The Duck Dynasty clan — the family behind the popular A&E reality show — is backing one of its own for the congressional seat that may or may not be vacated by Rep. Vance McAllister, the married congressman who was caught on a security tape making out with a married staff member.
McAllister, a Louisiana Republican, first said he would not run again after the kissing video went viral, then said he was keeping his options open, and is now leading a recent poll even though he has not declared his intentions.
But now a new entry in the race: Pharmaceutical representative Zach Dasher, a member of the Duck Dynasty family, says he is joining the race.
McAllister won a special election to Congress in 2013 in large part because of the support of the racist, homophobic, pedophilic clan members.
McAllister then felt his oats, felt her oats, and the rest is history. McAllister, as the excerpt above points out, has hedged on whether he’ll seek re-election or not.
Apparently, marriage vows are not the only vows he has ambiguous feelings about. In truth, what is the shmuck going to do after Congress, anyway? He has some experience in the oil business, but then this is Louisiana and you can’t spit without hitting an oilman. He does own some fast food franchises and a paper hat probably suits him.
Running Dasher raises some interesting issues: for one thing, it somewhat inoculates his cousins from being viewed as outliers in society. For another, it means big grift potential in a state where grifting is a high art form. And despite the drop in ratings, Duck Dynasty and its family remain popular figures on the far right political spectrum.
Louisiana’s Fifth has a twenty year string of Republican victories (the sole Democrat to win, Rodney Alexander, switched parties shortly after taking office in 2004), and there’s no reason to expect this district can be flipped.