November 10, 2010
As Republicans take further control of the political landscape, it’s fair to say Louisiana Democrats have seen better days. By Jeremy Alford
Few summed it up better than Roger Villere, chairman of the Louisiana Republican Party, who labeled last week’s election day a referendum on all things Democrat. Villere hit the Dems on practically every issue they slammed Republicans on two years ago. “Voters are not satisfied with their failed record on jobs, their ballooning of the national deficit, or their rapid increase in the size and scope of government control,” Villere says. “There is no one for the Democrats to blame but themselves.”
So. Where do things stand now? Well, there’s one U.S. senator, one congressman and one statewide elected official. That’s what Louisiana Democrats have going for themselves right now. And if you continue reading into it, the picture doesn’t get any better.
Attorney General Buddy Caldwell is now the only statewide Democratic official, due to last week’s victory by Lt. Gov.-elect Jay Dardenne, a Baton Rouge Republican. But Caldwell, a folksy type from the piney northern hamlet of Tullulah, is also the same Democrat who filed a lawsuit challenging President Barack Obama’s health care plan and joined forces as of late with Gov. Bobby Jindal. In other words, Caldwell isn’t exactly leading any Democratic pep rallies.
On Capitol Hill, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu becomes — even more so — the banner-bearer for Louisiana Democrats, even though it’s rumored she’s pondering skipping re-election. Finally, state Rep. Cedric Richmond’s win in the 2nd Congressional District over Republican incumbent Joseph Cao allows Democrats to maintain one seat out of seven in the state’s House delegation.
Joshua Stockley, political science professor at UL Monroe, says Cao’s 2008 election will likely be an asterisk in the saga of ex-Congressman Bill Jefferson, the Democrat whose federal corruption charges gifted Cao with a surprise win. Thus, Richmond reclaiming the Big Easy doesn’t exactly make Dems feel much better. “New Orleans really doesn’t count,” Stockley says. “New Orleans is supposed to go Democratic.”
What does count is the upcoming election for secretary of state, a post Dardenne will be vacating in the coming weeks as he ascends to No. 2. It’s the next opportunity Democrats will have to shore up support. Of course, that brings to mind Dardenne’s slain opponent, Caroline Fayard of New Orleans. Even though she lost to Dardenne in the lieutenant governor’s contest by 14 points, the Democratic newbie received 64,210 more votes than Congressman Charlie Melancon, a fellow Democrat from Napoleonville who shelled out a whopping $4 million on his bid for the U.S. Senate.
“I think Caroline Fayard has a bright future in Democratic politics, even in this very conservative state. She just has to show people she’s not the southern, just-as-liberal version of (speaker of the U.S. House) Nancy Pelosi,” Stockley says. “Democrats need a big win in Louisiana right now. They need to show they have some presence here. The secretary of state’s election should end up being very competitive.”
Fayard is 32, just fours years older than Ravi Sangisetty, the Houma attorney and Democratic nominee who lost the 3rd Congressional District to Republican Jeff Landry of New Iberia last week. Like Fayard, Sangisetty is expected to stick around for a while and possibly develop into an influencer.
More immediately, Louisiana’s elected Beltway brood will need to address its lack of seniority in the House. “We have an extremely young delegation,” says Pearson Cross, a political science professor at UL Lafayette. “But there will be six Republicans in the House, which bodes well in a GOP-controlled chamber.”
Rep. Charles Boustany of Lafayette, who faced only token opposition, is the frontrunner to benefit the most. Cross says that’s due to Boustany’s relationship with Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, who is expected to become speaker. “That in itself is a really big deal,” Cross says.
If last week’s balloting resulted in a weakened Democratic front, then it also served to build up U.S. Sen. David Vitter as arguably one of the most powerful politicians in the state, Cross says. Vitter, a Metairie Republican, bested Melancon and 10 others with 57 percent of the vote.
“Once all the dust settles from this election cycle, all the brouhaha about prostitution will be behind him. Then after another six years in office, he can probably just put it to rest,” Cross says. “Of course, there will always be people who try to make hay of it. That won’t change.”
Maybe Louisiana Democrats have that going for themselves as well, for whatever it’s worth.
Jeremy Alford can be reached at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
Most Read
in case you missed it
Subscribe to this comment's feed
We've flip flopped party control in Congress 3 times in the past decade. This is not about a referendum on one party or another, but a general dissatisfaction with the system. Voters take it out on the party in power. According to polls (which seem to be pretty accurate), voters hate Democrats but they hate Republicans even more. And yet, Republicans gained the House. Also consider that more people are identifying themselves as Independent and are turning away from the two-party false dichotomy.
I'm no party lackey, as I recognize that there's not much difference between the two parties in that they are both beholden to corporate masters and the central bank. We're distracted with manufactured drama and partisan gossip, focusing intermittently on domestic and foreign issues just long enough to make us think they will actually do something meaningful for the people.
For all the talk of reducing government and spending, will the Republicans end $40 billion/year in farm subsidies and ethanol subsidies, or restore civil liberties, or end the war on drugs, or abandon attempts to legislate morality, or return power to the states? Will they talk about the 700 military bases we have in 130 countries and the $700 billion being considered for so-called "defense"? Will they repeal the health care mandate that will give a windfall to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, or take meaningful measures to stop the Wall Street mafia from pillaging our wealth? I highly doubt it.