John Bel Edwards' secret weapon in governor's race? Using power of the office to score free media
Gov. John Bel Edwards tossed a football with quarterback Drew Brees last Monday in front of a bank of television cameras in the state’s largest media market and then announced plans to renovate the Mercedes-Benz Superdome and keep the Saints in New Orleans for up to 30 more years.
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham held a small news conference in Lake Charles to promise that he would build a new Interstate 10 bridge over the Calcasieu River if elected governor. Eddie Rispone, the other Republican challenging Edwards, met that day with about 50 potential supporters in Jefferson Parish.
While all three of the major candidates for governor are advertising on television in the run-up to the Oct. 12 primary election, Monday’s events illustrated an important advantage for Edwards that the others can’t match — using the power of his office to score free media attention to help sway voters his way.
Edwards has also held ceremonial bill signings at each of the state’s media markets in front of the cameras, met with teachers around the state to tout a pay raise and announced plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to minimize flooding in East Baton Rouge Parish.
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