BATON ROUGE – Four of the six candidates expected to run in the Nov. 4 primary for the 5th Congressional District filed Wednesday on the first day of qualifying.

Former Grant Parish District Attorney Ed Tarpley, who now lives in Alexandria, was first in line when the doors opened at 8 a.m., closely followed by...

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Ed Tarpley is running for Congress from central and northeast Louisiana. He might not have the highest name identification, but he has serious bona fides as a solid, thoughtful, real-world conservative.

When I was active in Louisiana Republican politics a quarter-century ago, very much as a strong conservative, I often was frustrated that too many activists who seemed to be on “my side” of intraparty disputes turned out to be less than practical and less than able to understand the difference between principle and bullheadedness. Temperamentally, some weren’t conservatives at all. They were...

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