Jennifer Van Vrancken, Jefferson Parish Councilwoman At-Large and a leading Republican within the Parish, took to the media following the midterms, making the choice to call Letlow’s narrow victory a “one-off.”
Van Vrancken credited Letlow’s paper-thin victory (and not-so-paper-thin loss in JP) to a lack of recognition and track record in the Parish.
In an interview with Fox8, she said, “Julia Letlow is largely unknown in Jefferson in terms of having any kind of track record for our local voters, and Jamie Davis was a unique character being a gun-toting business owner. I mean, some of those things that traditionally appeal to Republicans.”
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I don’t know about you, but when you get your ass-kicked --- whether that be in sports, professional or personal matters, a political race, whatever --- when you get beat, and get beat bad, don’t you think the wisest thing one can do is to roll back the footage and, with fear and trembling, begin to ask yourself a series of tough questions:
- How did that happen?
- What can I change so that this might not happen again?
- Where did I go wrong?
Or, instead, you can call it a one-off, otherwise known as choosing the path of denial. And if you go down that road and choose to bury your head deep in the sand, most of us get that you’re accomplishing nothing more than increasing the odds of another loss.
So I’ll put it this way: If GOP leaders across the country adopt the Van Vrancken stance, we may as well petition to change the party flag from an elephant to an ostrich. Then, maybe, a few election cycles later, a Dodo.
I’m no longer Chicken Little on this matter. The sky has fallen. And we’re in trouble, folks. Conservativism in Louisiana is not in a good place. And the reason, I'd argue, isn’t due to a thriving, blossoming progressive undercurrent. Rather, it's from the Republican failure to take the horse blinders off and detach itself from a losing methodology.
And none of us should be shocked. Tuesday’s results have been written on the wall, to borrow from Daniel Chapter 5, and they’ve been written in big bold letters far longer than many of us care to admit: Trump-sycophancy has warped the mentality of our party. To directly quote scripture, the warning to King Belshazzar, which feels almost a little too on-the-nose: “You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.” (Daniel, Chapter 5:27, KJV)
The roadmap to failure is there for anyone who cares enough to look over their shoulder. It began with trying to limit the process of how we pick primary candidates, otherwise known as LA HB-17. And while I understand that no-party and independent citizens had the option to pick which party’s primary they voted in, by altering our primary system we shot ourselves in the foot.
Any leading Republican elected official in Jefferson Parish should know the following: There are almost as many no-party registered voters in Jefferson as there are Republicans, a difference of about 500 votes.
What does that tell you? What it tells me is that all those, like myself, who are registered as no-party are so for a reason. It tells me they have issues with both major parties and want the flexibility to voice their opinions. Do you think maybe the new primary system led voters into the arms of the Democratic Party? We got that answer Tuesday.
We assumed that Louisiana “votes Red,” come hell or high water. And the Trump-or-bust leadership got so scared that Cassidy might pick up enough Democratic support to eke out an open primary victory that they forgot that there was a scenario where it worked in reverse: Maybe Republican supporters could get so dissatisfied with the status quo that Jamie Davis seemed like a perfectly reasonable option.
The choice was made, though, for a closed primary. What resulted was a candidate who cared to heed the voice of Trump over the voice of Louisiana constituents. And it’s not that I’m against someone who supports the president. But as I said again and again on my show, I am wary of anyone who appears unable to speak out in opposition to him.
We made our bed, slept in it all too comfortably from May to November; then, Tuesday morning, we woke up in it. Jefferson Parish is now (as it always has been, for anyone who has cared to pay attention) a battleground. I thought Kyle Green, a Democrat out of Marrero and head of the Louisiana House Democratic Caucus, was spot on when he said that Jefferson will always be competitive for the right candidate.
But forget my opinion on the matter; the numbers tell the tale. Jamie Davis won by 8 points, approximately 70,000 votes to Letlow’s 60,000. And how easily we forget that John Bel Edwards took the Parish in 2015 and 2019; in the 2019 election, Bel Edwards beat out Eddie Rispone, another sycophant. We have to accept that it doesn't matter that Trump carried Jefferson to the tune of 55% two years ago. We have to accept that our party got lazy, made poor decisions, and got what they paid for.
Going back to Van Vrancken’s response, she said that Letlow was “largely unknown” and didn’t have a “kind of track record” that turned heads in JP. I find that verbiage extremely ridiculous: Why would a congresswoman from North Louisiana have a track record outside of the area she represents? And don’t you think it might have been a decent idea for Jefferson Parish Republicans to organize, inform, and promote the Republican Senate hopeful to those in the area who admittedly did not know much about her?
Van Vranken also pointed to dominant victories by Republican Congressman Steve Scalise and Public Service Commissioner-elect Stephanie Hilferty, two people who represent only small portions of Jefferson Parish, portions that happen to be some of the most conservative precincts. If you're a Republican, and you find this flawed thought process to be rational following this historic beat down, you should be embarrassed.
And remember, these words are coming from a public official who actually went to a function at the Jefferson Performing Arts Theatre in dress that had Trump's flag all over it, seemingly in an attempt to mimic AOC’s “Tax the Rich” wardrobe choice. Maybe if she decides to run for Parish President, she’ll think twice before running around with that dress on.
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I took a lot of heat after Donald Trump's first term when I said we ought to put him in our rearview. I said that the Republican Party and its ability to grow was ultimately going to have a day of reckoning with their bombastic leader. I said if we did not continue to nourish the party and bring more people under the tent, and find ways to present important issues in a more palatable way, as opposed to demonizing any and all opposition as though there are no smart people that have a “D” behind their name --- which I know better, you know better, we all know better -- I said if we didn't stop that, we’d get to a saturation point where people have had enough.
Was Tuesday not a clear enough message? Let’s cut the denial and act accordingly.
