With only three weeks to go before the gubernatorial election, candidates are pushing to separate themselves from the rest of the pack.
The race is made up of 18 candidates, but only seven have received at least two percent of the vote. And as a statewide poll revealed last week, no one candidate has stood out above the rest.
Democratic candidate Kathleen Blanco received 20 percent, Republican candidate Bobby Jindal received 19 percent with 21 percent of the 600 state residents polled, still undecided.
Ed Renwick, Loyola University institute of politics director, said in order to advance to the Nov. 15 runoff, candidates are going to have to reach the 20 percent plateau.
Renwick said for candidates to get 20 percent of the vote they must target a base group to bring them to the top of the polls.
Wayne Parent, political science chairman, said most candidates have already started to stake out their target groups.
“Richard Ieyoub and Buddy Leach are going after the traditional democratic base, African Americans and the labor group,” Parent said.
Both Ieyoub and Leach are trying to be the candidates for the African Americans, which is the second largest group that tends to vote together behind social conservatives, Parent said.
On the republican side, Bobby Jindal and Jay Blossman are targeting social conservatives and business groups. Social conservatives make up 30 percent of the Louisiana voters and believe in things like Christianity and the ownership of guns, Parent said.
But Parent said Jindal is an interesting candidate.
“He is an Ivy Leaguer and would naturally appeal to pro-business types, but his rhetoric has been clearly aimed at the social conservatives,” Parent said. “He is sort of doing the best of both worlds. He is the pro-business type and is attracting pro-business people. But most of his messages have been about items that appeal to social conservatives, like the Ten Commandments in Alabama.”
Parent said, democratic candidates Kathleen Blanco and Randy Ewing are going out on a limb by trying to appeal to everyone.
“Blanco is not running messages as much as she is saying ‘trust me, I have been in government for eight years’,” Parent said. “Ewing is trying to appeal to both republican and democrats through his business growth platform.”
Parent said this election is very reminiscent of the gubernatorial election eight years ago.
This is about the time in the campaign that Foster broke away from the pack, Parent said.
“What he did was make himself the candidate of the social conservatives,” Parent said. “He started emphasizing the Christian conservative message and he was the only one doing that.”
Parent said it will be tough for this year’s candidates to duplicate the success of Foster because too many candidates are going after the same groups.
“Foster was lucky because he was the only candidate that could credibly appeal to the social conservatives,” Parent said. “Blossman is doing that, but because he and Jindal are both trying to do that he can not be the one guy for that group.”
The gubernatorial election is October 4 with the top two vote getters entering a runoff election on Nov. 15.