Senate election politics impinge on LA governor's race

Politics dictates that Louisiana can’t even get through its gubernatorial election before senatorial election considerations come into play, illustrating a past potentially bad political call.

From the Republican perspective, the continued silence of erstwhile candidate for governor Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle regarding any endorsement for Republican Sen. David Vitter for the office speaks unwanted volumes. It might seem the most natural thing in the world to lend his support, as Angelle made a conscious effort to position himself as a conservative alternative to Vitter for voters inclined to the GOP.

However, given Vitter’s underperformance to date in securing the office, Angelle now may think that, regardless of Vitter winning, losing, or drawing, he’ll pursue the Senate seat of Vitter’s in 2016, making an endorsement now of a potential future opponent for another office counterproductive. That reticence brought a rebuke this week from Republican Treasurer John Kennedy, whose motives for doing so don’t seem quite as clear.

Bad timing, Obama policy failures cause Jindal exit

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s presidential campaign ended abruptly today, the most serious candidacy ever by a Louisianan ironically ultimately undone by a divisive and unpopular president’s policies that put the Republican in the wrong place at the wrong time.

When Jindal assumed office in 2008, he seemed set up well to target the White House down the road. A brilliant, principled conservative paired with a Legislature still controlled nominally by Democrats but teetering on the brink of passing over to Republican control, a success story awaited him: by instituting a conservative agenda to wrench the state away from its populist past, in the years ahead after implementing those fundamental changes he could have the chance to point to that record of accomplishment as a reason to promote him.

But he achieved only partial results. Wisely, he started with the easy stuff with a wide mandate like ethics reform, and then broached out in a technocratic manner to make government work more efficiently by curbing the giveaway mentality that so infused Louisiana public policy, latent populism assigning as it did government the role of redistributor in chief, through policy such as Medicaid reform. The strategy then dictated building up political capital this way through not asking the Legislature for big policy changes and concentrating on what could be altered through changes in administrative practices. Ensuring this way a second term and hopefully GOP legislative majorities (which happened), then the first part of that one he could dedicate to big policy changes to position himself with an excellent résumé should a presidential run still seem possible and desirable.

Debate shows lying like breathing to Edwards

We already know from last week that, as surely as the sun rises in the east, Republican gubernatorial candidate Sen. David Vitter whoops up on his head-shaking Democrat opponent state Rep. John Bel Edwards in debates. Tonight, it’s not so important that Vitter went Holly Holm on Edwards’ Ronda Rousey in forensics as typically understood, but that Edwards displays an alternative set of forensic abilities that allows him to tell tall tales without a hint that he acts aberrantly.

While Edwards obfuscated, misdirected, distorted, and lied throughout the hour-long affair, his biggest departures from the facts occurred early in the affair, and showed his considerable range in torturing reality. Right off the bat, on a question addressing Syrian refugees, Vitter gigged Edwards on the shifting sand under the latter’s position, pointing out that in Facebook posts Edwards first enunciated a policy to “accommodate” federal government plans to resettle refugees, then changed it to the more independent-sounding “assist,” and finally issued a statement that he would do neither and wanted those resettlement plans to stop.

Brazening it out, Edwards denied that he had changed his mind, but problematically for him the enterprising website The Hayride busted him hours earlier on that. Of course, he likely figured the typical viewer probably had no knowledge of his record on this so he could get away with it.

Bossier, Caddo should defeat again hotel tax hike

A bad idea repackaged slightly still is a bad idea, and on Nov. 21 Bossier and Caddo Parish voters should vote accordingly negative on the proposal to fund the parishes’ joint Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau’s 1.5 percent tax on hotel and overnight camping fees.

Voters narrowly rejected this retread just over a year ago, with this version differing only in that it asks for a half-cent fewer. It would commence on Pearl Harbor Day of this year and last nearly a dozen years, the proceeds of which would go to trying to attract sporting events, teams to play in Independence Stadium, and airlines and flights in and out of Shreveport Regional Airport.

As previously noted in this space, the Bureau continues to sit on lots of cash – over $5 million of which over $3 million in unrestricted – a growing total as it takes in more than it spends. And the airport’s problem is its high fares as it continues to rank among the most expensive for airports with 100,000 to 200,000 originating passengers. There’s no reason to throw unneeded dollars at the Bureau nor will more money solve for the inefficiencies at the airport.

