It’s a visit to the Last Chance Saloon for anybody not named Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry in the 2023 Louisiana race, and the Republican with perhaps the best chance to try to supplant a Democrat (if not by actual label) in the runoff has joined the ranks of the desperate to attempt that.
Former senior administration official under Republican former Gov. Bobby Jindal, Stephen Waguespack, at least according to a poll conducted to determine participation in it, has done in an independent survey what no other GOP candidate other than Landry has: nearly crack into double digits of support. He received nine percent in that, trailing Landry at 40 percent and Democrat former cabinet member Shawn Wilson with 24 percent, while no other candidate pulled better than four percent, in the form of the candidacy of no party (but stealth Democrat) trial lawyer Hunter Lundy.
Those three above five percent were invited to the Gray Media television station consortium debate this week, but Landry declined. This leaves a two-up match that, for Waguespack, has the advantage of making him appear to be the alternative to Wilson by default.
If anybody watches. Because Landry’s campaign operation has been so omnipresent, even casual observers of state politics know two things: there’s a lot of notable people running but Landry by far gets the most attention. So, for the casual voter flipping channels who may light onto it (to be delivered to most of the state’s media markets), most immediately will know something’s missing and consider paying attention in a couple of weeks when it matters to get a complete picture, rather than tune in now to an incomplete lineup.
Few viewers others than those already interested in politics, almost all of whom made up their minds awhile back who to support, will take a gander at this. It’s mainly the same crowd who would pay attention to the endorsement made by the state’s largest newspaper, the Baton Rouge Advocate, of Waguespack, which may have done so more out of strategy to stop Landry than any genuine liking of Waguespack.
Because Wilson, the most ideologically compatible to the paper’s brain trust, is going nowhere as a high floor, low ceiling candidate. As the data keep confirming, it’s basically inconceivable that he would draw fewer that 20 percent of the general election vote or more than 30 percent it. To have even a long shot chance at final victory, he’d have to garner at least 35 percent of that vote.
He’s simply not an ideal candidate, as the latest takedown advertisement by the Republican Governors Association reinforces. In that, it details how Wilson’s Department of Transportation and Development awarded a huge contract not to the lowest bidder but to a firm affiliated with Jim Bernhard, former state party chairman of Democrats and a prolific and huge donor to their causes, relaying an uncomfortable reminder of the state’s cronyism, if not corruption, embedded in its political culture.
The chance to appear as the sole Republican in a broadcast candidate forum, the Advocate endorsement, and the RGA ad all add marginally to Waguespack’s fortunes in nabbing a few undecided voters or those leaning towards Wilson. But he also has bowed to the inevitability that any chance to vault past Wilson depends upon detaching Landry voters by any means possible.
That now includes, as other candidates have attempted, a guilt-by-association tactic involving Landry donors. In his latest ad, Waguespack faults Landry for having trial lawyers donate to the latter’s campaign in another roundabout and tortured attempt to blame Landry for high insurance costs in the state (because, the ad proclaims, trial lawyering is keeping rates artificially high).
Never mind that long ago Landry pledged as attorney general not to employ donors as legal counsel for the state. And, in the same news report that highlighted the trial lawyers’ donations, his campaign replied that Landry as governor would sign enthusiastically meaningful tort reform legislation. The spate of such donations more likely indicates a defensive strategy with the hope that giving to the probable winner even if hostile to their agenda is better than giving to someone more sympathetic but who can’t win.
That goes as well with Lundy as with Wilson, but they are part of the numbers problem for Waguespack. Together, black (Wilson is black) and white (Lundy is white) Democrats/liberals will throw their votes to candidates who share their far left (Wilson) and liberal populist (Lundy) agendas, comprising 35 percent of the vote when parsing out that at least half of those polled for the forum who say they are undecided won’t vote at all. Let’s say Waguespack’s efforts, with the same caveat, keeps Landry at 40 percent. That only leaves 25 percent for everybody else, Waguespack included, not enough behind any single candidate to make the leap.
In other words, nibbling at the margins as Waguespack is now doing won’t cut it. He has to make a quantum leap, essentially tripling his vote share, over the next fewer than 20 days. History suggests that’s highly unlikely. Thus, Waguespack’s commiserating, possibly on behalf of all anybody-but-Landry acolytes, at the contest’s Last Chance Saloon.
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