NOLA.com Op/Ed: If Rep Letlow needs Senate role models, she could do worse than these two

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State Treasurer John Fleming, who has waged what is essentially an insurgent campaign from the internet, has thrown a lot at U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, the clear front-runner in Louisiana’s June 27 Republican Senate primary runoff. Recently, one of his digital projectiles made me stop scrolling.

It was a photo of Letlow bookended by a couple of women who have long served in the upper chamber in Washington.

“If you vote for Letlow,” the tweet said, “you will be sending just another Murkowski and Collins.”

Well, I thought. That certainly is a take.

Lisa Murkowski, the veteran senator from Alaska, and her longtime colleague Susan Collins of Maine are known outside their own states mostly for being a very particular brand of Republican. The vanishing, independent kind. Even more than Fleming and Letlow’s vanquished opponent, incumbent Bill Cassidy, what they share is the title of “most likely Republican to not do what Donald Trump wants.”

For Fleming to dump Letlow into that category is absurd on its face. His contention that he’s the truer Trumper runs smack dab into the president’s endorsement of Letlow instead of him. Even more, it defies Letlow’s public puffing up of the president, a worshipful ongoing performance that rivals any cabinet-meeting accolades from members of his administration.

Letlow claimed in the primary’s first round that Cassidy’s vote to convict Trump for inciting the vicious Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol showed he didn’t have the “judgment” to continue serving, and that it meant Cassidy would not work with Trump. Never mind that Cassidy spent nearly every waking moment between the 2024 election and his defeat on May 16 doing exactly that.

Since she made the runoff, she endorsed not only Trump’s gaudy White House ballroom, which he first said would be free but now wants to get taxpayers to put a billion dollars toward, but also the Department of Justice slush fund that would benefit some of the violent rioters he unleashed on Congress back in 2021. Even some of Trump’s most fervid fans in the Senate are voicing qualms on those.

A more credible take on Letlow’s campaign came recently from Newell Normand, the former Republican sheriff of Jefferson Parish who now hosts a talk show on WWL radio. Normand accused her of signing a “blood oath” to the president whose desire to punish Cassidy launched and continues to fuel her candidacy.

His message directly to her: “You owe Donald Trump, and you will make whatever vote Donald Trump tells you to make. ... but for him, you’re a nothingburger.”

Not that he is impressed with his remaining alternative. “I’m not sure John Fleming and Julia Letlow are that far apart,” Normand said, adding that both were “spooning and cuddling up to Donald Trump.”

You may not like his language, but compared to Fleming’s accusation, Normand’s analysis is more in line with every message Letlow’s sent during the campaign. If elected, there’s no reason to think she wouldn’t be on Team Trump through the end of his second term in two years.

A Senate term, though, is six years. At just 45, Letlow could possibly be there far longer than that. And without Trump’s towering, distorting, ever-dividing influence, it’s fair to wonder what type of senator Letlow would be in the long run.

Despite what Fleming alleges, she’s given us no indication she’d emulate Murkowski or Collins.

But maybe she should rethink that.

Both have, on occasion, voted their principles. Both, sometimes, treat the idea of evaluating issues on their own merits as a duty, not an act of disloyalty. Both, like Cassidy, have been known to leverage their willingness to deal with the other party to bring resources to their own states.

And both, to date, have earned the appreciation of their constituents. Murkowski once lost a Republican primary after she was targeted by Alaska’s Tea Party faction (remember Sarah Palin?) and then won reelection anyway as a write-in candidate. Collins survived a tough challenge to get reelected in 2020 despite Trump’s unpopularity in Maine, although her luck may finally run out this year.

Fleming’s move — about the only one he has — is to chip away at Letlow’s electoral support by telling primary voters that she’s something she’s not, which in this case is at all like Murkowski and Collins.

But when you think long term, there are far worse role models.

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