You’ve Got To Laugh At The Framing Of The 2nd District Race

We haven’t spent a whole lot of time talking about the congressional race taking place between Troy Carter and Karen Carter Peterson in Louisiana’s 2nd District, at least not since the primary ended and the endorsed GOP candidate Claston Bernard finished in fourth place, because we couldn’t care less who wins this race to the bottom.

They both suck, absolutely and completely.

The lifetime LABI ratings of both candidates in the Louisiana Senate, where they currently ply their trades, are nearly identical. For the last legislative term Carter scored 19 percent, while Peterson had a 15 percent rating.

Why would we care which one of these socialists wins the seat? This is a race between six and half a dozen.

But even among identical Marxists there has to be some differentiation, and interestingly enough Carter and Peterson, who agree on pretty much everything regardless of how nasty this race has become, also agree on the framing of the race.

Which is Karen Carter Peterson, The Outsider, against Troy Carter, The Insider.

Karen Carter Peterson spent the last several years as the chair of the Louisiana Democrat Party and now she wants to claim she’s an outsider. It’s clownish in its dishonesty. But people are buying it, apparently.

Decision Desk HQ put out a rundown of the race in its newsletter today which we found interesting…

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LA-2: Special Election Set to Be Latest Battle for the Soul of the Democratic Party

By Nick Field

Many will say that the most anticipated event of this coming weekend is the Oscars. If you’re reading this, however, odds are you believe that the most anticipated event really is the Louisiana 2nd Congressional District special election.

On Saturday, the 2nd district will be the latest battleground in the fight between the establishment and insurgent wings of the Democratic Party. The 2nd is the sole Democratic district in Louisiana, with about a 62% Black population, running from the capital city of Baton Rouge down to New Orleans.

The seat in question was previously held by Cedric Richmond, an early supporter of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign who scored a job as a Senior Advisor to the President and Director of the Office of Public Liaison.

Richmond’s promotion led to a March 20th special election under Louisiana’s unique ‘Jungle Primary’ rules. Instead of traditional party primaries followed by a general election, all candidates are placed on the ballot and the one who wins a majority is declared the victor. If no one reaches that threshold, the top two finishers advance to a run-off.

The latter scenario occurred last month when State Sen. Troy Carter received 36.8% of the vote, while State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson secured 22.9%.

Carter is the preferred candidate of Richmond, the Times-Picayune and the AFL-CIO, whereas Peterson is backed by Stacey Abrams, EMILY’s List and Our Revolution. These endorsements give the impression that Carter is running as an insider and Peterson an outsider, and both contenders are eagerly embracing that dynamic.

For instance, Carter pitches himself in one ad as someone who “will get things done” through his connections with Richmond and the Biden Administration. Peterson, on the other hand, pledges in her announcement video that she’s “never been afraid to shake things up to get results.”

While Carter’s high-profile endorsements and March 20th plurality suggest he is the front-runner, Peterson has her own unique advantages. She’s already run in this district once before, when in 2006 she unsuccessfully sought to unseat former Congressman William Jefferson (the man who rather famously hid $90K in his freezer). She’s also no stranger to party politics, after all she chaired the state party from 2012 to 2020.

Peterson’s strongest asset, though, is the support of Gary Chambers Jr., who finished in third place back in March with 21.3%. Chambers ran to the left as well in the primary, securing the support of several progressive activists. Additionally, while Carter and Peterson both represent parts of New Orleans, Chambers is from Baton Rouge. All these factors combined arguably gives her a clearer path to 50% than Carter.

If Peterson does in fact prevail it will be a significant feat for progressives. Many of their most notable recent victories occurred when long-time white incumbents fell out-of-touch with their increasingly diverse districts. Since this contest is between two well-known Black officials, however, a Peterson win would be a clear ideological victory rather than a demographic one.

Conversely, a Carter triumph would supply the Biden Administration with a reliable vote and boost Richmond’s standing in Washington.

Some of this we agree with. But any ideological differences between Karen Carter Peterson and Troy Carter are wholly illusory. There is literally nothing of substance these two leftists disagree on. The only difference between the two is that Peterson is batshit crazy and Carter is painfully boring.

If we had to make a prediction on the race we would say we expect Peterson to win, because boring usually loses in Louisiana elections and because we would expect a Gary Chambers/Stacy Abrams-backed crazy-eyed Marxist to turn out more vote than a union-backed nondescript machine politician in a special election few care about even in the district.

But this idea that Karen Carter Peterson winning would mean the Hard Left has the soul of the Louisiana Democrat Party, or some similar nonsense, is pure bunkum. The Hard Left has been the majority of the 2nd District’s electorate for a long time, and even if Troy Carter wins that won’t change a bit.

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