I’ve hinted at an endorsement of Blake Miguez in the 6th District congressional race, but haven’t done so until now. I’ll tell you why.

I don’t like to make endorsements. For the most part I think The Hayride’s readers are pretty good at making voting-booth decisions on their own, and for another part I want this site to be a place where folks from the right half of the political spectrum can feel comfortable, and if I’m always picking sides on races up and down the ballot I’m doing damage to that. So we’ll have lots of different perspectives within the conservative camp here, and most of the time I try to just call balls and strikes rather than picking winners.

And I’m hoping this reads that way, though it is an endorsement of Miguez.

Actually, what I will say is that of all of the messaging I’ve seen in the 6th District race, the best – the messaging which is most on point in outlining what this election is actually about – has come from Stephen Wagley. He’s been sending out mail pieces which talk about the fact that the Red-Green axis – Wagley describes them as socialists, communists and Islamists who have allied to tear down the American way of life – is presenting a real societal threat and promising to fight it in Congress. You can talk about gas prices, inflation, flood insurance and whatever else you want but at the end of the day, especially looking at what the Left is up to at present (I could get into it, but just go and read yesterday’s American Spectator column for more on that), what matters is that we elect people to the House and Senate who understand that threat and have the balls to take it on with no fear or shame.

Here was one of those mailers…

I’ve met Wagley and I like him and I hope he has a future in GOP politics. I don’t know that he’s got enough support to get into the runoff this time. But I do think he’s a guy who needs a role, and it’s a worthy project to find one for him, particularly in next year’s statewide cycle.

My sense of the 6th District race is that Chauna Banks, being the black Democrat in the field, will probably get enough votes to pick up one of the spots in the runoff and it’ll be one of Miguez and Rick Edmonds getting the other. Ideally we’d have two Republicans in the runoff, but nothing is easy in this cycle and I don’t know that the GOP is living well enough to get that.

And Edmonds’ campaign has always been curious.

He’s 70 years old and he’s running to be a freshman congressman. How does that make sense?

At 70, you should be winding down a political career, not ramping one up. Edmonds jumped from the Louisiana House to the Senate at 67, which would mean he’d be 79 when he hit term limits for the state senate. That’s pretty old.

Then he wants to go to Washington? At 70?

Most people think Republicans are going to lose the majority in the House.

I have zero faith in any of those predictions, because to me the polling industry is utterly and completely broken and totally useless as a predictor of elections at this point. A good number of the polls are completely made up, and even the best of them have to approach so many people in order to get a decent-sized poll sample that the problem isn’t demographics but psychographics. I get hit by 8-10 pollsters a day trying to survey me about elections; I don’t answer any of them because I don’t have the time, and I’m pretty political. And I’m busy, but I know lots more people who are busier.

Nobody answers those polls. The people who do are the ones who have 15 minutes to talk to strangers about politics. So for all we know the GOP will hold both the House and Senate.

But if the predictions are right and the House is lost, then 70-year-old Rick Edmonds will be a freshman in a House of Representatives which has Hakeem Jeffries as its Speaker, and for two years he’ll accomplish nothing.

My guess is the Republicans would get the House back in 2028, because a taste of Jeffries as the Speaker won’t sit well with most Americans and the Democrats are going to have real problems at the top of their ticket in that cycle. Which means that at 72, Rick Edmonds would finally be in a position to do something constructive in Congress. By the time he’s in his third or fourth term, which would be when he could start chairing a sub-committee or something, he’d be 74 or 76.

And at that point, he’s too old. He’s already too old.

Edmonds’ defenders will say age is just a number and that he’s got lots of energy still. I don’t doubt that. But there’s energy and there’s energy.

Rick Edmonds pastors a church in McComb, Mississippi. He’s there on the weekends. Probably during the week as well, but we don’t hear much about that. He lives in Baton Rouge. So he’s in two places, and he’s 70 years old.

Now we’re going to put him in Congress and he’ll be in three places? Is he still going to pastor that church? Has he given notice over there? If so, I haven’t heard about it and I apologize for my ignorance. But I’m not sure how anybody at any age can pastor a church in McComb and service Congressional constituents in Baton Rouge while serving in Congress in Washington. At 70? Not a chance.

Especially when Edmonds doesn’t seem to have a firm handle on his congressional campaign.

What do I mean by that? Well, Team Edmonds put up a billboard in Baton Rouge which has endorsements from prominent folks on it, except for one problem.

One of the endorsers, state representative Emily Chenevert, HAS NOT ENDORSED EDMONDS. And she’s been pretty adamant about that.

It’s really something when you go up with a billboard claiming an endorsement you don’t have.

I’m not going to say that Rick Edmonds is a liar. I don’t think that’s actually what’s happening here. He might have liars running his campaign, but I don’t think that’s who Rick is.

Instead I’m going to say he’s 70, and people are doing things in his name that he’s not on top of.

And that tends to happen as people get older.

It’s a bad sign.

Miguez is 44. He’s already got a strong conservative record in the state legislature – I’d argue it’s better than Edmonds’ record, but Edmonds hasn’t been bad – and he’s 26 years younger than Edmonds is. That gives him, potentially, the ability to get 26 years more seniority in the House, and a better chance to survive whatever interregnum of Democrat control in the House might be coming, than Edmonds.

And so far as I know, Miguez’ camp isn’t claiming any endorsements they don’t actually have, which, to borrow a college sports term, would mean he has a little more institutional control than we’re seeing from the old man.

I’m not saying anybody is a bad guy here. I’m just trying to call balls and strikes. And objectively, if it’s Miguez or Edmonds, Miguez is the better bet.