John Bel is healing the blind

That's pretty impressive, right?

Edwards began airing a campaign commercial on Tuesday in which people described how they benefited from Edwards’ decision to expand Medicaid to the working poor. “I can see,” said one man, who was identified as suffering from glaucoma.

One thing you can't say about John Bel Edwards is that he's broken his major campaign promises. No, he never promised to lay his divine hands on the sick and the frail. But he did promise to accept the Medicaid expansion and that has had tangible benefits for people. Of course, he's also using the MCO contracts as political patronage. But he never promised to undo Bobby Jindal's privatization scheme. And, as we all know, nothing about this is adequate compared with the universal health care system some of your less terrible Presidential candidates are pushing for at the moment.  But that's really beyond the scope of what your John Bel Edwardses are going to tackle for you.  Medicaid expansion and a teacher pay raise were the main things the Governor said he'd deliver in 2015 and here he is running for reelection a perfect 2 for 2.  This doesn't mean we don't have many many complaints. It's easy enough to scroll through those.  But, usually, when you deliver on the specific things you said you would deliver on, it bodes well for your chances of being reelected.

That's what Shane Guidry seems to think, anyway.

One prominent Jefferson Parish Republican donor, Shane Guidry, said he is sitting out the governor’s race this time. Four years ago, his company, Harvey Gulf, donated $150,000 to Gumbo PAC, which supported Edwards over Vitter.

“I don’t think he can be beaten,” Guidry said of the governor.

And he's far from the only big money donor the Governor has successfully courted.. or at least mollified..  so he's probably right. All the conventional signs point to a reelected John Bel.  A few weeks ago, Stephanie Grace reminded us that a lot of Republicans are resigned to that fact as well. For example, John N Kennedy may be publicly urging President Trump to come down and speak at a rally for whichever of the C-list GOP contenders might make the runoff. But if John really was that gung-ho about the chances, he probably would have run himself. Remember also that Steve Scalise and Jeff Landry have made the same calculation.  Of course,  from a national perspective, it does stick in the party's craw that the Governor of a deep south "red" state is (kind of) a Democrat. And maybe things will change once/if we end up with a runoff.  But, for now, it looks like a wait and see situation. The Republicans aren't running their first stringers out there.

Instead they've fielded these guys.

That's Congressman Ralph Abraham on the right and multi-millionaire construction magnate weirdo Eddie Ripsone on the left.  Or maybe it's the other way around. Nobody knows, actually.  It says here there are three debates scheduled for primary season where, one would expect, the two of them would be required to appear in the same place at the same time.  We'll see how that works out.

Supposedly we should have an easier time telling them apart once their campaign "messages" start to get out.  But so far, that hasn't helped.  Rispone made a bit of a splash a month ago with a newspaper ad (that John Georges for some reason agreed to print) and a TV spot promising he can be every bit as racist, cruel, and intolerant as Donald Trump. 

Rispone's ad also represents the latest diatribe from the Rispone campaign on immigration, which has traditionally not been a campaign issue in a state where only 4% of residents are foreign born, and even fewer are unauthorized. Last week, Rispone's campaign put out a newspaper ad that said if elected, "Louisiana will stand with President Trump" to "build the wall," and called New Orleans a "sanctuary city." The ad also said he would not "put up with ANTIFA lawlessness," referring to the left-wing activists, or "tolerate replacing the American flag at government buildings with Mexican ones," an apparent reference to an Aurora, Colorado immigration detention facility. 

In the TV ad, Rispone says, "as governor, I will work with President Trump to protect our constitutional rights, to ban sanctuary cities, and end taxpayer benefits for illegal immigrants in Louisiana."

All of which, Abraham was all too happy to match. In an ad released last week, Ralph says he is a big Trump guy too.  Which he proves by also saying something incredibly stupid.

BATON ROUGE, La. — Republican candidate for Louisiana governor Ralph Abraham has released a new TV ad that takes aim at abortion rights and the transgender community as he works to draw attention for his campaign. In the 30-second spot launched Thursday, the three-term congressman looks directly into the camera to establish what he calls "the truth."

The conservative hits several points in quick succession, declaring that "life begins at conception," taxes are too high and he supports President Donald Trump.

With a chuckle, he wraps up with a swipe at the LGBTQ community: "And as a doctor, I can assure you there are only two genders."

Ralph went on to clarify this week that he was only talking about "lawsuits" and that we should understand he does not have a "discriminatory bone" in his body which, as a medical doctor, Abraham should be able to identify.  I think it's connected to the racism bone somehow.

One item of note from that Tyler Bridges story  worth keeping an eye on. Tonight Abraham is holding a fundraiser hosted by Joe Canizaro who is a co-chair of the Trump Louisiana campaign.  Karl Rove is supposed to be there. So it's not like the Republicans aren't keeping an eye on things.  But for now it's safe to say they're viewing the race as a bit of a... Long Shot?