Sen. John Kennedy "has never been particularly shy about calling politicians he dislikes 'goobers,'" as The Center Square put it. On Sunday, Oct. 4, he pointed the word at his own party's 2028 presidential field and, in the process, admitted he might want the job himself.
Kristen Welker of NBC's "Meet the Press" asked Kennedy whether he was thinking about running for president. "Yeah," he said. Then came the qualifier. "My plans right now are to run for re-election, but as I've said before, if I don't think I can be effective in the Senate anymore, I would consider it."
And then came the line that will follow him around for a while. "On my side of the aisle, if a bunch of goobers run, and I think they're goobers and one of the goobers might win, and I think I could do a better job, I would consider running," Kennedy said. "But right now, I'm running for re-election."
He also reached for a country lyric. "What's the old Judds' song? 'Why not me on a rainy day? Why not me to love your blues away?'" Kennedy said, according to The Center Square. "But I haven't made a decision."
Read the goober line again and note where it is aimed. The target Kennedy named was "my side of the aisle." Kennedy did not name anyone, and when Welker pressed him on why Republican voters should pick him over Vice President JD Vance, he declined. "I'm not going to talk about another potential candidate," he said. "I'm just not there yet." He added that he thinks "it'll be good for both parties to have a full field."
That is a reasonable position, and a Republican one. The 2028 race will be the first since 2012 without Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, NBC noted. President Trump has floated Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as possible successors, though Rubio said in September he has "no plans at this time" to run. Vance told NBC it was "really obvious to me" that Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is running. A primary with only one serious candidate would be a coronation, and Kennedy is right that voters are better served by a contest.
The question for Louisiana is what a Kennedy campaign would cost the state, and what it might buy.
Start with the cost. Kennedy, who grew up in Zachary and lives in Madisonville, sits on the Senate Appropriations, Banking, Budget and Judiciary committees. He chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, the panel his office says he uses to deliver "critical investments for Louisiana's ports, waterways, flood protection, energy infrastructure, and communities." For a state that lives and dies by the Mississippi River and the Corps of Engineers, that gavel matters more in Plaquemines Parish than any cable news hit. A senator spending his weekends in Iowa and New Hampshire is a senator spending less time on the Energy and Water bill.
There is also the seat itself. Kennedy, 74, was first elected in 2016 and reelected in 2022, and his Senate term is up in 2028, the same year as the presidential race. Any serious national run would force him to make two big decisions on the same calendar, and Louisiana Republicans would want an early answer before the 2028 Senate field starts forming without him.
Now the case for. Kennedy is one of the few Republicans in Washington who can explain a budget fight in plain English to people who do not follow budget fights. Before the Senate he served five terms as state treasurer and was secretary of the Louisiana Department of Revenue, a résumé built around watching other people's money. In a primary that could include the vice president and Ted Cruz, a fiscal hawk from Louisiana who can hold a television audience would bring something different to the debate stage, even if he never wins a delegate. A presidential run tends to raise a senator's profile in his own chamber, too, and a louder Kennedy is not bad news for Louisiana's asks in Washington.
The fair reading of what Kennedy said is that he is running for reelection, and he said so twice. "I haven't made a decision" is what politicians say when they want to keep a door open without walking through it. The "goober" test he set for himself is also entirely subjective. Kennedy decides who counts as a goober, and Kennedy decides whether he could do better.
What he did on national television was put the rest of the field on notice that a senator with a national audience and a sharp tongue is watching. Louisiana voters, who have reelected him once already, will want to hear which job he wants before the 2028 qualifying period opens.
