First of all, congratulations to all the Cubs fans out there. Your manager, Joe Driving Me Maddon, nearly blew it by mishandling his pitching staff BUT his players saved his ass. I hope somebody takes the stupid goat curse behind the barn and puts it out of its misery. At least we won’t have to listen to the “if the AL team wins the World Series, the GOP wins the White House” crapola. I don’t believe in that shit: like Howlin’ Wolf, I Ain’t Superstitious.

The World Series was a nice palate cleanser after watching six terrible candidates in the worst televised debate I have ever sat through. Everything about it was terrible. It looked like a cable access show and the sound was tinny because the hall was empty. It wasn’t a debate, it was a clusterfuck thanks to the media group that produced it. I’ll leave ranting about Raycom to Lamar White and move on to the real reason the debate sucked the big one: the presence of Erstwhile Gret Stet Fuhrer, David Duke. And this is not the phony “mainstream conservative” Duke of 1989-1991, it’s the real neo-Nazi Duke.

Dukkke was included to liven up a deadly dull group of candidates. There was a lone poll showing him at 5.1%, which Raycom seized on to invite Duke who  treated the event like a mini-Beer Hall Putsch. The candidates who have a chance to make the run-off are all over 10% in all the polls but Raycom wanted Duke and it got him. Heil, ratings. He, of course, pitched a series of tantrums worthy of the candidate whose coattails he’s clinging to: Donald Trump. Maybe the debate sound was muffled by all the GOP heads wedged up the Insult Comedian’s ass. I almost made a fart lighting joke but thought better of it…

Moderator John Snell of WVUE-TV News in New Orleans had an impossible job. He did not rise to the occasion. I’ve seen Snell moderate many debates and he usually does an excellent job but he had an off-night. The time limits on the questions were absurdly short and the inclusion of a panel of reporters made the format even clunkier.

Then there was David Duke who denounced the moderator as “a typical media hack.” The man whose picture is in the dictionary next to “marginal, perennial candidate” was allowed to dominate the debate. He ranted, he raved, he raged when asked about “CNN Jews” and his federal fraud conviction. Yuppie Democrat Caroline Fayard likes to bring Dukkke up so she made the cluster even fuckier than need be.

Speaking of clusterfucky meltdowns, here’s Duke losing his shit:

https://twitter.com/apblake/status/793972795634020352

At the end of the debate, Duke was still at his podium howling at the moon or communing with the spirit of Hitler. I’m not sure which.

The other candidates were as boring as usual. Here are a few quick comments about them. First, the Republicans:

Doctor/Congressman Charles Boustany: Nobody asked the dull doc about the Boudreaux Inn and sex workers, not even Duke. I guess they forgot that they’re running for the hooker seat. Boustany’s stock line was: “I’m a heart surgeon.” His politics, however, are heartless. I guess he performed surgery on himself….

Doctor/Congressman John Fleming: He’s a dumbass even for a teabagger. He kept saying he was a conservative as if he needed to remind himself of that fact. It’s easy to imagine him playing Lenny in a little theatre production of Of Mice and Men.

If he loses the Senate race, Fleming seems to be angling for a slot on The Apprentice: he kept saying he’d fire the candidate below.

Gret Stet Treasurer John Neely Kennedy: He spent the debate spouting sound bites and corny one-liners. Neely deflected charges that he was an ex-liberal by hicking up his accent. He sounded as if his Rhodes Scholarship fell off a turnip truck. It’s depressing to watch an intelligent man feign idiocy in order to get elected. The funniest claim against him was that he used to have a picture of Earl Long in his office. I wonder if it was this one with Blaze Starr:

And now for the Democrats who are neither as gret nor as colorful as Uncle Earl. The first one takes us from Sho-Bar to Sho-Nuff:

Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell: He always reminds me of Foghorn Leghorn: I say, I say, I say. He did get off a few decent lines and he even said Voldemort’s, I mean Hillary Clinton’s, name aloud when asked who he was supporting for President. Not exactly a profile in courage but what can you expect from the Foghorn Leghorn of Gret Stet politics? Not much, I say, I say, I say.

Non-Career Politician Caroline Fayard: She remains the least terrible candidate even though she is pretty darn terrible. Fayard at least lives in the 21st Century and speaks in complete sentences but that’s the best I can say about her.

Btw, all these candidates love denouncing one another as “career politicians” and “insiders.” It’s all very George Wallace circa 1968. I kept expecting someone to talk about “bureaucrats who can’t park their bikes straight” or “pointy-headed intellectuals” like the Guvnor. Compared to the Insult Comedian, Wallace was George Bernard Shaw…

Since the not so great Gret Stet debate was held at Dillard University, there were protesters outside the empty, echoey hall. Pepper spray was involved. BuzzFeed’s Big John Stanton was with them and filed a story co-written by Claudia Koerner. Here’s an excerpt about the clusterfuck outside:

As Duke melted down inside, the scene outside deteriorated. Frustrated with protesters, police became increasingly aggressive. Within seconds, tactical batons began swinging while thick streams of pepper spray laid into the crowd. Protesters initially recoiled, but quickly rolled forward onto the ill prepared small group of police defending the door. Knotted up college students and middle aged police hit the ground and at least two officers unholstered their taser guns, struggling to find clear shots past their colleagues.

The scene became so chaotic, the small group of police began indiscriminately firing pepper spray, hitting protesters, journalists, and other police. Choking, both sides would fall back, regroup, and repeat.

Frustrated, protesters moved to another entrance to the building, seemingly ready to resume their battles with the police. But after leaders pleaded with crowd to not destroy the campus, both sides seemed to relax.

Thanks to Raycom for inviting David Duke, which turned the debate into a freak show both inside and out. Raycom’s CEO should be obliged to drink pepper spray as punishment for staging this farcical shitshow.

You say clusterfuck, I say freak show: Let’s call the whole thing off. Literally. Hmm, I wonder if David Duke thinks George and Ira Gershwin are good Jews or bad Jews.

It’s time for a closing palate cleanser from NOLA’s own Harry Connick Jr: