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Louisiana Politics: Louisiana firm handled Trump's TV campaign

By JEREMY ALFORD LaPolitics.com

The Mandeville-based Innovative Advertising, led by partner Jay Connaughton, oversaw 45 percent of the total media buys for President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign this year.
In all, Connaughton and his Louisiana team produced 30 television commercials for Trump, of which eight made it to the air nationally. Innovative was one of three firms working on Trump’s media.
Connaughton already had a professional relationship with Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway before the long shot presidential bid took off. She asked him to pitch for the job in New York following the Republican convention.
“I started working in Trump Tower around Labor Day and only got to come back to Louisiana twice,” Connaughton said.
And he’s not coming back any time soon. Connaughton is sticking around to help with advocacy and policy issues during the transition.
“I think we’ll play a pretty significant role in that process,” he added.
Also getting some national attention is Bill Skelly of Metairie, partner and co-founder of Causeway Solutions.
Skelly and his team at Causeway managed data operations and voter contacts for the Republican National Committee this cycle. It was part of a $175 million overhaul and the RNC leaned heavily upon Skelly’s predictive modeling — he ran 9.6 million predictions across 20 battleground states.
The next move for Skelly will be to bring his system further down ballot, which he has already done in Kentucky, where the state House was flipped.
“We’re going to expand it,” he said.
Landry hosting lawmakers
As Attorney General Jeff Landry and Gov. John Bel Edwards continue their ongoing political feud, both in and out of the courtroom, Landry is making a play for the hearts of lawmakers ahead of next year’s legislative session.
Landry hosted roughly two dozen lawmakers last week to quail and pheasant hunts in Poplarville, including meals and overnight accommodations.
Those who attended said it was not a fundraiser, but rather an outreach exercise by Landry, who didn’t appear to be pushing a particular agenda.
It was mostly attended by freshmen Republican, but a few chairmen were there as well.
With Landry taking over the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority, which is expected to play in next year’s session, the hunting trips are notable.
Treasurer John Kennedy has left a void as he has run for the U.S. Senate and Landry is now officially the anti-governor. Unlike Kennedy, however, who used the media to take on governors in the past, it looks like Landry could be using his friends in the Legislature to do the same.

Scalise still whip; Richmond
considering new post
Congressman Steve Scalise of Jefferson has been re-elected majority whip in the U.S. House, but there’s no word yet if Congressman Cedric Richmond of New Orleans will indeed run for chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Richmond told Roll Call this week he may make a decision over the next week.
“Being chair is a big sacrifice — a lot of travel and all of those things — so it’s just something you really have to think about,” he told the D.C. paper. “I think Thanksgiving is probably the most appropriate time to sit around with family and evaluate where you are, what you’re thankful for.”

Hebert takes a bow
After serving in the state House and Senate, and as ATC commissioner, the always colorful Troy Hebert appears to be exiting politics.
He ran as an independent this fall for the U.S. Senate, but his bid failed to gain traction.
“The fact that I did not ask for or take a single dollar from anyone this election and I only spent $3,000 dollars and got nearly 10,000 votes, I consider myself very blessed,” he wrote in a recent email to supporters. “Others spent millions and still lost. I have proudly and without regret, served the public for 25 years and now it is time to head to the pasture.”

Political history: When
Thibodaux takes office
Last week marked the 192nd anniversary (Nov. 15, 1824) of Henry Schuyler Thibodaux taking office as Louisiana’s fourth governor.
Thibodaux, however, was not an elected governor. He was president of the state Senate and slipped into the interim position when Thomas B. Robertson, Louisiana’s third governor, resigned upon being appointed to a federal judgeship.
Thibodaux was the first of 14 Louisiana governors to assume the job without a vote of the people. He also holds the distinction of being the governor with the least amount of time in office — Thibodaux served only one month.
His name lives on today in many ways, most notably in Lafourche Parish, where the city of Thibodaux is named for him.
The son of a shoemaker who ran a plantation in Lafourche, Thibodaux did actually want to be an elected governor. He tried to make a real run of it in 1827, but died on the campaign trail while touring Bayou Terrebonne.
While he didn’t leave much of a legacy in the way of policy, his son, Bannon Goforth Thibodaux, did go on to serve as a congressman and U.S. senator.

They said it
“This is all part of the cultural politics of Louisiana.”
—Edward E. Chervenak, director of the University of New Orleans’ Survey Research Center, on the ongoing legal feuds between the governor and attorney general, in Louisiana Record
“We find ourselves in this strange time with Trump at the top.”
—Congressman Cedric Richmond, the lone Democrat in Louisiana’s congressional delegation, in Roll Call
“If we’re going to be ‘Democratic light,’ we will lose in four years.”
—Radio show host Moon Griffon, on Trump’s path forward, at the Southwest Louisiana Republican Roundtable
“You are going to get sticker shock because we have ignored the truth for too long.”
—DOTD secretary Shawn Wilson, at this week’s transportation task force meeting
For more Louisiana political news, visit www.LaPolitics.com or follow Jeremy Alford on Twitter @LaPoliticsNow.

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