Syrita Steib (D-New Orleans) and candidate for U. S. Senate in Louisiana running against incumbent John Kennedy (R-Madisonville), joined fellow challenger Gary Chambers (pictured below) in lamenting Kennedy’s non-presence at forums and proceeded to launch some pretty vicious attacks against Kennedy at the Baton Rouge Press Club meeting of Monday, October 24, 2022.
When we formed Sound Off Louisiana, we committed to provide our camera to anyone wishing to “sound off” on Louisiana governmental issues of concern to them. We make that pledge irrespective of what our own take on those matters may be.
At the conclusion of a forum conducted by the Baton Rouge Press Club (BRPC) of Monday, October 24, 2022, we spoke briefly with Syrita Steib (D-New Orleans) and Gary Chambers (D-Baton Rouge) and told both of them that, “The blog was named Sound Off Louisiana so people who wished to ‘sound off’ on Louisiana governmental issues would have a forum for doing so, and you both did plenty of ‘sounding off,’ so we’ll have your concerns, particularly your frustration that the media won’t report on Sen. Kennedy’s absence at forums, on full display.”
They both expressed appreciation. So, let’s provide some video highlights of today’s forum between Steib and Chambers, both of whom hope to unseat incumbent U. S. Sen. John Kennedy in this year’s race for U. S. Senate, for which the primary vote is November 8, 2022 with early voting commencing tomorrow:
First, most people in Louisiana have likely heard of Chambers, but that certainly may not be the case for Steib, so let’s begin with the candidates’ introduction of themselves with Steib first:
Steib introduces herself and provides her opening statement.
Chambers introduces himself and provides his opening statement.
Now let’s take a peek at their questions of each other.
Chambers poses question of Steib on issue of Kennedy’s absence at forums.
Steib poses question of Chambers regarding whether he’s “serious” in his quest to unseat Kennedy.
We’ll consider the next clip as lagniappe but we’ll also stress that, if Chambers can execute on massive black voter turnout on November 8, 2022, it could have major implications on the outcome of the race.
Chambers lays out exactly how he believes he can win the election, which entails dramatically increasing black voter turnout in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport vs. what it was when Kennedy was elected in 2016.
Both candidates respond to a question by Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns regarding their assessment of the Ronald Greene matter and what each would do if elected to the U. S. Senate entailing that matter.
Now, while both candidates did lament Kennedy’s repeated absences at forums, Stein also chastised fellow Democrat Luke Mixon (D-Baton Rouge) for not appearing at today’s forum. We will remind everyone that Mixon was the guest speaker at the January 10, 2022 BRPC meeting, and he certainly appeared nowhere near as prepared to respond to a question on Ronald Greene than either Chambers or Steib. In fact, we’d say that he seemed completely discombobulated. Let’s reproduce his performance from back then since he couldn’t make it to today’s forum wherein he may have been able to provide perhaps a better performance (and it wouldn’t take much to be better than what immediately follows):
Luke Mixon provides response to Sound Off Louisiana‘s Burns entailing the matter of Ronald Greene.
As if the performance above isn’t bad enough on Mixon’s part and, given that, as a Democrat, he simply must garner the vast majority of the black vote to prevail, we believe he did himself no favors when he admitted he passed on the opportunity to vote for the United States’ first African American President. Let’s take a look again, shall we?:
Mixon admits he passed on the opportunity to vote for Barack Obama and instead cast his vote for then-U. S. Sen. John McCain.
Given the above, should Mixon somehow manage to miraculously (because we believe it would literally take a miracle) take John Kennedy to a runoff, Kennedy will blanket the airwaves over Mixon’s vote for President in 2008. If we were him (Mixon), we certainly wouldn’t count on too many black voters showing up to vote for Mixon in the runoff. That’s just our take on the matter, especially since Mixon wasn’t able to make it today. We thought we’d provide a “blast from the past” to make sure his presence wasn’t totally missed!
Arguably some of the most vicious attacks against Kennedy at today’s forum came when radio talk-show host Jim Engster asked the candidates if they would have certified the results of the race for President in 2020. Hold on to your socks, folks (especially for Chambers’ response):
Both candidates respond to Engster’s question on whether they would have voted to certify the 2020 election results entailing President Joe Biden.
There was plenty more Kennedy bashing in each candidate’s closing remarks, so let’s take a look:
Steib provides her closing remarks.
Chambers provides his closing remarks.
It’s our opinion that the second place finisher in the race will most likely be Gary Chambers.
The only open question is whether all of the other candidates opposing Kennedy can collectively keep Kennedy from climbing over the 50 percent mark on November 8, 2022.
We see that as highly, highly, unlikely, but we’d be less than honest if we didn’t admit that Chambers’ call in the preceding video to, “at least get me in the runoff, so he’ll have to answer some damn questions,” would make for one heck of an intriguing one-on-one matchup!
We really don’t see it happening (we’ll stick our necks out and predict that Kennedy wins in the primary with 57% of the vote), but it’s always fun just to ponder what such a runoff campaign would be like!
As is so often said by a good friend of Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns who resides in Kansas, “Only in Louisiana!”
CLICK HERE to view the forum in its entirety and, trust us, there’s plenty more good material not highlighted above to include abortion, inflation, and much more.
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