Louisiana Voice

It’s almost like one of those afternoon soap operas where adult children compete for the affections—and inheritance—of filthy-rich Daddy in a no-holds-barred fight for the house, bank account, stocks and even the cars and horses in the stable. Nothing is to trivial to fight for and it’s on as deceit, back-stabbing and blackmail are rules of the day in the winner-take-all struggle.

Except it’s not a family inheritance, but political power and prestige that are at stake and there’s a common goal with each of the three Repugnantcan candidates: one has it; one ain’t gonna get it but keeps trying and the third has to be satisfied with a doctored photo on a mailout that not only tries to project a favorable image of himself but at the same time, attempts to paint the other two as an ogre and a rag-woman, respectively. The flip-side of the mailer contains a doctored (read: AI) photo of Fleming and Trump, side-by-side, both with Trump’s absurd “thumbs-up” that he loves to flash during funerals.

That, in a nutshell, is the scenario Louisiana voters face as they prepare for the closed primary on May 16 for United States Senator.

Bill Cassidy is the incumbent, of course, and he is posilutely, absotively desperate to hang on for a third six-year term. But he has that albatross hanging around his neck in the form of his vote to convict in Cankle-Ankle’s second impeachment trial back in 2021. No amount of suck-up is going to make Mar-A-Lardo forget that slight but God knows, Cassidy’s certainly giving it his best shot, never passing up an opportunity to invoke the sacred name of Trump in his TV ADS.

Much as he did when I asked him a few weeks back when he was going to work up the courage to stand up to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., he likewise DISMISSED  Trump’s endorsement of U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow who is challenging Cassidy’s Quixote-like windmill-tilting effort to return to the Beltway.

He, of course, denies any involvement in those ATTACK ADS against Letlow. His denials ring a little hollow when one learns that it’s his own super-PAC that’s behind the ads that accuse Letlow of less-than-forthcoming stock deals while in Congress.

But she’s so cute as she comes to the microphone in the House chambers and reads, word-for-word a prepared MESSAGE OF CONGRATULATIONS to the LSU baseball team on the occasion of its winning the College World Series last June.

But she is anything but cute in that mailer from State Treasurer/physician/payday loan owner/fast food entrepreneur/former Congressman John Fleming who apparently doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up. Besides touting his conservative voting record, he includes a head shot of Letlow that is positively wretched—mouth drawn in a frown, hair in tangled strands, eyes appearing deep-set in a face etched in a decidedly negative expression. And the photo of Cassidy isn’t much better. He has the expression of an ax-murderer. And both the Cassidy and Letlow pics are in black-and-white while Fleming beams at the camera with a pleasant smile and in full color, proving once again, the age-old political strategy that substance is nothing; it’s all in the perception.

Letlow was the early odds-on favorite but those ads hinting at insider trading have had a withering effect on her campaign early-on and no amount of pandering and fealty by Cassidy is going to help him with the MAGHATS, so he’s still toast.

That leaves the heretofore largely ignored Fleming as a viable dark horse in this Shakespearian tragicomedy.

And then, there is Democrat James “Jamie” Davis, Jr., a THIRD-GENERATION FARMER from Waterproof and the grandson of a sharecropper who is standing by to take on the winner between Cassidy, Letlow and Fleming.

Davis studied electrical engineering for two years at LSU before returning home to help his father on the 2,000-acre farm which he now owns. He was elected to serve on the Tensas Parish Police Jury in 2015 and served as vice president of the parish governing body for four years.

I’m going out on a limb here and saying that having attended LSU, having been a farmer for decades and having served at the local governing level probably makes him the best-qualified of the four candidates in this post.

Unfortunately, running for office takes lots of money and all the money is with the other three.