State Rep. Lenar Whitney - one of a handful of Republican candidates vying for Louisiana's 6th Congressional district - has been described by Cook Political Report analyst David Wasserman as one of the most "frightening or fact-averse candidate[s]" he's ever met following her reaction to an interview last week.
State Rep. Lenar Whitney - one of a handful of Republican candidates vying for Louisiana's 6th Congressional district - has been described by Cook Political Report analyst David Wasserman as one of the most "frightening or fact-averse candidate[s]" he's ever met following her reaction to an interview last week.
Wasserman's comments came in a Washington Post essay posted Wednesday, in which he remarks on a sit-down interview last week with Whitney for the Cook Political Report - a nonpartisan political journal, which is only accessible through a paid subscription.
Yet, perhaps in an effort to spread the word on Whitney's style of politics, Wasserman took the story of his encounter to the Post, where he writes in this online article:
As a House analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, I've personally interviewed over 300 congressional candidates over the course of seven years, both to get to know them and evaluate their chances of winning. I've been impressed by just as many Republicans as Democrats, and underwhelmed by equal numbers, too. Most are accustomed to tough questions.
But never have I met any candidate quite as frightening or fact-averse as Louisiana state Rep. Lenar Whitney, 55, who visited my office last Wednesday. It's tough to decide which party's worst nightmare she would be.
Whitney, a graduate of Nicholls State University who is running for Louisiana's open 6th District, owned a dance studio in Houma, La., for 34 years and also worked in sales for small telecommunications and oilfield equipment companies. She clearly relishes poking Democrats in the eye, cites Minnesota's Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) as a political role model, and takes kindly to the nickname "Palin of the South."
Whitney has only raised $123,000 to date (fourth in the GOP field), but she has sought to boost her profile and appeal to conservative donors with a slickly made YouTube video entitled "GLOBAL WARMING IS A HOAX" (84,000 views so far). In the video, Whitney gleefully and confidently asserts that the theory of global warming is the "greatest deception in the history of mankind" and that "any 10-year-old" can disprove it with a simple household thermometer.
Whitney's brand of rhetoric obviously resonates with some very conservative Louisiana voters who view President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency as big-city elitists directly attacking the state's energy industry and their own way of life. And she would hardly be the first "climate denier" elected to Congress. But it's not unreasonable to expect candidates to explain how they arrived at their positions, and when I pressed Whitney repeatedly for the source of her claim that the earth is getting colder, she froze and was unable to cite a single scientist, journal or news source to back up her beliefs.
To change the subject, I asked whether she believed Obama was born in the United States. When she replied that it was a matter of some controversy, her two campaign consultants quickly whisked her out of the room, accusing me of conducting a "Palin-style interview."
It was the first time in hundreds of Cook Political Report meetings that a candidate has fled the room.
Click here to read more on Whitney.
And check her video, "GLOBAL WARMING IS A HOAX," below.