Posted on 10/14/2004 3:05:41 PM PDT by Theodore R.
Boustany driven to enter race
Frustration in dealing with issues was spark
By PATRICK COURREGES pcourreges@theadvocate.com Acadiana bureau
LAFAYETTE -- Retired heart surgeon Charles Boustany Jr. seems to be getting taken seriously in his first run for public office.
The Lafayette Republican's candidacy in the Nov. 2 election for Louisiana's open 7th Congressional District seat has gotten the open backing of major figures in the national Republican Party -- including Vice President Dick Cheney -- hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign money and the targeted opposition of national Democrats.
A year ago, Boustany, 48, was still a practicing heart surgeon, but was on the verge of cutting his career short and shutting down the practice he had opened 14 years before because of arthritis in his hands and neck.
"You have to stand there from anywhere from 31/2 to 51/2 hours and have to be able to perform flawlessly every time with the precision of a violin player," Boustany said, and that's something he wasn't going to be able to do much longer.
Boustany retired from his practice in November, but by December had decided on what he wanted his next job to be -- U.S. Congress.
"I considered running for Congress as far back as the mid-'90s," Boustany said, but didn't see himself shifting career tracks so soon.
Since retiring, he said, he's been covering the bills with savings and with payments from a surgeon's disability insurance policy he paid into for years.
Boustany said he's no stranger to the political process, having argued health-care policy in Washington, D.C., as a member of the Lafayette Medical Society and having served on the Lafayette Parish Republican Executive Committee.
Dealing with "experts" on health care who seemed to be out of touch with what was really going on was part of what sparked an interest in running as far back as 1995, Boustany said.
"I remember getting very frustrated with it," he said. "For an ordinary citizen, really the only recourse is to put your neck out and run for office."
The Boustany family name is also tied to a long history of public involvement in Lafayette, as are the Salooms, another family of Lebanese descent to which the Boustanys are connected by marriage.
Boustany's father, Charles Boustany Sr., is the longtime coroner for Lafayette Parish, and his wife, Bridget, is the niece of former Gov. Edwin Edwards, though she shifted from the Democratic to the Republican Party more than 20 years ago.
Boustany said he spoke with his family, and with friends who had run for office, and mapped out a business plan of sorts before making the decision to run.
"Whenever I do something, I always study it thoroughly before I jump in," he said.
Boustany said that, while he hasn't run for such a public office before, his experience as a heart surgeon has prepared him well for both the campaign for Congress and to do the job, if elected.
He said that he's well used to working under pressure and that communicating well with patients is something he takes pride in.
Boustany said he was held accountable not only by patients in his work as a surgeon, but by peers in regular weekly conferences on how they all dealt with complications and problems in the operating room.
"You learn to develop a really thick skin," he said.
Boustany's needed that in recent weeks, as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has run ads attacking him as a "wealthy physician" out to preserve tax breaks for millionaires.
In response to that, he's said he wants to preserve tax breaks for the middle class, preserve Social Security and seek to help people in other ways, such as ending the "marriage penalty" in federal income tax.
Boustany's platform reflects most of the general drift of the national Republicans -- pro-life, pro-guns, pro-sanctity of marriage, pro-homeland security.
He has said he is willing to break with the party, however, on such things as his support of the re-importation of cheaper prescription drugs.
Getting greater access to health care is another of his platform planks.
Boustany said he's not worried that opponents might make his lack of direct political experience an issue.
"Let's look at what the past political experience has gotten us," he said.
Boustany faces another Lafayette Republican in the five-candidate Nov. 2 race -- parish School Board member David Thibodaux.
The Democrats in the race for the seat, which covers the area from Calcasieu and Cameron parishes in the east to Lafayette and St. Martin parishes in the west, are pipeliner's union organizer Malcolm Carriere of Lafayette and state Sens. Don Cravins Sr. of Arnaudville and Willie Mount of Lake Charles.
"Boustany is likely to be in a Dec. 4 "general election runoff" with a Democrat in LA, which seems increasingly the death knell of Republican candidates int he state."
I did not know that Cravins is black. Is it then likely that only Mount could defeat Boustany? Could it be that Thibodeaux will poll enough Lafayette Parish votes to keep Boustany out of the general election?
My favorite Arab-Cajun, however, is Gwen Hajek, Playboy's Miss October of 1987 :-d
"Is it then likely that only Mount could defeat Boustany?"
Thibodeaux has good reason to justify his being in this race, as he lost a slot at the run-off against Chris John by 8 (!) votes to a Democrat back in '96 (it might also be cited that he could've made the run-off had 2 other Republicans who racked up over 20,000 votes decided to drop out and endorse him). I can understand his frustration of being denied that slot (and quite possibly, a victory), but unlike before, he's not the leading candidate, and he stands zero chance of making the runoff now being in a distant 4th place. He should be the big man and do for Dr. Boustany what those other 2 Republicans should've done for Thibodeaux in '96 and drop out.
BTW, if it ends up in a likely Boustany-Mount contest, it is worth pointing out that the advantage will still be with Boustany. No candidate from the west end of the district has won a general since 1940.
The problem with Don Cravins is not ethnicity. It is his liberalism.
The runoff will be decided in the Crowley area in the central part of the district. This is essentially neutral territory with no hometown candidate, but it identifies with Lafayette far more than Lake Charles.
"I can understand his frustration of being denied that slot (and quite possibly, a victory)"
Well, you never know, he might've pulled off an upset. The big mistake was made by Jimmy Hayes, who shouldn't have left his seat for a failed Senate run. Also, according to Barone, Woody Jenkins did carry the 7th (it was Landrieu's questionable margins in Morial's N.O. that accounted for her victory). You are correct, if Boustany wins, he will be the first elected Republican in that district since Reconstruction.
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