Saturday’s election results in the congressional primary in Louisiana’s 2nd District were surprising only in that far-left progressive Gary Chambers did better than expected, at 21%. Karen Carter Peterson’s past history of temperamental flare-ups and her willingness to cross fellow Democrats did seem to catch up with her in this race. She captured a less-than-stellar 23% of the vote, just barely edging out Chambers for the second run-off spot. The highest vote-getter, Troy Carter at 36%, simply seemed to stay out of trouble long enough to take advantage of the flaws in his fellow Democrats.

And so the 2nd Congressional District will have an April run-off choice between two Democrats, either of whom would vote the absolutely insane far-left Democrat party line rolled out by the Biden administration. You know what I’m talking about- the job-killing, recession-causing higher taxes, the burdensome administrative regulations, the wage-lowering, high-social-cost open-border mess now assuming crisis proportions, and more, much more.

Now, these measures together make no economic sense except in the fevered minds of the progressive elite which has put Joe Biden back in bed and taken over the Democrat Party. These measures do, however, have at least one thing in common: They are all bad policy for the predominantly poorer folks who make up the greater part of the 2nd Congressional District. Truth be told, they are very bad news for all of Louisiana.

Our people need jobs, good jobs, and I can’t think of a better way to kill such jobs than by raising taxes in a recession, strangling business and industry with higher regulatory burdens, and flooding the country with new immigrants who will keep unemployed Americans out of a job. The sad truth is that these problems won’t stop for one split second either Troy Carter or Karen Carter Petersen from voting the Democrat Party line, and that fact bears some further thought.

You see there was an alternative candidate in this race, Republican Claston Bernard. He raised less money than the three top vote getters, but he still raised a significant amount. Nevertheless, he was excluded from some debates and there seemed to be a tacit agreement among local news organization to give him minimal press coverage. Claston was the strong pro-Christian, pro-life, pro-American, and pro-job growth candidate in the race. His policies would have differed dramatically in almost every respect from the Democrat party line, and the people of the 2nd Congressional District would have been much the better for his efforts.

If Louisiana still had closed primaries, the three minor Republican candidates would have been eliminated in a party primary. All but one of the Democrats would have been eventually eliminated in a Democrat primary, or primaries, and at the end of the day the the people of the 2nd Congressional District would have had a real choice to make in the general election. That choice would have been between two sharply differing philosophies of government, between two different ways of life, in fact. Now that’s a choice the people of the 2nd Congressional District should get behind!

LOUIS GURVICH, Chairman
Republican Party of Louisiana