We’re less than three weeks out from qualifying for the Louisiana statewide elections, and there is still no word from the most likely Democrat candidate in the state’s most important race.

In a piece on incumbent Bobby Jindal’s aggressive fundraising efforts, which led him to Minneapolis for an event yesterday, and noting a $400,000 ad buy for the governor’s new spot referencing a number of economic development wins all over the state, Michelle Milhollon has this from state sen. Rob Marionneaux (D-Gross Tete)…

State Sen. Rob Marionneaux, D-Grosse Tete, said he still is undecided on whether he will run.

Marionneaux said he wants to ensure that he continues to have plenty of time to spend with his 13-year-old son.

“I want to play heavily in his life. This state needs a full-time governor,” he said.

Marionneaux said he also has a thriving law practice. Becoming governor, a job that pays $130,000 a year, would be a financial strain, he said.

The I-want-to-spend-time-with-my-kids argument, noble though it may be, is awfully familiar. In fact, it’s pretty much exactly what state rep Chris Roy (D-Alexandria) said when he decided not to run for re-election when faced with an attractive, formidable and well-funded GOP challenger.

“I don’t want to look back in a few years and regret missing some of a father’s most cherished memories because I was in Baton Rouge attending a sub-committee hearing,” was Roy’s quote about a month ago.

Few believed Roy when he made that announcement, and the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority put out a press release woofing that the current conservative tide in the state had swept him out of statewide politics – which Roy denied.

Marionneaux’s situation looks even more similar to Roy’s when one considers that a week ago word hit that he’d hired Democrat push-poll specialist Anzalone Liszt Research to assess the race.

What it looks like, though certainly we’ll know within three weeks, is that Marionneaux commissioned that poll and Anzalone came back with unspinnable numbers to the effect that there’s simply no path to victory for him. So now we get some cock-and-bull about how moving the kids from Grosse Tete to the Governor’s Mansion is too much of a burden and how Marionneaux can’t afford to be governor.

Marionneaux didn’t mention anything about that poll to Milhollon – or if he did, she didn’t pass it along. You’d think if the results were good he’d have emphasized that he’s confident he could win if he ran, but that wasn’t forthcoming – and it’s hard to imagine a nugget like that wouldn’t have made it into Milhollon’s piece.

That would leave Tara Hollis and her See-The-World-On-A-Budget gubernatorial campaign, which is increasingly shrill in its social media output but hardly substantial in any other respect.

In other words, a one-man race this fall. Which is a shame; the people of Louisiana should at least be presented with an ideological choice in this fall’s elections. And it’s clear that the state of the Louisiana Democrat Party is just too decrepit to even make such a presentation.