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The Founders Show

The Founders Show

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A look at Louisiana politics from Chaplain Hy McEnery and Christopher TidmoreCopyright News Talk 99.5 WRNO (WRNO-FM) Política y Gobierno
Episodios
  • Cassidy vs. Letlow

    Cassidy vs. Letlow
    Jan 24 2026
    Hy and Christopher broadcast from Big Bend National Park. We ask why Trump has put his face on the new annual pass for the National Parks? We also examine Trump’s recent endorsement of Julia Letlow. Here is Christopher’s column in The Louisiana Weekly.GOP contenders unfazed by Trump endorsement of Julia LetlowBy Christopher Tidmore, Contributing WriterThree weeks ago, in a closed meeting of the Republican National Committee, Chairman Joe Gruters reportedly said that he had learned that Senator Bill Cassidy would be accepting a university position instead of qualifying for another term, and that Congresswoman Julia Letlow would soon be endorsed by President Trump, and subsequently run for the Senate. This news brought cheers to the hyper-partisan crowd, as Cassidy enjoys very little popularity in senior GOP circles after his vote to convict President Trump in the second impeachment five years ago. At least half of Gruters’ prediction came true last week.On Saturday, January 17, President Trump announced his endorsement of Julia Letlow in a TruthSocial posting that read, “Should she decide to enter this Race, Julia Letlow has my Complete and Total Endorsement. RUN, JULIA, RUN!!!” She formally joined the United States Senate race the following Tuesday.State Rep. Mike Bayham, a Letlow supporter, speculated that an upcoming fundraiser the GOP Senate Majority Leader planned on hosting in Baton Rouge might have prompted President Trump to act sooner than he might have previously planned: “I think the Thune event for Cassidy triggered the late night Trump post [on Truth Social] for Julia for the U.S. Senate,” Bayham explained.Trump’s endorsement certainly came as a shock to the four candidates already challenging Bill Cassidy in the U.S. Senate race, which includes La. Treasurer John Fleming, 1st District PSC Commissioner Eric Skrmetta, 22nd District State Senator Blake Miguez and 39th District State Rep. Julie Emerson. All had been vying for Trump’s endorsement, and Skrmetta, in particular, had just attended a meeting at the White House on energy policy the previous week.Emerson dropped out on Friday, January 23, yet she is the only candidate to depart so far. In fact, Skrmetta doubled down by announcing a $3500 per person fundraiser on February 3, promoting his new book Conservatism: Endowed by Our Creator. In an interview with The Louisiana Weekly, Skrmetta pledged to remain in the contest, no matter what. He sees a lot of discontented conservatives eager for another choice. Partially, the reason is ideological. Louisiana’s rightwing intelligentsia is not thrilled with the President's choice of Letlow.As 1996 U.S. Senate candidate and former State Rep. Woody Jenkins put it, Cassidy and Letlow “ARE THE TWO MODERATE REPUBLICANS IN THE SENATE RACE coming up in Louisiana – not by any length the candidates most conservative Republicans will be looking at. We have strong conservatives running who have a good chance to win. Don’t let the media define the race as between these two moderate candidates because that is far from the case. FYI Cassidy and Letlow have voting records almost the same.”The critique is a tad unfair, as it is based on American Conservative Union ratings, which put both Cassidy and Letlow at roughly 75-percent pure conservative voting records. One of the main reasons both were discounted was the effort undertaken by both to convince FEMA to change its flood maps. In other words, the desire to keep the federal government subsidizing flood insurance for tens of thousands of Louisianans—a very critical need for their constituents to remain in their homes south of the flood protection walls—may have been popular locally, but national conservative organizations rated those votes as “liberal.”Still, Jenkins tapped into the anxiety that many local conservatives have about sending yet another moderate to D.C. Governor Landry’s motivation to reestablish the closed primary was to make it impossible for a comparative moderate like Cassidy to win renomination. Letlow, a candidate with a voting record on insurance and healthcare similar to Cassidy, doesn’t strike many conservatives as an improvement. She reminds many conservatives of how the White House parachuted former New Orleans Councilwoman and La. Elections Commissioner Suzie Terrell into the 2002 U.S. Senate race; Terrell entered the contest only due to the unabashed support of President George W. Bush, which propelled her into the runoff over more conservative candidates. Nevertheless, she ended up losing to Mary Landrieu.Terrell’s 2002 Senate GOP opponent, Tony Perkins, a protégé of Jenkins’ and currently the head of the conservative Family Research Council, argued at the time that a more conservative candidate would have had better turnout – and perhaps won.As an editorial by the Louisiana conservative website The Hayride argued, “Overall, [Letlow’s] scorecard numbers generally hover around 75 ...
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    54 m
  • It's A Hard Candy Christmas

