WHEN John Bel Edwards won the governor's race in late 2015 it was the first time a Democrat had been elected to a statewide office in Louisiana since 2008. The vote fell between presidential elections of Mitt Romney and Donald Trump, but Democrats had long been on a losing streak in the South. The rout has been particularly brutal in the state capitals: there are just five Democratic governors south of the Mason-Dixon Line and just one—Mr Edwards—in the Deep South.
The obvious question for Democrats in the South is whether Mr Edwards’s unexpected success can be replicated. A book by two of the state’s leading political journalists, Tyler Bridges and Jeremy Alford, is a starting point for anyone wishing to answer that. “Long Shot”—an inside-the-locker-room recap of the 2015 election along the lines of “Game Change,” the chronicle of the 2008 presidential campaign by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin—shows how Edwards devised a winning formula and stuck steadfastly to...Continue reading
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