CenLamar | Est. 2006

Two days after John Bel Edwards took the oath of office and became the 56th governor of Louisiana and only a day after issuing an executive order, his first ever, that expands Medicaid coverage to nearly 300,000 working class residents, at approximately 7:45PM Central Standard Time, Air Force One touched down on the tarmac in Baton Rouge. Twenty four hours earlier, President Obama had been delivering in final State of the Union speech in front of the entire country. Now, he was in the capital of Louisiana, a city he’d never visited before, shaking hands with a governor he’d never met…

On Monday night, while much of the country tuned into the beginning of the college football championship game between Alabama and Clemson, Les Miles, the equally beleaguered and beloved head coach of LSU, put on a tuxedo and drove over to Celtic Studios in Baton Rouge. He may be one of the most famous and most easily recognizable people in the state of Louisiana, but he managed to walk around the event without much notice. John Bel Edwards was hosting a reception for his core supporters before the official inaugural ball, and Coach Miles was there to shake hands with his…

On Nov. 21, 2015, John Bel Edwards became the first Democrat in Louisiana to win a statewide office since 2008. During that seven year gap, Democratic candidates lost in fourteen consecutive statewide elections, and Republicans gained control of both chambers of the legislature and eventually, due to the defection of Buddy Caldwell and the defeat of Mary Landrieu, controlled every single statewide elected position in Louisiana. Prior to Gov.-elect Edwards’s victory, Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell represented more people than any other elected Democrat, including Congressman Cedric Richmond. According to conventional wisdom and the overwhelming majority of Louisiana’s punditocracy, John…