‘Duck Dynasty’ relative to run for House

The stars of reality television show “Duck Dynasty” appear to have turned on Rep. Vance McAllister (R-La.).

{mosads}Zach Dasher, a nephew of “Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson, announced Monday he’s taking a leave of absence from the biotech firm where he works to run for McAllister’s seat.

“I got to looking around at the problems in politics today, and what I see in Washington, D.C., is no God. There is no God. The elite political class thinks they can be running our lives,” he told the Associated Press.

“I think there’s a vacuum in D.C. of people who understand where rights come from. Rights don’t come from men. They come from God.”

McAllister hasn’t yet announced whether he’ll run for reelection, and initially said he’d retire at the end of his current term, after he was caught on tape kissing a staffer who is not his wife. He has since walked that back, however, and left the door open to another run.

The congressman won his seat in a competitive runoff with state Sen. Neil Riser last year after receiving the endorsement of Phil Robertson and other members of the Robertson clan. His son, Willie Robertson, appeared in a campaign ad for McAllister.

But Dasher said he expects his family to go to bat for him this time around.

“We sat down as a family this past week when we were deciding what we wanted to do. Being that closely connected, this is about them, too,” Dasher said. “We got our bellies full and then we sat around in a big circle and then we prayed. We prayed about this candidacy that this would be something real. And the family was really excited.”

A poll out Monday showed McAllister and Riser will be headed toward a runoff if both choose to contest the seat this fall. But Riser announced that same day he would not jump into the race again.