The Advocate column: Nov. 15, 2015

John Bel Edwards could do lots of harm as governor, even reverse recent policy progress
http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/13959787-123/jeff-sadow-edwards-could-do

Veterans' Day, 2015

This column publishes every Sunday through Thursday before noon (sometimes after; maybe even after sundown on busy days) U.S. Central Time except whenever a significant national holiday falls on the Monday through Friday associated with the otherwise-usual publication on the previous day (unless it is on another day on which the holiday is observed by the U.S. government). In my opinion, there are six of these: New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veterans' Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas.

With Wednesday, Nov. 11 being Veterans' Day, I invite you to explore the links connected to this page.

Debate brightens Vitter's gubernatorial chances

Perhaps Republican Sen. David Vitter in retrospect will regret not trying harder to attend more televised debates earlier in the gubernatorial campaign from the way he mopped the floor with Democrat state Rep. John Bel Edwards in the first of two runoff debates for the office.

Each candidate brought a different agenda to the spectacle. Vitter, who needs to tap into the right-of-center Louisiana electorate’s natural tendencies, had to keep the affair focused on issues and ideology. He also had to look for chances to tie Edwards to general dissatisfaction over fiscal budgeting in the Legislature, with a special emphasis on exposing where the rhetoric of the leader of House Democrats clashed with his actual record as a proxy attack on his credibility. For his part, Edwards had to dodge revelation of issues preferences where his liberalism and comity with Pres. Barack Obama stood out, preferably by keeping the spotlight on alleged character comparisons. In addition, he could look to launch selective attacks on Vitter’s record in Washington and join him to Gov. Bobby Jindal, who many hold responsible for the state’s fiscal uncertainties with whom he and the Legislature cooperated in producing.

And both embarked on their charted courses, except Vitter ended up chugging along while Edwards hit numerous roadblocks. Granted, Vitter had the advantage in that the debate sponsors Louisiana Public Broadcasting and the interest group Council for a Better Louisiana designed it mainly to focus on issues, but the degree to which he successfully parried Edwards’ attacks while keeping Edwards on the defensive impressed.

Endorsement choices illustrate LA GOP shortcomings

While state general election results confirmed that Republicans remain Louisiana’s majority party, the behavior of some of its leading elected officials shows it has yet to learn how to govern in the fashion the state deserves and needs.

When the dust settles after Nov. 21, the GOP almost certainly will have extended slightly its legislative majorities and should continue to maintain an iron grip on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. However, it may not replicate its sweep of statewide elective offices, and most vexingly the one most likely to flip would be the most important, governor.

Although endorsements typically sway few voters, in this apparently close race they could make the difference. And so the failure not only of third-placed gubernatorial candidate Republican Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle to endorse second-placed Republican Sen. David Vitter in the runoff, but also the endorsement by fourth-placed Republican Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne of the first-placed Democrat state Rep. John Bel Edwards could prove costly to the GOP retaining the governor’s mansion.

LA Democrats indeed dead, but not yet gone

With all due respect to Shreveport native and political analyst Charlie Cook (who once graciously guest lectured in one of my classes), he’s only half-right when he declares that if Republican Sen. David Vitter wins the upcoming gubernatorial runoff “we can declare Louisiana’s Democratic Party dead and gone.”

With that statement, he tries to make the point that for this specific election, Democrats have had everything go their way. Despite general majority public support for his issue preferences, Vitter has run an indifferent campaign that only occasionally exploits that advantage. He carries with him the taint of Washington, an uncomfortable past admission, and a take-no-prisoners style of politics that while adhering to Louisiana’s populist heritage does so at the cost of making it too easy for members of his own party to get hung up on personality rather than issues that then becomes divisive.

These dynamics allowed his runoff opponent Democrat state Rep. John Bel Edwards to take his blank slate and manipulate the less attentive public into thinking he is much more moderate than his lifetime Louisiana Legislature Log voting score of 25, one of the most liberal/populist among all legislators in his period in the Legislature, shows he really is. These also have kept the contest discourse much more on personality than on policy, to the GOP’s disadvantage as over the past decade Republicans have proven if they make elections ideological, they win.

The Advocate column: Nov. 8, 2015

John Bel Edwards not holding to honor code with litany of deceit during campaign
http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/13897887-123/jeff-sadow-john-bel-edwards