Young, Cazayoux and Hebert consider Vitter’s U.S. Senate seat
7th December 2015 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
In the looming 2016 U.S. Senate race to replace the retiring David Vitter, Democrats may have a found candidate in Independent State Sen. Troy Hebert, and potentially in former Democratic Congressman Don Cazayoux, which is especially important because Mayor Mitch Landrieu opted against making the race late last week.
Yet, Hebert’s and Cazayoux’s potential inclusion in the contest promises not to stop the crowded Republican field from growing even larger. Especially if the candidate who earned the most statewide votes of any GOP contender in a competitive election in 2015 chooses to run, as his backers are urging.
In a breaking story, The Louisiana Weekly has learned that political supporters and past campaign contributors of Jefferson Parish President John Young are encouraging the third-place finishing candidate for Lt. Governor to throw his hat in the ring for United States Senator in 2016.
Young would follow a familiar pathway for third place finishers in statewide races. Narrowly missing the general election for Governor, Bennett Johnston launched his successful U.S. Senate candidacy in such a fashion in the 1970s, and Mary Landrieu likewise did in the 1990s. Each missed their November elections by a proverbial whisker, yet managed to parlay those who voted for them for state office the previous year into providing the foundation for a federal bid the following year.
In an interview with The Louisiana Weekly, John Young said that he was flattered by all of the people asking him to run for the U.S. Senate in 2016, adding, though, “I haven’t made any decisions about next year. I’m not ruling anything out, but I’m waiting until after I leave [the Parish President’s] office in January before making any decisions.”
Young may be better suited than the other Republicans to make such a jump to Senatorial bid. Unlike Scott Angelle, the Jeff President missed his runoff by only 11,486 votes, or 1.1 percent. This narrow margin came against a GOP rival who hailed from the metro New Orleans area, and could cut into Republican voters that likely would have cast their ballots for the East Banker—except that a popular West Banker—who lived in nearby Plaquemines-was on the ballot.
Much of Billy Nungesser’s vote in metro New Orleans did not oppose John Young so much as vote geographically, in other words. In a GOP field where there is already likely a PSC Commissioner from St. Martin Parish, a Congressman from Lafayette, a U.S. Rep. from Minden, and a State Treasurer from Baton Rouge, the Republican electorate in New Orleans likely would turn to the U.S. Senate candidate from their own backyard before considering an ‘outlander’.
Pushing the button for the closest resident and most familiar candidate, in other words. By default in 2016, that’s Young for West Bank Jefferson, Algiers, and suburban voters, who narrowly opted for Nungesser in 2015.
Moreover, unlike Angelle, Young was not besieged by a massive negative TV advertising campaign poisoning the perception swing voters had of the Jeff President. Young was able to spend $2 million promoting his name, identity, and moderate Republican politics with almost no blowback. The NOLA electorate merely weighed him against a GOP challenger who had been running for four years, and who enjoyed loyalty dating back to Katrina amongst coastal La. voters thanks to his record on the BP spill and flood protection.
Put simply, almost no one dislikes John Young. He lost West Bank Jefferson and Orleans, and with them the primary, because ‘the BestBankers’ knew Nungesser better. Young would enter the U.S. Senate race without the baggage that bogs down Angelle after months of David Vitter’s merciless attacks. Negatives about “sinkholes” and Jindal-budgets that will still sit upon swing voters’ minds 10 months from now.
Nor would John Young have to prove his GOP credibility as John Kennedy might. A State Treasurer who ran for the U.S. Senate as a liberal Democrat, and then lost again four years later as a conservative Republican evokes a perception of political schizophrenia amongst core partisan voters. It is a distrust that plagues the Treasurer from both sides of the aisle, running for any office but his own.
The other two likely major GOP candidates, Congressmen Charles Boustany and John Fleming represent bases of support smaller than Young’s. Neither man’s victorious Congressional campaigns equal the breadth of vote that Young received statewide, or even far outstrip the numbers of votes that the Jeff Pres. earned in Southeast Louisiana and the NOLA metro.
(For example, in most of the GOP precincts on the East Bank Southshore of Jefferson, like Old Metairie, Young earned three-fourths of the vote in the primary against another Republican. Fellow Old Metairite David Vitter did not manage that feat in the runoff against a Democrat, even though the balance of the vote had been for GOP candidates in the primary. By sheer numbers, Young has an advantage in his base that far outstrips the results in either Congressman’s last competitive election.)
Moreover, there is a limit on how high either Congressman can rise in the primary vote. Rep. John Fleming has based his career on being the most conservative Congressman in the state, but he cannot come near the Tea Party approval levels of Ret. Col Rob Maness. The 2014 Senate candidate who won 15 percent of the vote against Cassidy and Landrieu has confirmed to this newspaper that he plans to run again, and former Air Force Colonel’s appeal with the Right is not tainted by the brush of already being in Congress—no matter how much that lobbyist infrastructure might help Fleming fundraise.
Boustany has an even greater problem. Not only does Scott Angelle hail from neighboring St. Martin Parish, but so does the likely de facto Democratic candidate, Troy Hebert. The Jeanerette Independent has been wooed to run in large part due to his swing voter support in Acadiana.
Hebert represented Angelle’s base in St. Martin and Iberia Parishes in the State House at a Democrat and a large swath of Boustany’s Congressional seat as a Democratic State Senator. He stood up against sales taxes on utilities as a State House member, earning him the loyalty of his constituents and the enmity of the then-gubernatorial administration. Hardly a liability in a U.S. Senatorial candidate.
Hebert, whose potential candidacy was revealed by Jeremy Alford’s LApolitics.com, gambles that running as an Independent will allow GOP swing voters, who broke Republican ranks to support John Bel Edwards, to also vote for him. Of course, casting a ballot for Governor Bel Edwards did not mean backing the Democratic U.S. Senate Majority Leader, a different proposition entirely for swing moderate La. GOP voters. Just ask Charlie Melancon.
Still, Hebert cuts into Boustany’s and Angelle’s core Cajun electorate. It is the same problem that the only professed Democrat in the race could have, Don Cazayoux.
LaPolitics’ Jeremy Alford reports that Democrats are looking at the Congressman who won a 2008 special election to a conservative Baton Rouge-area congressional district, beating out Woody Jenkins, but lost his bid for a full term a year later after a Democratic state legislator ran as an independent.
Cazayoux went on to serve as the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Louisiana, centered around Baton Rouge, which would be a challenge. The La. GOP would remind conservative voters that he was Obama’s nominee for U.S. Attorney. Yet, Cazayoux would also face the difficulty that his base overlaps that of John Kennedy’s in the Capitol, though the Treasurer would argue he has a statewide appeal now.
Still, the one candidate without the problem of an undivided base is John Young. He does have a familial challenge. With five sons, four at college age or near, making a living is critical. Having opted to pass on a save re-election bid to the Jefferson Parish Presidency, Young must financially provide for his family. No matter how well-positioned he is for a U.S. Senatorial bid, he puts that responsibility first.
This article originally published in the December 7, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
