The Louisiana Committee for a Conservative Majority has been dropping some pretty entertaining ads in legislative races this year. We shared the one about Buddy Mincey, the former Democrat turned irritating RINO Clay Schexnayder stooge running for the state senate against Valarie Hodges the other day, for example.

But we might actually like this one best. It’s short and it’s to the point, and the imagery is hilarious…

It’s more like a moving meme than an ad, and the vote in question wasn’t the worst thing Lacombe has ever done – the reason he got clobbered in a special election for the senate by Caleb Kleinpeter was his vote against overturning John Bel Edwards’ veto of the bill banning men in women’s sports, and he’s had some bad votes on Second Amendment issues as well.

Still, in places where the doors have opened wide on recreational marijuana, it hasn’t exactly improved the driving. Not to mention the fact that if you’re not a fan of weed, there are few things more irritating than having to smell it in public. And getting stuck at a stoplight near somebody who’s partaking of the herb will very frequently give rise to mutterings about how “there ought to be a law!”

But a Democrat – which is what Lacombe is; he was a Democrat right up to the point when Kleinpeter wiped the floor with him, and then he suddenly had a political epiphany and switched parties – will instinctively choose to side with the stoners and the moochers and the rest of the unproductive people, pleasuring himself to think that he’s just taking up for the underdog. And that’s what Lacombe told us with that vote.

They don’t let you drink a beer or text while you’re driving in this state. But Lacombe thinks it’s cool to smoke a blunt and get baked to the gills while you’re behind the wheel. Because the voters he wants support from are those kinds of people.

It’s not a libertarian vote. It’s a pandering vote. And he doesn’t have any credibility to claim he’s a libertarian anyway – not when he votes for record amounts of government spending, and not when he was all for the moronic COVID lockdown policies John Bel Edwards demanded.

There’s a reason he has a 2/10 candidate score from Citizens for a New Louisiana. It’s because this “I’m a Republican!” act isn’t fooling anybody.

So here’s what’s interesting about Lacombe’s re-election effort in House District 18 – which covers parts of Iberville, Pointe Coupee, West Baton Rouge and West Feliciana Parishes. There is a possibility, though we’re not sure how strong it is, that he might find himself squeezed out of a runoff.

The district is 58 percent white and 37 percent black, which throughout history has meant it was a classic place a white Democrat could dig in. But it’s mostly a middle-class or working-class district, and those don’t particularly trend Democrat anymore.

And Lacombe is flanked on both sides. He has Tammi Fabre, an activist conservative endorsed by the Louisiana Freedom Caucus PAC, LCCM and a number of other conservative groups, to his right. But he also has Shanda Paul, a black Democrat, on his left.

And that’s a problem for Jeremy The Weed Man. Paul is going to clean up the vast majority of that 37 percent of the vote which is black, and when Lacombe ran in 2019 to get and then hold the seat (he won a special election over Fabre in March and then he won against another Republican, Brandon Bergeron, in the regular election in October), his opponents picked up 31.5 and 37.5 percent, respectively.

And that was before he built the voting record which gave him that 2/10 score from CNL.

Fabre is pretty likely going to get to 35 percent. Paul will likely get to that number as well, assuming the chalk holds. And if both do that, there may not be room for Lacombe in November.

There was a time not that long ago that a Democrat could turn into a RINO and the state GOP would be grateful for the addition. That time is over, because the Democrats-turned-RINOs don’t actually change their politics when they change their party affiliation.

And in Lacombe’s case that was made pretty explicit. This was what he said when he flipped…

“Thank you to everyone who has supported me over the past three years, and to all of those who helped me earn the trust to become a State Representative. You know my values and principles, and that will never change.

“Yesterday, I changed my lifelong party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. This was one of the hardest decisions of my life, and I did not take it lightly. The simple truth is that the part of the state I represent has become more conservative, and I no longer think I can to the best that they deserve as a Democrat.

“I look forward to working hard this session for the people of Louisiana, by working with my former colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus and my new ones in the House Republican Caucus.”

In other words, he confessed from the beginning that he had no political epiphany. He didn’t explicitly reject anything the Democrats are doing, nor did he embrace anything about the GOP. He just said the voters are more conservative in his district now, so he’s changing his spots. That’s it.

You have to be smoking something not to see how cynical and problematic that is. And Lacombe is cool with you doing that in the car.

That’s why he earned LCCM’s ridicule in that new ad. And why the voters of House District 18 need to move on from Jeremy Lacombe.