Louisiana Voice

Every election cycle I end up asking the same rhetorical questions:

• Are these current candidates the best we have to offer?
• Why, instead of so damn many attack ads, don’t the candidates put forth more effort in explaining exactly how they would go about addressing our myriad problems?
• What is the real motive behind all the PAC money being poured into the various campaigns?

I say these are rhetorical questions because for the most part, we pretty much know the answers and they’re not answers that do us proud as a supposedly free society.

On the national front, which is a year away yet, we have critics on one side saying a candidate is too old for the job. On the other side, people are saying with equal conviction (no pun intended) that someone with 91 felony counts pending against him should not be even eligible to run for the position of CEO of the most powerful country in the world.

But the 2024 presidential election aside, let’s consider the current campaign for governor and some of the other statewide and legislative offices up for grabs next month.

I don’t even have to discuss the PAC motives. Money talks, BS walks and when an industry’s political action committee pours money into a campaign there’s always a reason. A $3 million outlay might net a $100 million return if the right candidate wins. So, having cleared the air on that question, let’s take a look at the other two.

Again, is this bunch of wannabes the best this state has to offer? Probably. Because what decent person would want to expose himself to the half-truths and outright lies about his character and his political philosophy?

Take, for instance, the race for attorney general. Liz Murrill is likely to succeed her boss Jeff Landry who is the odds-on favorite to be the next governor. Apparently not taking anything for granted, someone has begun a vicious attack ad campaign against State Rep. John Stefanski of Morgan City who is also seeking the office along with three other hopefuls. If you take those ads to heart, you’d think Stefanski had a key to every jail in Louisiana and that he personally was turning killers loose to prey on the rest of us. Never is it mentioned that under our form of government, every person, even those accused of the most heinous crimes imaginable, is innocent until proven guilty and is entitled to legal representation.

I don’t know John Stefanski and I know nothing about him other than he must be the epitome of all that is evil, according to the TV ads. But TV political ads are known to distort facts and that’s patently unfair not only to the targeted candidate, but also to voters. Of course, that doesn’t matter if it helps a candidate get elected.

Murrill, on the other hand stands foursquare in favor of law and order. Well, hell, who isn’t? How many candidates have you heard run on a platform of anarchy?

The empty banter reminds me of every election for mayor-president of East Baton Rouge Parish for the past 20-30 years. You can count on candidates to run on a platform of improving public education in Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish. The problem with that pledge is that the mayor-president has zero authority in public education. That’s the exclusive turf of the East Baton Rouge School Board, not the mayor’s office. But inconvenient facts don’t inhibit candidates’ from claiming they’ll solve public education’s problems.

Which brings up another sticking point with me. Judges. I don’t know of any judicial elections on the Oct. 14 ballot but invariably when there is one, candidates will promote themselves as “tough on crime,” ones who “put criminals behind bars,” and who “will cleanse the streets of the criminal element.” All well and good, of course – if you’re running for district attorney. A judge’s job is not to pre-determine who is unfit to be walking among the rest of us. A judge’s job is to administer justice in a fair and impartial manner, not to be an advocate for anyone.

Now to the governor’s race. Thanks to the attack ads, we now know in no uncertain terms that Landry is a scoundrel, Stephen Waguespack is a political hack posing as an outsider, and Shawn Wilson, the current Secretary of the Department of Transportation and Development, is inept as an administrator. All you have to do to know that is to drive on Louisiana highways.

Louisiana’s roads and highways have been in deplorable condition for as long as I’ve been driving (I’m 80 now and I’ve been driving since I was 15), so it seems a bit unreasonable to expect wholesale improvements in four years.

So, thanks to all those informative TV attack ads, no one is fit to serve in any position of trust in state government and I’m certain as the presidential campaign heats up, we will learn the same enlightening but depressing news about national offices — from U.S. Representative and Senator to President.

Of course, the way politicians – on the state and national levels – bend and sway to the latest political breeze instead of attempting to address the very serious issues of poverty, hunger, inflation, education, crime (including white collar) and civil rights, to say no one is fit to serve might not be too far from the truth.

These state clowns have a little more than three weeks to offer up sound, well-thought-out solutions to Louisiana’s problems. Merely saying they’re for law and order, lower taxes, and jobs just doesn’t cut it as a platform. And TV ad footage of legislators strolling majestically into an empty House or Senate chamber is amateurish at best and insulting at worst.

Everyone who is above room temperature wants law and order, better jobs, education and roads. Tell us how you plan to make college more affordable, how you plan to increase the minimum wage, how you plan to stem outward migration, how you plan to keep homeowner and auto insurance affordable, how you plan to increase teacher pay, what are your plans for protecting the environment, how you plan to move us away from having one of – if not the – highest incarceration rates in the civilized world, how you would protect our disappearing coastline and how you would address the backlog of maintenance and repairs so desperately needed on our university campuses?

That’s just for starters. Being governor, insurance commissioner or legislator should not be a popularity contest; it should be a decision based on which candidate can most reasonably address these problems.

So, stop the asinine attack ads. We’re sick of them and they serve no purpose. Just stop. Give us some real solutions, dammit!