As a new NFL season begins it is an interesting coincidence that Attorney General Jeff Landry is employing an established football strategy to win a spot in the gubernatorial runoff: Jump out to a big lead, sit on the ball, don’t take any risks, and run out the clock. 

Given his big lead in the polls, his strategy is working, and the first televised debate of the primary season demonstrated that his opponents don’t know how to stop him.  

The first televised debate in the 2023 governor’s race was held on Sept. 7 at the WWL-TV studio in New Orleans. The participants were: State Treasurer John Schroder, state Sen. Sharon Hewitt, former Louisiana Association of Business and Industry President Stephen Waguespack, trial lawyer Hunter Lundy, and former State Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson. 

Landry did not participate. His reason for skipping the event was that the Urban League was listed as a debate sponsor and he believed the organization is a biased liberal group that only supports Democrats. However, his claim is curious, because WWL-TV News Director T. Nicole Waivers pointed out that the Urban League did not write any questions, none of their staff would ask any questions, and they had no role in designing the format of the debate. 

There was no obvious way for the Urban League to introduce bias into the debate. Their role as sponsor consisted of using their communication platforms to publicize and promote the debate.  

Some have speculated that Landry did not want to participate in a debate in New Orleans because it’s considered hostile territory for Republicans, but he will join the next debate because it is in Lafayette, a friendly Republican area next to his old congressional district. Landry can afford to be selective about which debates he attends because he doesn’t need the exposure. He doesn’t need to do anything. He can run out the clock.

Wilson has a clear path to a runoff spot as the only major Democrat in the race, so he can keep his powder dry for now. However, all of the other Republican candidates need to find a way to reduce the Landry vote share for their campaigns to survive. 

In the first debate, the Republicans did not take any risks and missed many opportunities to differentiate themselves from Landry. They barely mentioned him at all. When they did, it was by his title, not his name. 

For example, Hewitt, attempting to paint Landry as anti-oil and gas, said: “The attorney general is not a friend of the oil and gas industry.” The problem is that polling shows that most citizens cannot name their state attorney general. Casual voters might not even know who Hewitt was talking about. 

Schroder muffed a similar opportunity by referring to Landry as “the attorney general” rather than using his name. These are surprising tactical errors made by experienced politicians. 

Landry won the debate without showing up because none of the other candidates were able to mount any effective attacks on him. They all played it safe, took no risks, and tried to stay on their own messages. The only differences on the stage were the positions of Democrat Wilson on abortion and LGBTQ+ issues. But the other Republicans are not running against Wilson. They are running against Landry for one runoff spot. Their failure to land any blows in the debate means the race remains at status quo, and the status quo is a win for Landry.   

To get back to the football analogy, for the other Republican candidates to have any chance of catching him, they will either need to start blitzing him on every play, throwing Hail Marys into the end zone, or both strategies at once. They will have their opportunity on Sept. 15, in that televised debate in Lafayette. Landry has confirmed that he will participate in that event. With primary election day taking place on Oct. 14, if the other Republicans don’t figure out a bold new strategy in the next few weeks, the clock will run out on them. 

How will Trump budget cuts affect red states like Louisiana?

Kids could be sent to adult prison for growing list of crimes in Louisiana

New reporter will document culture and power in New Orleans

State-led 'Super Bowl' sweeps of New Orleans’ unhoused population continue

Recent Stories

Kids could be sent to adult prison for growing list of crimes in Louisiana

Art Neville: founder of The Meters

New Orleans mayor, council at impasse over $20M schools settlement

Sex workers often harmed by Super Bowl sex trafficking narrative, advocates say

Close window X

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Unless otherwise noted, you can republish most of Verite’s stories for free under a Creative Commons license. For digital publications:

• Look for the “Republish This Story” button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
• You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
• You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
• Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
• If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @VeriteNewsNola on Facebook and @VeriteNewsNola on Twitter.

For print publications:

• You have to credit Verite. We prefer “Author Name, Verite News” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Verite News” and include our website, veritenews.org.
• You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
• You cannot republish our photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Tim Morris for more information).
• Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
• You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
• You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
• Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
• If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @VeriteNewsNola on Facebook and @VeriteNewsNola on Twitter.