    It's A Hard Candy Christmas
    Dec 19 2025
    Hy and Christopher talk about families coming together, Christmas, but the cynicism that kind of overrides our politics. We mention Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s ripping down of the banners on Gallier Hall placed there for inauguration of her successor Helena Moreno.Political cynicism threatens to take over the holidays, and we talk about President Trump’s address (in detail below and) on the radio show. We also talk about Rob Reiner’s murder, and the President’s reaction. Christopher shares some comments from James Woods, a strong Trump supporter, who also loved Reiner as a fellow patriot— even as they disagreed politically. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1AGz4WFLFz/?mibextid=wwXIfrHowever, we also talk about the “threat” to Christmas. Santa may have been captured by the communists! We have secret footage of his interrogation! https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BtMfsQ7oA/?mibextid=wwXIfrHowever, our main topic centers around this theme, Christopher’s Column in The Louisiana Weekly.Lord, it's like a hard candy ChristmasBy Christopher TidmoreI'm barely getting through tomorrowBut still I won't letSorrow bring me downThe immortal Christmas ballad by Dolly Parton is a lament. It essentially says all of the ways that one’s life will be better in the coming year than the previous, yet the implication of the song – when she sings of the possibility of losing some weight, meeting someone, or moving away – reveals that the singer knows nothing much will change by the next Yuletide season. One wonders if that was the real truth of Donald Trump’s eighteen minute national address last Wednesday night. To tell us how good things will become – in the hopes that we don’t recognize how challenging life is right now – and will remain. For those that missed the president’s rant, all negative economic data and social problems were blamed on Joe Biden. Any upturn in the economy, fall in the jobless rates, or positive news came as a Christmas gift courtesy of Donald Trump. Of course, the president talked about tax cuts, and supply side stimulus does have an impact on the economy. The problem, however, is that most of his tax cuts have yet to take effect. The tax cuts on tips and Social Security will not manifest until returns are filed next April, and the president’s proposed healthcare savings accounts have not yet been enacted, and will likely face a hostile filibuster in the U.S. Senate due to the president’s own opposition to paying subsidies to insurance companies. Claiming that health insurance underwriters exist as whole-owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party might come as a surprise to the gaggle of lobbyists who tend to give bigger contributions to Republicans, including Trump. Finally, the president’s proposal to give a $1,776 bonus to members of the military through tariff funds likely won’t come to pass if the Supreme Court outlaws the constitutionality of the White House unilaterally enacting tariffs without congressional support. In fact, many major companies have already pre-filed lawsuits to get the money refunded. Even if Trump does succeed in convincing the majority of the court that he can unilaterally put taxes on anything, he’s already promised tariff money to three other funding schemes. There’s not a lot left, unless he was lying previously.Hey, maybe I'll dye my hairMaybe I'll move somewhereMaybe I'll get a carMaybe I'll drive so farThey'll all lose trackMe, I'll bounce right backMaybe I'll sleep real lateMaybe I'll lose some weightMaybe I'll clear my junkMaybe I'll just get drunk on apple wineMe, I'll be justFine and dandyLord it's like a hard candy ChristmasI'm barely getting through tomorrowBut still I won't letSorrow bring me way downThe song presupposes that one’s hope in the promise of a new year is predicated on actions which really make a difference in one’s life, yet the audience (as well as the singer) both understand that no real will exists to undertake those self improvements.The president has blamed Joe Biden for all of his challenges because Trump finds it impossible to empathize with people who are hurting, or to offer solutions which might actually lower prices and improve the public’s well-being.True, gas prices have fallen as the president claimed, but some of Trump’s own political interventions in the petrochemical market have scared off investors just as quickly as deregulation has drawn them. Most other of the prices that he boasts about falling occurred mainly due to the same food offered in smaller-sized amounts, such as the frequently noted “Thanksgiving Dinner” package. Trump’s own success at deporting Hispanic migrants has driven up the cost of labor in multiple industries, harming the economy, though it has helped wage growth in some sectors.The desperate move (made the day after the speech by the president’s minions) to rename America’s main arts complex “the Trump Kennedy ...
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    54 m
  • Hispanics, Infrequent Voters Won Nov 4 – And Could Be the Key to Congress in 2026

