ELECTIONS NEVER STOP IN LOUISIANA!

January 7^th, 2016

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

ELECTIONS NEVER STOP IN LOUISIANA!

Less than two months ago, Louisiana voters were beaten to exhaustion with a barrage of mostly negative campaign commercials.  Try as one might, it was impossible to dodge the onslaught of attack ads delivered by TV, radio, mailers, newspaper, and internet saturation. What a relief to let the victors take office and get on with the normal bumbling mismanagement that we all have come to know and love.  A welcome respite from the campaign season-right?

Well not quite.  You see, welcome or not, candidates are back on the Bayou State campaign trail giving us a host of election dates to look forward to.  A U.S. Senate race to pick a replacement for retiring incumbent David Vitter along with a host of school board and municipal elections will dominate the airwaves whether voters like it or not. Elections never stop in Louisiana. The presidential primary will be held on March 5^th followed by municipal run off elections on April 9^th.  Then the fall season offers us the presidential statewide election on November 8^th followed by any necessary run offs on December 10^th.

None of this election activity comes cheap.  One statewide election can cost taxpayers anywhere form $6 to $ 8 million.  That’s in the range of a total costs for 2016 of $30 million.  Which raises the question-why so many elections in the first place?  Should not one date a year followed by a run off if necessary be enough?  Too many elections are a major factor in the continuing low turn out that takes place in Louisiana.

And a presidential primary on March 5^th?  This date is five days after Super Tuesday where 10 states hold their primaries, making Louisiana’s voice fairly irrelevant. And what an opportunity that was missed!  Louisiana could have held the nation’s first presidential primary at the same time as the recent gubernatorial election. No other state holds and election so close to the presidential primary season. So the Bayou State could have garnered national attention, and for no additional cost since elections were already taking place.

All major candidates for president would certainly have flocked to Louisiana, spending a good deal of money trying to garner national attention at the state’s first presidential primary. And Louisiana voters would have a chance to highlight Louisiana issues. Instead of all the candidates campaigning up in Iowa talking about helping corn farmers, they would have been crisscrossing Louisiana talking rice, sugar, soybeans and crawfish.  

Can you imagine the massive sum of money that would have been spent in Louisiana by candidates hoeing to build momentum for the early spring round of elections? It would be the nation’s first indication of what voters were thinking, what issues were important, and what candidates were emerging as favorites. Finish sixth in Louisiana, and it undercuts any candidate’s effectiveness in raising campaign dollars and building major support as the next election primaries approach. It would have been a win win for the state.

But it was not to be. Governor Bobby Jindal, running a quixotic campaign for president, scuttled the idea so as not to face embarrassing results due to his low popularity in the state.  So with so few convention votes at stake, candidates for both parties will ignore Louisiana as they have done for years.

Is Louisiana a sure thing for the Republican candidate this fall?  Conventional wisdom says so.  But the Bayou State has traditionally been considered as a “flip flopper.” No other state in America has changed its party support so often.  Since 1932, Louisiana has changed which party it supported 11 times.  Bill Clinton carried the state twice, and voters have even supported nominees of both the States’ Rights Party and the American Independent Party. With a new Democratic governor about to take office, who knows what will happen in the fall.

So voters should prepare for another onslaught of political advertising in another knock down election cycle. And for Louisiana taxpayers, none of this comes cheap.

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“Half the American people never read a newspaper. Half never vote for President — the same half?” — Gore Vidal

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.  You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9:00 am till 11:00 am Central Time on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.