In last year’s win by Republican
Sen. Bill Cassidy
over Democratic former Sen. Mary Landrieu, which could have happened about a
month earlier had military retiree Rob Maness not run in a race that he should
have realized he never had a chance to win as he differed little from Cassidy
on the issues, Maness did eventually, perhaps grudgingly, give Cassidy an
endorsement. Maness being in the contest made Cassidy unable to win the general
election outright, and six days after it Maness put his money where his mouth
had been to back up his saying during the campaign that he would prefer Cassidy
over Landrieu.
It’s now been well over a week
since Republican Sen. David Vitter
made it into a runoff with Democrat state Rep. John Bel Edwards, yet the two
Republicans vanquished as a result, Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle and Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne,
have
yet to utter a peep about whom they would prefer. During the campaign,
Angelle deferred in releasing such information, but Dardenne implied that he
would not endorse Vitter in such a circumstance.
These dynamics harken back to 1979,
when after Democrat Public Service Commissioner Louis Lambert squeaked into a
runoff with Republican Rep. Dave
Treen. While the state clearly still possessed Democrat sympathies, the
major Democrat candidates aced out by Lambert turned on him, striking deals
with the Treen campaign for funds relief for their overextended campaign finances
and with Treen for potential appointments if he won, in exchange for endorsements
of Treen or at least not endorsing Lambert or working on his behalf. Treen
narrowly won, the debts paid, and the appointments made.
Nothing as grandiose in terms of
deals seems in the offing in 2015, with the potential exception of Angelle
retaining his appointment to the Louisiana State University Board of
Supervisors in 2018 if Edwards were to win without Angelle stumping for Vitter;
Dardenne
seems set on retiring from electoral politics. Instead, it seems that personal
animosity rather than pecuniary relief and/or clinging to political power
drives the silence to date of Angelle and Dardenne.
Certainly Vitter’s take-no-prisoner
style of politics for a quarter of a century has caused plenty of indigestion
among some Republicans, although the rhetoric of Angelle and Dardenne that
disparaged Vitter as a person gave Vitter every reason not to hold back in his campaign
criticisms of the GOP duo. The question now is whether the pair will act out of
pique rather than out of policy considerations.
On the issues, Edwards’ liberal
Democrat preferences put him clearly much further away from them than they are
to Vitter. If they truly cared about the direction of state policy, they would
support Vitter and would advise others to do so, even if tepidly. But if they
want to sulk and count coup by feeling like lack of each's support would cost Vitter
the election, even if that means a less preferable policy environment over the
next four years (a hypothetical Edwards win puts him up against solidly
Republican legislative chambers that will allow few of his liberal preferences
to see the light of day, but certainly little progress would be made in
advancing a conservative agenda), they could cut off their noses to spite their
faces.
In a way, this resentment indicates
health and vigor of the state’s Republicans. Spirited competition shows where
the majority is and produces the most forward-thinking ideas. But pettiness
rather than statesmanship among its leading politicians does not become a
majority party and degrades its ability to rule that includes translating those
ideas into policy, much less in this instance point Louisiana to an inferior
immediate future.
Angelle and Dardenne need to put
egos aside and do the right thing by Republicans and their own supporters, the
views of the vast majority of whom are much closer to Vitter than Edwards.
Those interested in good governance and superior policy-making in the state
would appreciate that the couple signals acceptance of Vitter’s agenda to
provide voter guidance, even if that to them tacitly conveys acceptance of him.
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