If you have any other questions, contact managing editor Tim Morris.

Jeff Landry Dominates Governor’s Debate in Absence

by Robert Collins, Verite News New Orleans
September 12, 2023

<h1>Jeff Landry Dominates Governor’s Debate in Absence</h1> <p class="byline">by Robert Collins, Verite News New Orleans <br />September 12, 2023</p> <p>As a new NFL season begins it is an interesting coincidence that Attorney General Jeff Landry is employing an established football strategy to win a spot in the gubernatorial runoff: Jump out to a big lead, sit on the ball, don’t take any risks, and run out the clock.&nbsp;</p> <p>Given his big lead in the polls, his strategy is working, and the first televised debate of the primary season demonstrated that his opponents don’t know how to stop him.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>The first televised debate in the 2023 governor’s race was held on Sept. 7 at the WWL-TV studio in New Orleans. The participants were: State Treasurer John Schroder, state Sen. Sharon Hewitt, former Louisiana Association of Business and Industry President Stephen Waguespack, trial lawyer Hunter Lundy, and former State Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson. </p> <p>Landry did not participate. His reason for skipping the event was that the Urban League was listed as a debate sponsor and he believed the organization is a biased liberal group that only supports Democrats. However, his claim is curious, because WWL-TV News Director T. Nicole Waivers pointed out that the Urban League did not write any questions, none of their staff would ask any questions, and they had no role in designing the format of the debate.&nbsp;</p> <p>There was no obvious way for the Urban League to introduce bias into the debate. Their role as sponsor consisted of using their communication platforms to publicize and promote the debate.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>Some have speculated that Landry did not want to participate in a debate in New Orleans because it’s considered hostile territory for Republicans, but he will join the next debate because it is in Lafayette, a friendly Republican area next to his old congressional district. Landry can afford to be selective about which debates he attends because he doesn’t need the exposure. He doesn’t need to do anything. He can run out the clock.</p> <p>Wilson has a clear path to a runoff spot as the only major Democrat in the race, so he can keep his powder dry for now. However, all of the other Republican candidates need to find a way to reduce the Landry vote share for their campaigns to survive.&nbsp;</p> <p>In the first debate, the Republicans did not take any risks and missed many opportunities to differentiate themselves from Landry. They barely mentioned him at all. When they did, it was by his title, not his name.&nbsp;</p> <p>For example, Hewitt, attempting to paint Landry as anti-oil and gas, said: “The attorney general is not a friend of the oil and gas industry.” The problem is that polling shows that most citizens cannot name their state attorney general. Casual voters might not even know who Hewitt was talking about.&nbsp;</p> <p>Schroder muffed a similar opportunity by referring to Landry as “the attorney general” rather than using his name. These are surprising tactical errors made by experienced politicians. </p> <p>Landry won the debate without showing up because none of the other candidates were able to mount any effective attacks on him. They all played it safe, took no risks, and tried to stay on their own messages. The only differences on the stage were the positions of Democrat Wilson on abortion and LGBTQ+ issues. But the other Republicans are not running against Wilson. They are running against Landry for one runoff spot. Their failure to land any blows in the debate means the race remains at status quo, and the status quo is a win for Landry.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>To get back to the football analogy, for the other Republican candidates to have any chance of catching him, they will either need to start blitzing him on every play, throwing Hail Marys into the end zone, or both strategies at once. They will have their opportunity on Sept. 15, in that televised debate in Lafayette. Landry has confirmed that he will participate in that event. With primary election day taking place on Oct. 14, if the other Republicans don’t figure out a bold new strategy in the next few weeks, the clock will run out on them.&nbsp;</p> <p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://veritenews.org/2023/09/12/jeff-landry-won-the-first-governors-race-debate-without-showing-up/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://veritenews.org&quot;&gt;Verite News New Orleans&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.&lt;img src=&quot;https://cdn.veritenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/11131054/cropped-Verite-icon-150x150.png&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://veritenews.org/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=9228&amp;amp;ga4=G-MBPTYVCMYR&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://veritenews.org/2023/09/12/jeff-landry-won-the-first-governors-race-debate-without-showing-up/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/veritenews.org/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</p> Copy to Clipboard

1