This might be fun, to see perhaps the most arrogant, partisan, and fraudulent governor in Louisiana history getting his ego busted.
It appears that Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards has held multiple conversations with Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer about running for GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy’s seat in 2026. It’s not clear who is courting whom, but the electoral map is such that for Democrats to take control of the chamber they would have to have an extremely good election night, which means recruiting candidates that stand at least a ghost of a chance of winning. Seemingly, Edwards said to check back with him later this summer.
Edwards doesn’t fall into that category. He rode into office presenting himself as a generic blank slate but in a manner to make voters think he was conservative by emphasizing alleged traditional social values. He became the only governor ever to win reelection with fewer votes than he did upon initial consecutive election (although that’s a small sample size given that was not possible constitutionally until 1975), barely skating back in by riding the Trump 45 economic recovery wave (even as within the state he pursued an agenda at odds with the ideas that triggered it).
But any political future he had in Louisiana for more than menial office collapsed as his second term began. This was the governor whose overly-restrictive Wuhan coronavirus pandemic policy cost more lives than saved and ran afoul of the state constitution, which faced him right off the bat. Over the next four years he lied in public about the death of black motorist Ronald Greene for political reasons and, as it now turns out, lied in private to the federal government in order to secure approval of the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project depending upon politicized data. He also budgeted state government nearly to double in size while leading the policy charge to depopulate the state almost more than any other over his eight years and simultaneously pushing it into becoming the economic leper of the south.
As if this wasn’t enough for a majority of Louisianans to tire of this fake, he showed his true social liberalism as well during that second term. He fought to let unscrupulous adults mutilate children, tried to go around the criminal justice system to thwart capital punishment, and revealed himself as favoring certain instances of abortion. No candidate for statewide office can win with a demonstrated record like this.
This disgust has been verified by the swift dismantling of most of what difference he made in state government. Oversized government will take some time to slim down, and Medicaid expansion still bedevils the state (and at the expense of its most vulnerable citizens), but under the impetus of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry the vast majority of Edwards’ imprint has been erased while literally dozens of pieces of legislation starkly contrasting to his policy preferences that he had blocked in eight years have flooded into law in just one. Perhaps most galling, his departure from and Landry’s assumption of power has given birth to a renaissance of economic development.
So, we being from a starting point that, with this history, Edwards would be unelectable, even though seeing so much of his policy impact disappear as quickly as did statuary to Stalin must prick at his inflated ego and sorely tempt him to run for something substantial. It won’t work, and here’s why.
The fantasy at play here for the left is that Edwards sails through the new party primary system to face a bruised GOP survivor. Then, being an off-year election where in recent elections Republicans have been favored by higher-turnout affairs such as during presidential elections, he reconstitutes the magic each time previously in facing a depleted Republican that allowed him to slide into office.
There are many reasons this won’t happen. First, there’s absolutely no guarantee that he even could make it out of the Democrats’ primary. In the last 2022 Senate cycle, the fading white economic liberal/social conservative wing of the party pushed with good financing another white guy with military experience as their favored son, only to get their helmets handed to them by the more numerous in support and now dominant part of the party, blacks, who ended up giving more votes to a buffoonish black community organizer detested by the old guard.
Any semi-credible/semi-quality black candidate probably would ace out Edwards in a semi-closed primary election, and imagine someone like Democrat Rep. Cleo Fields, who weeks from now may find his congressional district on the way to being dismantled into a map where he cannot win and so deciding he has nothing to lose by trying for Cassidy’s seat. Edwards wouldn’t stand a chance.
And even if he did advance, the dynamics of the general election augur poorly for him. We’re not talking five weeks between elections as he took advantage of in years gone by, but more like six months which presents plenty of time for the GOP winner to bring the party together. And, in this century Senate off-year contests in Louisiana, while averaging over 20 fewer points in turnout than presidential elections, still outdraw gubernatorial ones by a bit.
Louisianans with eight years to discover the real Edwards won’t forget what they learned, as a Republican campaigner won’t let them forget – if a black Democrat doesn’t torpedo him first. Combined with dynamics opposite of what allowed him into office in his past statewide contests, without any hope of winning the only reason Edwards will have to run is to satisfy his vanity. Whether that’s enough to compel him onto a trip into humiliation next year, if that's the case then observers should have fun seeing him knocked down to size.
No comments:
Post a Comment