When Jeremy Alford recently asked former state Sen. Troy Hebert why he is neither a Republican nor a Democrat, he offered up this summation: “Voter frustrations are coming to a boil and I don’t mean crawfish.”
In his latest column, Alford says the colorful politician who served as ATC commissioner under former Gov. Bobby Jindal is considering running for the U.S. Senate as an unaffiliated candidate this fall. He and many others are quick to lament the lack of progress in D.C. due to political gunplay by the mainline parties, Alford notes.
“Another growing problem with—and for—the parties is the amount of outside influence that’s inserted into federal races these days,” Alford writes. “From super PACs and nonprofits to advocacy groups and special interests, Louisiana’s federal elections have become as much about the outside players as they are about the candidates. This developing cycle in particular will be proof of that. And it’s not just confined to Republicans and Democrats.”
The Centrist Project is recruiting independent candidates around the nation and its organizers are keeping close tabs on Louisiana and Hebert, Alford says. In 2013 the group put resources behind independent Greg Orman in Kansas, who wasn’t expected to be competitive, and brought him within 10 points of U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts in the runoff.
“But the potential influence of such groups is much better defined—already—on the Republican side,” Alford writes. “For example, when the D.C.-based Club for Growth ripped into Congressman Charles Boustany in a press release over the holidays for supporting an omnibus bill, who wasn’t mentioned is definitely worth mentioning now. And that would be Congressman John Fleming, who is running against Boustany and others in this fall’s U.S. Senate race.”
Club For Growth has been a player in other recent federal races in Louisiana, Alford says, and it is expected to have a role in the developing Senate election as well.
“They’ll be joined by many others, which must be causing headaches for national and state Republicans,” he writes. “It makes it much more difficult for the party to get behind a single candidate, which is always important. Instead of being able to cobble together a list of usual suspects—donors, lawmakers, etc.—to do just that, they’re watching these outside players get ahead of the curve.”
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
