(Jan. 4 print edition) As this new year dawns, consider how Louisiana, in the words of famed Democratic consultant James Carville, “punches way above its weight” in national politics and political discussion.
It has been this way for decades, and surely will continue in 2026.
This observation isn’t just about the truly remarkable fact of Louisiana Republicans Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise simultaneously holding the posts of U.S. House speaker and majority leader, although we’ll return to that situation shortly. The Louisiana dominance is more all-encompassing than that.
Consider, first, one small example, namely the Dec. 17 “Morning Joe” show on MS NOW. It featured guests Walter Isaacson, Jonathan Martin and Ali Vitali, all with Lou
The near-ubiquitous biographer Isaacson, of course, is a native New Orleanian, former CEO of CNN and editor of Time. Martin, columnist for Politico and frequent TV analyst, lives in the Central Business District with his locally raised wife, Betsy Fischer Martin, former lead producer of NBC’s Meet the Press. Vitali, host of MS NOW’s “Way Too Early,” graduated from Tulane University, where she took classes from Carville.
Carville, a Louisiana native and probably the most famous political guru in the nation, has lived for years in New Orleans with wife Mary Matalin, the campaign director for President George H.W. Bush and key aide to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney….
Louisiana congressional delegation. 1979
On the right, Jay Lapeyre of Laitram Industries is board chairman of the nation’s foremost libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, and of the Atlas Society, a libertarian educational outfit. Social conservative Tony Perkins, a two-term member of the Louisiana state House, is the longtime president of the powerful Family Research Council and served as chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Morton Blackwell, raised in Louisiana and a College Republican state chairman way back in the early 1960s, is considered the premier organizational leader of the national conservative movement and still, at age 86, actively heads the Leadership Institute that trains tens of thousands of young conservatives each year for roles in campaigns and media. Journalist and author Rod Dreher, raised in St. Francisville, has a massive online following for his traditionalist and neo-nationalist views.
And that’s just a sampling.
Per capita, surely that’s more national political influence than any other state comes close to boasting.
For Louisiana, though, it’s not unusual…. [The full column is at this link.]
