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A few weeks ago, on October 22nd, Secretary of State Jay Dardenne was on the Jim Engster Show at WRKF 89.3 in Baton Rouge. As expected, the conversation got around to whether Mr. Dardenne would be a candidate for the U.S. Senate next fall, in a Republican primary against the Sinning Senator himself:
Not only does he not rule it out, he pledges to keep listening to folks. Well, I've been hearing that he's been in northern Louisiana quite frequently over the past few months, and taking the time to meet with Republican elected officials. Rumors are flying that Mr. Dardenne is speaking with those elected officials about putting a campaign team together.
In addition, Mr. Dardenne is a Jindal guy. And Governor PBJ has pointedly refused to endorse the Sinning Senator.
Moreover, the Sinning Senator's strategy appears to be to appeal to the hard-core right wing, or as noted pollster and political strategist Stanley Greenberg calls them in his book, The Two Americas: Our Current Political Deadlock and How to Break It, the F-You Boys and F-You Old Men, which is totally unnecessary unless the Sinning Senator anticipates a primary challenge, and is attempting to ward one off.
One such example of the Sinning Senator catering to the F-You Boys (& Old Men) is his ludicrous assertion that an obscure provision in the Cap & Trade Bill would give President Obama new powers of a dictator; an assertion that even right-wing bloggers @ Michele Malkin's Hot Air took issue with: (emphasis added)
That's not to say that this bill isn't dangerous, but it simply doesn't do what Vitter claims. Nowhere in either bill does the term "climate emergency" appear, which Vitter claims is the lever through which the President will claim dictatorial powers. We need to focus on the real problems of the bill, chief among them that it will kill jobs to solve a problem that doesn't exist, rather than generate false hysteria to answer false hysteria.
Now, Democratic operatives tell me that the Sinning Senator's polling has remained remarkably consistent all year despite a climate that has been absolutely vicious for Democrats in Louisiana. That same polling shows that Vitter's Republican support is weak, and it is weakest up in overwhelmingly Baptist North Louisiana.
What does this mean? It means that if Jay Dardenne were to throw his hat in the ring for the Republican nomination, it'd be a battle royale. And those same Democratic operatives are scared of running against Dardenne - he's a stable, well-regarded elected official with a slim record to run against.
Will Mr. Dardenne run? That's the nightmare that keeps the Sinning Senator running to North Louisiana every chance he gets. |