    Hispanics, Infrequent Voters Won Nov 4 – And Could Be the Key to Congress in 2026
    Nov 11 2025
    Hy and Christopher discussed the results from last Tuesday. It was a GOP slaughter, but Hy says the Democrats won in Democratic states, while Christopher offers a warning.
    Democrats in Mississippi broke the G.O.P.’s State House supermajority last Tuesday after a special election was forced by a court-ordered redistricting to offer Black voters a chance for more representation in the State Capital. Two Public Service Commission seats changed party hands in Georgia. For the first time ever, Democrats seized the District Attorney’s office and all nine school board seats in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a Republican stronghold as late as 2022 and the swing county which helped elect Donald Trump. Democrats similarly notched commanding victories in county executive races in Erie, Lehigh, and Northampton counties, all bellwether counties in recent presidential elections.
    A Democratic special election for an Iowa state Senate seat—in a district that had been held by Republicans—broke the GOP's supermajority in the 50-member Iowa Senate, giving Democrats 17 seats to 33, forcing Republicans to seek the support of at least one Democrat to confirm appointments to state agencies and commissions by Gov. Kim Reynolds. In a surprising upset in Virginia, Democrat Jay Jones defeated incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares despite a texting scandal where Jones made death threats against the Virginia House Speaker and subsequently lost 9 percent of the voters who cast a ballot for Abigail Spanberger, the victorious Democratic contender for Governor who was widely expected to win. Jones was still carried to victory by high Black turnout and thanks to Hispanics who voted for Donald Trump but switched back to the Democrats across the country.
    National attention focused on the New York Mayor’s race, the gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia, and the California ballot initiative to gerrymander five more congressional seats for the Democrats, yet only a few media sources focused on how, in the down-ticket races in GOP-majority states, key Republican constituencies abandoned the party of Trump in favor of the Democrats. Hispanics, with whom the President made huge inroads in 2024, switched back to the Democrats en masse. African Americans went to their polling precincts in numbers not seen since Barack Obama’s first election in 2008.
    “Is it any surprise that last night blue states voted blue?” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise quipped, claiming that last year’s presidential race was a better indication of the country’s political lean. Yet Trump’s former White House strategist Steve Bannon noted, “Modern politics now is about engaging low-propensity voters, and they clearly turned them out \[on Tuesday], and this is kind of the Trump model… This is very serious.”
    Stacey Abrams’ efforts in 2020 swung Georgia for Biden and two Democratic Senate victories by convincing inconsistent voters to go to the polls. Over issues like affordability and inflation, which carried the day in so many places across the country, voters who often eschew going to the polls actually voted on November 4. Hispanics swung against Trump last Tuesday because more Hispanics in key districts cast a ballot than in 2024. Many of the victories in GOP strongholds came because African Americans, who normally do not go to the polls, decided to vote.
    Turnout matters, Christopher concludes. The decision to vote can make all the difference, and as exit polls demonstrate, if voter turnout remains as high in the midterm congressional elections next year as it was on November 4, no amount of GOP gerrymandering will protect their U.S. House, or maybe even their Senate, majorities.
    Hy and Christopher go on to talk about tariffs, the Supreme Court, and a story about how a Louisiana Manifesto of rights may have influenced the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
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    54 m
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