LA-05: Pro-Medicare-Expansion ‘Duck Dynasty’ GOPer Wins Election

Results of the special federal runoff election for Louisiana’s vacant Fifth Congressional District are finally in, and it strikes another blow against the institutional GOP as an “outsider” who supports one facet of Obamacare beats the party’s favored candidate:

Louisiana voters elected Republican Vance McAllister in a runoff to fill the state’s vacant Fifth District U.S. House seat on Saturday. McAllister, a businessman who embraced the expansion of Medicaid available to the state under the Affordable Care Act, defeated a Republican party favorite who called for full Obamacare repeal.

In a district won by Mitt Romney with 61 percent of the vote in 2012, two Republicans were the top vote-getters in a 14-candidate October primary. McAllister, who received nearly 60 percent of the vote in Saturday’s special election, criticized much of the Affordable Care Act, but also criticized Gov. Bobby Jindal’s (R) decision to dismantle charity hospitals in the state, and to reject its Medicaid expansion, which would expand the qualifications for Medicaid recipients and extend healthcare coverage to hundreds of thousands of uninsured Louisianans. “Our governor and Sen. Riser right here have gutted [heath care] to the core and privatized it.”

McAllister’s campaign was boosted not only by his deep pockets but an endorsement from a local entrepreneur turned national reality show celebrity:

His friendship with “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson helped draw attention to his long-shot bid for office, and McAllister’s own deep pockets paid for most of his campaign expenses.

McAllister spent at least $800,000 of his own money on the race, according to the Federal Election Commission. By comparison, Riser raised a similar amount and put no personal wealth into the campaign.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.