Of course, the big-ticket appearance Louisiana’s governor will make in opening his tour of the state will come on Sunday in New Orleans, where he’ll be on the stage at the Essence Festival – the African-American cultural/social/political confab taking place in the Big Easy. The heavy political hitters appearing at the Essence Festival will come on Saturday, when Michelle Obama will be on hand as well as Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Liz Warren and Beto O’Rourke.

On Sunday it’s Pete Buttigieg and…John Bel Edwards.

It doesn’t exactly come off as top billing. But it will give Edwards more exposure than his Saturday outing, which will be in his hometown of Amite.

We wonder if anyone will ask him if he finds irony in the fact that he’s starting a tour aiming specifically at reeling in a monopoly on the black vote in Louisiana in a place which was known as the center of Ku Klux Klan activity not all that long ago before he heads to the Essence Festival.

Probably not. Though race is bound to become a larger issue in this campaign as it goes along.

We also wonder if Edwards will be asked to fend off questions about his willingness to sign the fetal heartbeat bill while he’s at the Essence Festival. You’re looking at some pretty far-left folks at that gathering, and he’s already been beaten up pretty significantly over it.

Here’s the tour schedule…

• July 6: 6 p.m. rally with supporters in Amite;
• July 7: Attending Essence Fest in New Orleans;
• July 8: 10 a.m. rally with supporters in New Orleans, lunch in New Orleans, afternoon in Houma;
• July 9:  1 p.m. rally with supporters in Lafayette; 4 p.m. rally with supporters in Lake Charles;
• July 10: 10 a.m. rally with supporters in Alexandria, 11:30 a.m. lunch with supporters in Alexandria, 4 p.m. rally with supporters in Shreveport;
• July 11: 11 a.m. rally with supporters in Monroe, 12:30 p.m. lunch with supporters in Monroe, and 6 p.m. closing rally in Baton Rouge.

You would have thought he’d build in some of the state’s smaller towns, but the guess is they want to minimize the number of opportunities for something politically terrible to happen. For example, John Bel Edwards probably doesn’t want to go to, say, Madisonville. And it might be a real mistake for him to drop into New Iberia, Morgan City or Franklin (Lafayette and Houma are bad enough).

Edwards’ camp is still pushing that two-month-old Verne Kennedy poll as evidence that he’s on track to be re-elected, but one element of that poll – the supposed trouble President Trump is in with Louisiana voters – was just debunked this morning by Morning Consult’s state-by-state presidential approving tracking. Here’s Trump in Louisiana per that poll…

So Trump is still sitting at 55 percent approval in Louisiana, not the 47 percent Kennedy claimed.

But we’re sure the tour will go well – or at least that’s how it will be reported by the state’s mainstream media.