Day 21: THREE Full Weeks of Liberal Letlow Flailing

Baton Rouge, LA - It has now been 21 days – THREE FULL WEEKS – since U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) challenged Liberal Julia Letlow to THREE televised debates, and her campaign remains in complete disarray.

Instead of stepping up, Liberal Letlow campaign has offered excuses, deflections, and carefully staged alternatives designed to avoid real scrutiny.

Whether it’s a televised debate, unscripted voter engagement, or direct accountability to the press, Liberal Letlow continues to dodge any setting she cannot fully control.

That’s not leadership. That’s a campaign flailing under pressure.

While Senator Cassidy is running a strong, statewide campaign backed by significant resources and a record of conservative results, Liberal Letlow’s campaign has struggled to get off the ground – remaining largely absent from the airwaves after canceling ad buys and refusing to engage in real honest debates. It’s clear Liberal Letlow is hiding from Louisiana voters.

This is not how serious candidates run for the United States Senate.

The questions remain: What is she hiding? Does her campaign even have the resources to compete?

Typically, a challenger with fewer resources seeks every opportunity to go on TV and reach voters. But in this race, Liberal Letlow is doing the opposite.

Senator Cassidy’s team remains in contact with the three TV stations prepared to host debates. We – along with those stations – are waiting for Team Liberal Letlow to pick up the phone and reschedule the dates they have already declined.

In The News: Letlow’s Dodging Under Scrutiny For The Last Three Weeks

• NOLA: On Monday, Jim Engster, who hosts the biggest talk radio program in Baton Rouge — one that is not openly partisan or ideological — offered to host a debate. 

• LA Politics: Leaders for a Better Louisiana and Louisiana Public Broadcasting are hosting a U.S. Senate debate on April 16 in Baton Rouge and KTBS-TV in Shreveport has offered to do the same on a different date. U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy and Treasurer John Fleming both say they'll debate anywhere, whereas Congresswoman Julia Letlow has so far said she couldn't participate in the LPB debate due to the U.S. House floor schedule.

• Louisiana Illuminator: Yet with less than two months to go before the May 16 party primaries, we’ve not seen anything resembling a true platform from her campaign. For example, Letlow’s website features an “About Julia” section with about 260 words touching mostly on her experience, but there’s no mention of actual issues she plans to address. Not even talking points about the “conservative, America first agenda” she plans to follow. The same goes for her advertising. 

• La Politics: U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy proposed legislation last week that would ban members of Congress and their immediate family members from buying stocks. The bill ties into one of his campaign attacks against Congresswoman Julia Letlow, who is running for his Senate seat and failed to disclose more than 200 stock trades within the legal window. 

• NOLA: She’s the one who is ducking television debates, proposing instead to meet only on a friendly radio show hosted by Cassidy critic Moon Griffon… Maybe she’s got more to tell the voters about her own views and priorities and philosophy of the job than simply “He’s with me.” You know what would be a good way for her to start? Agree to debate.

• NOLA: Letters: Letlow’s stock trades are a legitimate campaign issue

• KLFY: Polling data released by Sen. Bill Cassidy’s re-election campaign show the incumbent holding a double-digit lead in the race for the Republican primary.

• NOLA: The default response to an invitation to debate should be yes. Anything else is a smoke screen, ill-befitting a public servant.

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