Voting is not a game

In an ad entitled “Play to Win,” GOP Gubernatorial candidate Eddie Rispone, holding a football and draped in LSU purple and gold, declares, “Here in Louisiana, we play to win, every single game. Under John Bel Edwards, our economy ranks dead last in America.” Then a narrator recites a litany of conservative buzzwords from taxes to trial lawyers, each flashing on the screen in purple and gold, only for Rispone to return with the words “First is where we belong. It’s time to lead the South — in Football and in Jobs.” And he tosses the football.

Yet “Coach” Rispone seems to forget an important fact about gridiron leadership. A good coach calls the plays, and he has none.

Literally none. No platform. No plans. No plays. It is as if Ed Orgeron took the field with his team and said, “We are going to be pro-business, pro-football, now get out there and win.”

“But, Coach, what’s our strategy?” queries the quarterback. “We don’t even have a playbook!”

“Ah, the defensive line is made up of Liberal snowflakes. Just go win.” One could imagine the feral grins and the smirks of satisfaction on the face of opposing coaches.

Never have our editors ever encountered a front-running candidate for Governor possessed of NOT ONE thought-out or explained proposal for reform. Even when we have disagreed in the past, the Editorial Board of The Louisiana Weekly has acknowledged that conservative candidacies advocated ideas. In contrast, Eddie Rispone utters nothing but buzzwords. In the one LPB debate, when confronted on his single vocalized proposal to write a new state constitution, Rispone could not remotely explain with any specificity what provisions he wished to change.

“Taxes on business,” he declared. “Which ones?” Edwards countered. No reply. Essentially silence followed by “Thank God for President Trump” and “MAGA” yells. And that exchange truthfully constituted the most detailed exposition by Rispone on his plans if elected. Nevertheless, if African-Americans do not turn out to vote on November 16, 2019, the Republican’s strategy may work.

There were some hopeful signs on the first day of early voting, where the Black electorate surged by 43 percent while Caucasian voters only increased by six percent, and registered Democrats amounted to nearly double the number of Republicans going to the polls, 18.9 percent to 9.6 percent respectively. Still, Whites were slightly overrepresented in the initial early vote over African-Americans by 2.5 percent, and overall Democratic over performance at 2.1 percent paled when compared to Republicans 10.6 percent turnout advantage.

In other words, lacking a surge in Democratic, and specifically Black, voters on November 16th, Eddie Rispone’s (with apologies to Jerry Seinfeld) “campaign about nothing” could succeed. The football commercial could work, in other words.

And perhaps that’s the bigger problem with this sports analogy. We seem to care more about college football in Louisiana than colleges. Rispone tossing a football resonates better than Edwards cracking a textbook, and telling us that his Administration’s number one priority is to raise teacher pay back to at least the Southern Average. Our electorate seems to care more about scoring points at a football game than the hundreds of thousands of Louisianans who finally received healthcare coverage under Medicaid. Commercials on the latter policies evoke a ‘yawn,’ but what Pelican State patriot’s blood does not race at the thought of the Tigers taking the field at “Death Valley.”

Our Editors, like Governor Edwards, love a football game as much as the next Louisianan. However, more important matters, like real plans to improve the education and well-being of our citizenry, should take precedence. For that reason we recommend that every one of our readers run to the real endzone on November 16, 2019, the voting booth, and cast their ballots for the following:

Governor of Louisiana: John Bel Edwards

Mid-City Security District – $250/$375/$150 Parcel Fee Renewal – CC – 5 Yrs.: Vote YES

This article originally published in the November 11, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.