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I sat down with the intention of researching and writing a short profile on Scott Lewis, the Libertarian Party’s candidate for governor in Louisiana this year. Recently, Richard Winger noted on Ballot Access News that Governor Bobby Jindal is a slam-dunk for re-election in a few weeks, but that the Libertarian nominee was polling at 2% and the leading Democrat was only at 5%.
So basically, the Libertarian is within the margin of error of finishing an extremely distant second place, beating several Democrats and independents. That’s kind of interesting.
The Politics1.com profile of Lewis got me a little more excited: “State Party Vice Chair, Communications Consultant, Ex-Pro Football Player & ’03/07 Sec of State Candidate”
A former pro-football player? Plus experience running for statewide office before. Sounds good.
But… where’s his campaign website?
I can’t seem to find a campaign website or really any in depth information about this guy.
So the following is what I know after about a half hour of searching. I might add, the half hour of searching for information about him online that I did is about 28 minutes more than what the average voter will do when considering Mr. Lewis as an option.
Lewis is, or was at one point, the vice-chair of the Louisiana state LP. He likes hats, because he’s wearing one is just about every picture on his Facebook profile. He’s 61 years old according to his very limited MySpace page. And he’s the owner of Scott A. Lewis, III & Associates, LLC according to his LinkedIn profile. His company is involved in a partnership with T. Lee Horne, III on something called Paladin.LA, where together they offer business coaching or investment opportunities to people. It’s all very vague. Lewis has even adopted the campaign slogan “A Paladin for the People” on the only campaign logo I could find, which was on his personal facebook profile.
And if the name of his business partner sounds familiar — Horne was the LP’s candidate for governor in 2007.
That’s about it. If he was a pro-football player, I’m not sure in what league or for what team. The Louisiana LP’s website is no help at all.
A Libertarian candidate with any kind of organization behind him or any kind of real money could’ve made a big splash in this race. Considering how pathetically weak the rest of the field is, had the LP nominated a candidate with some drive… who knows what might have been.
The most active online campaigning I’ve been able to find from Mr. Lewis is a campaign twitter account where he occasionally posts things like: “It’s Monday and time to reach a million voters in Louisiana, Let them know about me, if you don’t know about me, ask somebody.” That sure is helpful, huh?
The worst part is that the state’s top newspaper, The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, did a nice profile on the 9 long-shot challengers to Gov. Jindal’s re-election in today’s Sunday edition. That’s big exposure. Free media that would cost thousands of dollars to buy.
It included photos and bios of the candidates and a story on their various campaigns. But Mr. Lewis wasn’t really represented.
Why? Some nefarious media blackout? Nope…
“The Oct. 22 ballot also includes Libertarian Scott Lewis of Baton Rouge and independent David Blanchard of Brusly. They did not respond to inquiries about their campaigns.”
What a wasted opportunity.
Yep, it sure sounds like your typical Libertarian candidate running a typical Libertarian campaign.
Uncoordinated, distant, & remarkably invisible.
He didn’t even respond to a major newspaper’s questionnaire – and doesn’t have a dedicated political website or even a credible web presence.
Why even bother going through the motions?
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With Wes Benedict moving down to Louisiana, maybe he can get his future wife to allow him to invigorate the LLP?
In the event that you would like to know about Scott Lewis – “A Paladin for the people” please communicate. It is so very interesting o how everybody has an idea on how and what should be done. When opportunity presents itself one must make a decision on how to interact. The mystery surrounding Scott Lewis shall be unveiled. You have my email, if you really want to know, act so.
Yeah, *sigh* we’re more than weary of such candidates. Unfortunately, we don’t nominate candidates here in Louisiana. Anyone can run on their own, like this guy. We can’t stop them. The best we can do is recruit someone else. Unfortunately, at the time of this race, we were too small and fledgling to do so. Much has happened since then and we’re hoping to field a much better candidate with at least some good ‘ole “college try” support in 2015. Word on the street is though, Mr. Lewis intends to run again as well. That just might be enough incentive to end-run around him.