Charles Boustany and Jeff Landry Set for Live Radio Debate Halloween Night at 5 p.m.
Despite what has been a very heavily contentious campaign across South Louisiana, sitting Republican congressmen Charles Boustany and Jeff Landry have not yet faced off in a debate for the 3rd Congressional District seat. That will change Wednesday night as Cajun Radio 1470/1290 AM teams up with Lafayette's news radio KPEL 96.5 FM to bring a live one-hour debate in which all the questions are provided by you, our listeners.
The one-hour debate will be moderated by KPEL's Jeremy Lawrence, but every question asked will come from you, the voters of South Louisiana. It's important to note that even though there are five candidates on the ballot, only Boustany and Landry will be in this debate.Democrat Ron Richard, Republican Bryan Barrilleaux and independent Jim Stark will not be participating.
Getting these two in one room has almost taken an act of Congress in itself. You may remember that all five candidates were asked to attend a debate at McNeese State University on October 17, but Boustany was a no-show. He claimed that he already had another campaign event scheduled for the same night, but Student Government Association officials -- who had put the debate together -- said their invitation to all candidate had explicitly stated that any scheduling roadblocks could be worked around. Boustany also failed to attend another debate hosted by the Southwest Louisiana Tea Party -- though to be fair, Landry has largely been the Tea Party's favored candidate. Following both of those incidents, an Oct. 15 debate at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette was cancelled after Boustany's team was inadvertently left out of emails that would have established the debate's format.
All of this means that the Halloween night debate will be the only time these two candidates will face off before the Nov. 6 election. We will carry the debate live at 5 p.m. on Cajun Radio 1470/1290 AM, and the event will stream live on Cajun Radio's website.