trial jurors were unconvinced and as they convicted Edwards they freed Tarver.

Arceneaux actually made a very oblique dig about this when he opined the source of the negative ad against Tarver he guessed came from interests connected to river boat licensing, but, if so, they missed an issue in their own backyard that probably more effectively would have slimed Tarver. Still, with the electoral math on his side and a willingness of his surrogates to frame the election in terms of black people would succeed only if they voted in Tarver, this volley of negativity likely hasn’t altered the election’s course that points to a small Tarver win.