All the candidates running for Attorney General really hate Buddy Caldwell, who sits in that job now. The Gannett rags across the state had the story today about the race.

Republican and tea party darling Jeff Landry, a former congressman, has accused Republican two-term incumbent Attorney General Buddy Caldwell of nepotism, cronyism and corruption — all in a single quote.

Democrat Ike Jackson said Caldwell “is as dumb as the bottom of my shoe.”

[…]Landry, whose campaign slogan has been “stop the Buddy system,” said Caldwell has hired two many expensive out-of-state attorneys to represent Louisiana in litigation and operates a bloated agency that needs to be thinned.

“I got into this race because I want to see Louisiana be a great state,” Landry said. “This back-slapping, pay-your-friends kind of government needs to be in the past, so I’m laying out that case against my resume as a conservative, veteran, small businessman and law enforcement officer.”

That’s cool with Buddy Caldwell. He doesn’t think very highly of his opponents either.

In response to the attacks, Caldwell said all four of his challengers — Democrat Gerald “Geri” Broussard-Baloney and Republican Marty Maley are the others — are little more than ne’er-do-wells who can’t make it as private-sector lawyers or prosecutors.

“They’re lying because that’s all they have to offer; they’re just hunting a job,” Caldwell said. “Between the four of them they’ve only tried one case in court themselves, and it wasn’t Landry. It was Maley. None of them have the qualifications for me to hire them as an assistant, much less replace me as attorney general.”

[…]But Caldwell adopted Landry’s “Buddy system” slogan as his own. “The Buddy system is here and working for Louisiana,” Caldwell said.

It’s probably more accurate to say his opponents aren’t qualified enough to be Caldwell’s assistants because of their records, it’s because they haven’t raised enough money for Caldwell. Buddy Caldwell is a symptom of everything that is still wrong with the courthouse crowd in Louisiana. If he wins, it will be a message that old style Louisiana politics are still alive and well in the state.