The state’s leading Republicans, Sen. David Vitter and Gov. Bobby Jindal, near the end of the year with bulging campaign war chests and only one announced opponent between them. One recently rumored Vitter opponent who says he is not running is Paul Rainwater, director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. “Yes, he was approached, but he isn’t running for the Senate,” says Rainwater’s press secretary, Christina Stephens. Rainwater was in transit from Washington and was unavailable for comment. That leaves Secretary of State Jay Dardenne, who spoke at length to Gannett News Service this week about challenging Vitter without saying anything more definite than “I have not decided to get into the race nor have I said I’m not.” Then there is Jim Bernhard, who recently passed on running for the Senate. The new political talk is that he is considering running against Jindal in 2011. One source, who regularly speaks with Bernhard, says The Shaw Group CEO is “interested in running for governor.” Bernhard did not return a call for comment.
—After Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu’s surprising entry into the New Orleans mayor’s race last week, it was no great surprise that Leslie Jacobs decided to drop out. After running a new poll, she told the Times-Picayune, “Those numbers confirmed what I thought: Once Mitch entered the race, I could not win.”
—Edwin Edwards’ biographer Leo Honeycutt reports that his book, which hit stores this week, already has orders exceeding the first printing of 10,000. “We sold 3,000 on Monday,” he says. Edwards will receive a share of profits from sales, but he won’t be able to receive a copy of the work itself because of federal prison rules barring hardcover books.
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com.)
