This just in: State Rep. Michael Jackson (D-Baton Rouge) has filed to run against Democrat Don Cazayoux as an independent.
For more thoughts on what this means for Cazayoux, see our discussion from yesterday.
In light of this development, SSP has shifted its rating of this race from “Leans Democratic” to Tossup.
Calling Barack Obama to get Jackson out of the race or squash him by endorsing Cazayoux.
How frustrating.
Between this, and not having Woody Jenkins to kick around anymore, this is a seat that is now BEST CASE leaning to the Republicans.
I figure Jackson, total prick that he is, will be good for about 5% of the vote. Jenkins, being…well…what HE WAS, was probably sending 3-4% from the GOP to the Democrats in the Special Election.
Ergo, my projection is GOP 50, Cazayoux 45, Jackson 5.
Jackson showed a lot of sides of himself, none favorable, in this process. According to Jackson’s own web site, he’s friends with Cazayoux and worked with him to get things through the legislature. Some friend! Second, he dragged the process out for two and a half days. Is he a prima donna who wants to lengthen his stay on the front page of the local paper? I think so. Is he indecisive? Probably not.
The Baton Rouge Advocate had several interesting tidbits. A registration drive during the first six months of the year netted more than 15,000 new voters in East Baton Rouge parrish. Over 10,000 of them are Democrats, 3,000 are indies and 2,000 are Republicans. Nearly 10,000 of the new voters are black. In surrounding parrishes without a voter drive, gains were minimal.
Republicans have alreasdy started a vote suppression campaign asking Secretary of State Jay Dardenne to investigate based on anecdotal stories of a few problems in newspapers around the state.
A third article mentioned that Baton Rouge ceded back the title of Louisiana’s most populous city to New Orleans according to the Census Bureau (a title it suddenly acquired post-Katrina). In the past year, New Orleans had the biggest gain among cities over 100,000 and Baton Rouge the biggest percentage loss. Despite gaining, or should I say re-gaining 28,000 people, New Orleans was still down 47% (more than 200,000 people) from pre-Katrina levels. I will always hold George W. Bush personally responsible for what he did to one of America’s favorite cities. Screw Iraq, rebuild NOLA.
and how many of such people will vote for him because of that, and how many will not because of that.
Jim Martin takes the lead in Georgia Dem Senate Primary.
http://www.wsbtv.com/politics/…
to call someone an ass hole through email? It’s not against the law or anything is it? If not, I’m emailing his campaign and saying,
“Thanks ass hole, you just cost us a Congressional seat and possibly others since the DCCC now has to spend more money on this seat to drown you out. Way to be a team player; hopefully you get primaried for your state house seat and get your ass kicked.”
Is that acceptable? Maybe we all should do it.
It’s going to take a miracle or even more to get Cazayoux re-elected to a full term.
… but I think its a germane question to ask when the last time a sitting Louisiana congressman was beaten for re-election by the candidate of the other party. It seems to me the Bayou State generally likes its incumbents.
As nuts as it probably sounds, I’m still feeling vaguely bullish on this one. It seems to me alot of people on this site had similar doom and gloom sentiments, for example, when the initially unfavorable dynamics of the Carson-Elrod race in IN-07 first shook out after the Dem primary. (Yes, I understand that Carson didn’t have an Independent-Democratic candidacy to deal with, but bear with me). If ever there was a chance for the GOP to take advantage of ugly racial politics on our side, it should have been there and then on that favorably stepped-up special election time table – yet lo and behold, the Democratic establishment and base coalesced behind Carson, and he won big, bigger than anyone would have thought likely a couple of months earlier. Here, Cazayoux has the advantage of having four full months to campaign, solid DCCC backing, and the all-important, aforementioned incumbency (albeit only by a few months). IF Jackson can be thoroughly marginalized (an admittedly large ‘if’), I think Don’s got a fighting chance – after all, chances are Cassidy’s fundraising numbers won’t be stellar, even with the pitiful NRCC concentrating some of its limited resources with him. And I’d be willing to bet that despite Cassidy’s standing as a current State Senator, Cazayoux’s got better name recognition (the latter has only been in the legislature since December ’06, whereas the former was there since ’99).
Yes, I’m probably over-optimistic. But I just ponied up for Don on ActBlue a few minutes ago, and until I see polling out of LA-06 that definitively bears out all of this worry, I’ll not be regretting it.
Please tell this clown to moonwalk his ass out of this race.
Like someone said earlier, I’m feeling slightly bullish about this race. It reminds me a bit of when Bill Nelson was running for Connie Mack’s open Senate seat in 2000. Willie Logan, a prominant African American State Senator at the time and unhappy with the State Democratic party, ran as an independent and many people thought that it would hand the race to Bill McCollum, the GOP nominee. However, Logan got practically no support and Nelson won. While, Florida is not LA-6, I think it’s still something to think about.
Leans Republican is the only sensible option here. Given how realistic/moderately conservative SSP is on it’s rankings, I’m rather surprised this has only moved to a Tossup ranking. Granted the Democrat has incumbency now, but he is not facing the rediculous Jenkins and he now has a black candidate taking votes away as an independent. I persoanlly was debating between Leans GOP and Likely GOP.
In order to run in the Congressional race?
Will Jackson stay in if it beomces obvious that he can’t win. I mean, its obvious to us that he can’t win now, but he clearly thinks he can consolidate the black vote and get enough votes to win, but polling will prive him wrong in the coming months. I really have to wonder if he will stay in the race once it becomes obvious to him too. I can only hope he drops out and endorses Cazayoux.