State Sen. Regina Barrow characterizes “Did Gov. Edwards drop the ball on Johnny Anderson or has he been unfairly attacked?” as “loaded” as she, challenger Chambers defend Edwards’ actions.

The meeting of the Baton Rouge Press Club (BRPC) of Monday, October 7, 2019 was a battle of contenders to represent Louisiana State Senate District 15.  The candidates are incumbent State Sen. Regina Ashford Barrow, and challenger Gary Chambers, who is the publisher of the Rouge Collection.  Let’s take a look at some of the things the candidates had to say, shall we?

Sen. Barrow characterizes as “loaded” Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns’ question entailing whether Gov. Edwards “dropped the ball” entailing his hiring of Johnny Anderson or whether Truth in Politics’ attack ad featuring the victim and/or the RGA Right Direction PAC attack ad are unfair.  Chambers responds to the question after Barrow concludes her remarks.

Now, as is obvious by the video, both Barrow and Chambers staunchly defend Gov. Edwards and stress that Anderson has not been “convicted.”  Fair enough.  For the record, Johnny Anderson is black.  We wonder if Barrow and Chambers would so staunchly defend Edwards if they were aware of similar circumstances entailing Caucasian Stephen Holliday.

Here’s the deal:  Edwards’-then Secretary of Wildlife and Fisheries and former U. S. Congressman, Charlie Melancon, insisted upon the resignation of Holliday once he (Melancon) became aware of Holliday’s CONVICTION of domestic abuse for punching his 14-year-old daughter in the face with a closed fist.  What did Edwards do upon learning of the forced resignation?  He:  #1) instructed Melancon to exit stage left, and he #2) demanded the re-hiring of Holliday, who continues to be employed by Louisiana taxpayers to this very day.

Of course, both Barrow and Chambers could be excused for not knowing about Holliday’s incident because the mainstream media aren’t about to reveal it to them and, for whatever reason (perhaps saving it for the runoff?), neither have Edwards’ Republican opponents.  Nevertheless, Barrow and Chambers ought to find the contrasts of treatments of Anderson v. Holliday (and their opposite races) to be at least modestly curious!

Speaking of mainstream media, let’s see what these candidates think of Dr. Omar Dantzler’s claim that “racism” is behind the mainstream media’s efforts to quash his campaign’s existence.

Barrow and Chambers respond to Dantzler’s claims of the mainstream media attempting to quash his campaign’s existence.

Now, unbelievably, Chambers states that he is “unfamiliar” with Dantzler’s candidacy and that the fact he is not familiar demonstrates the bias in the mainstream media.  Perhaps had Chambers known of Dantzler’s candidacy, he may not have declared, “black voters have one choice on election day, John Bel Edwards.”  Here is an excerpt from Chambers’ article:

I am not the type of person to give blind loyalty. Too often in the black community we believe if we challenge someone that we don’t support them, when that simply is not true. I endorsed Governor Edwards in 2015 and I’m doing so again today. This election is too important to yield power over to Trump supporting conservatives who will implement failed policies that we’ve seen before.

We can’t speak for Dr. Dantzler, but we have to believe he would feel endorsing Edwards over him constitutes “blind loyalty.”

Nevertheless, taking Chambers’ claim of unfamiliarity regarding Dantzler at face value (and there’s no reason to suggest he did have any familiarity with Dantzler’s candidacy), we note two points that are readily apparent:

#1) the media efforts Dr. Dantzler alleges have been in place to quash his candidacy must be working if someone with the notoriety of Gary Chambers is “unfamiliar” with his candidacy, and

#2) even given the media suppression Dantzler alleges is taking place, Chambers likely needs to broaden his research on who all is running for Governor!

Perhaps subscribing to our blog may assist as he would have received this post educating him on Dantzler’s candidacy and his platforms on many issues.  We are willing to bet they are strikingly similar to positions that Chambers would take were he running for Governor.

Now, we’re going to break today’s forum into two segments, and the second will be published on Wednesday.  For now, however, let’s wrap up this first segment with the candidates’ responses on what they intend to do if the proposed City of St. George measure passes on Saturday:

Barrow and Chambers provide their answers on what they intend to do if the St. George initiative passes on Saturday.

Now, supporters of Chambers asked us to provide the segment of last week’s Fields/Smith forum where moderator Delia Taylor went to announce the speakers for today’s forum and could easily cite challenger Gary Chambers but struggled mightily to recall the “other candidate in the race.”  We’re certainly happy to oblige by instructing any such folk who may be interested in seeing that to merely advance to the 47:29 mark of this video.

We’ll get segment two of Barrow v. Chambers published on Wednesday, October 9, 2019.

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