John Kennedy has been our state treasurer for 17 years. He deals with state government financial matters — except for annual budgets — such as unclaimed property and investments. So the fiscal nightmares brought to you by Bobby Jindal the last few years may not necessarily be Kennedy’s fault, but his record as a politician is still far from perfect.
Insanity is performing the same action repeatedly and expecting it to yield different results. Kennedy ran for higher office multiple times, repeatedly to no avail. After dropping out of a gubernatorial race and losing two campaigns for U.S. Senate, Kennedy is running once again.
As a Democrat, he lost to David Vitter. As a Republican, he lost to Mary Landrieu. In other words, he is a spoiler candidate of his party.
According to the Fox 8 / Mason Dixon Poll on Oct. 20, Kennedy and Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell will likely be in the runoff election in December. If Kennedy’s pattern does not change, we can expect to call Campbell a senator quite soon.
As treasurer, he constantly points out petty budget issues and attempts to convince residents of their urgency.
Earlier this year, he essentially told people our multi-billion dollar fiscal cavities could be filled by selling state-owned artwork.
In February, he utilized the State of the State response slot to argue that our state has a spending problem, not a revenue problem, and referred to the artworks as potential solutions. He later uploaded a self-portrait standing next to state-owned artwork on Facebook, but he said the artwork was “a totally inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars when we are supposed to be broke.”
If selling artwork could fix our budget woes, it would seem he had surpassed his role as state treasurer and has become our state magician.
If these examples aren’t enough, his campaign advertisements serve as a good indicator of the campaign’s wellbeing. Kennedy’s ads are full of sound bites such as his comment that he “would rather drink weed killer.” Many political campaigns use slogans to resonate with voters, such as Jay Dardenne’s “Make Louisiana Proud” and John Bel Edwards’ “Put Louisiana First,” but Kennedy’s sound bites only show how desperate he is for attention.
Kennedy might be a great public servant, but he is a terrible politician. In his third run for U.S. Senate, he is making this clear by putting urgency on minor issues and performing pathetic political stunts instead of putting we, the citizens, first.
Currently, Congress has only around 10 percent approval. So, if you like to hate Congress, Kennedy would be the best fit.
Kevin Yau is a 20-year-old sociology senior from New Orleans, Louisiana.