Tag: LA-02

September 6th is primary day in Louisiana, and midnight was the deadline for congressional candidates to file their pre-primary fundraising reports with the FEC. Once again, SSP rounds up the numbers, covering the period of 7/1 through 8/17:

As usual, all figures are in thousands. No reports have been filed yet for William Jefferson or Cedric Richmond, but we’ll update the chart once they’ve filed.

An impressive period for Democrat Don Cravins, who managed to outraise Boustany. Jim Harlan continues to amaze with his self-funded campaign in the R+19 LA-01, and Carmouche continues to lead the field in the fightin’ 4th.

Cazayoux has some work to do in order to replenish his war chest, but at the same time, he’s spending money at a fast clip in order to stay on the airwaves.

UPDATE: LOL.

Cross-posted over at Daily Kingfish.

As of 11 PM CST on July 14th, not one Republican candidate for the House in Louisiana has filed their July quarterly. Five of the 18 Democrats running have filed their reports. Without further adieu, here are those five fundraising reports:

LA-01

Jim Harlan has filed his report. Vinnie Mendoza, a perpetual candidate, has not.

Candidate	Money Raised	Money Spent	Debts	Cash on Hand
Jim Harlan	$595,399.05	$41,020.99	$525,000	$554,378.06

No, the debts is not a mis-print. Mr. Harlan donated his campaign $525,000. For the first time in recent memory, money will not be a reason for the Democratic candidate in LA-01 to lose. It will be because the campaign didn’t do a good job. I doubt that will be the case, as the campaign manager for Mr. Harlan is the same campaign manager that helped Travis Childers

LA-02

There are 8 Democrats running in the primary, including incumbent Congressman Bill Jefferson. Only 2 of the 8 have filed their FEC reports so far. They are:

Candidate	Money Raised	Money Spent	Debts	Cash on Hand
Troy “C” Carter	$51,112	$34,120.01	$87,906.27	-$1,442.37

Mr. Troy Carter is not a serious candidate. The debt is partly from his failed run back in 2006, where he placed fourth in the jungle primary behind the Republican. I’ve corrected the amount raised this quarter from his FEC report. If you click on his name, it’ll bring you to his July Quarterly FEC report, where he reports NO money raised this quarter. But if you take a look at his April Quarterly report, you’ll see that he only reported some $2,188 raised in the election cycle to date column, and nothing again in the this cycle to date column. Mr. Carter, please find someone to teach your staff how to fill out the reports properly!

Candidate	Money Raised	Money Spent	Debts	Cash on Hand
Cedric Richmond	$111,800	$17,895.39	$100,000	$193,904.61

The debt is money that Mr. Richmond gave his campaign. For a first-time candidate for the U.S. House, the first quarter fundraising for Mr. Richmond is impressive. Almost $200,000 in the bank. Right now, he has to be one of the favorites to oust Congressman Jefferson.

LA-03

Candidate	Money Raised	Money Spent	Debts	Cash on Hand
Charlie Melancon	$237,858.13	$52,243.17	$0.00	$1,042,583.14

Since Charlie won re-election by acclamation, as no Republican bothered to file to run against him, he is a prime candidate for the netroots’ Use It or Lose It Campaign. He can easily afford to give 30% of his cash on hand to the DCCC so they can pump even more money into LA-01, LA-04, LA-06 and LA-07 to help us elect the Democratic candidates in those districts.

LA-04

There are 4 Democrats running for the nomination in this district – Willie Banks, Paul Carmouche, Artis “Doc” Cash and John Milkovich. Thus far, only Mr. Banks has filed his July Quarterly FEC report.

Candidate	Money Raised	Money Spent	Debts	Cash on Hand
Willie Banks	$3,267	$8,788.31	$10,000	$11,545.16

The debt is money that Mr. Banks loaned his campaign. He’s having a hard time raising cash, presumably because he’s running against a VERY well-known Democrat in that district, the Caddo Parish District Attorney, Paul Carmouche, who has served in that capacity for I believe 30 years.

First the bad news: there were high hopes that Rick Gallot, a prominent African-American state representative from Ruston, would challenge turncoat Rodney Alexander in LA-05. Yesterday, he said he won’t:

“After prayerful deliberation, I’ve decided not to seek the congressional seat at this time,” Gallot said. “However, I’m flattered that the (party) thought enough about me and the work I’ve been doing to approach me about running. I also appreciate the support I’ve had from so many people who expressed their support.”

So far, the only candidate challenging Alexander is fellow Republican Andrew Clack. I’d been hoping that between Gallot running and Don Cravins Jr. running in LA-07, that might undercut Michael Jackson’s contention that African-American candidates get the short end of the stick from the LA Democratic Party and dissuade him from running in LA-06 as an independent. Well, based on today’s news, that’s not working out either.

Now for the good news: a swarm of challengers has emerged to take on embattled (corrupt, indicted) “Dollar Bill” Jefferson in LA-02. The three-day ballot qualifying period kicked off yesterday; as was previously reported here, state Rep. (and “former Jefferson ally”) Cedric Richmond has been running since last month; so has Jefferson Parish Councilor Byron Lee.

Yesterday, former WDSU-TV anchor Helena Moreno kicked off her campaign, as did Kenya Smith, former political aide to mayor Ray Nagin. In addition, New Orleans City Councilor James Carter and former New Orleans City Councilor Troy Carter announced yesterday that they will qualify. The missing other Carter — state Rep. Karen Carter Peterson, who lost the 2006 runoff to Jefferson — apparently is not in the running this time.

Louisiana has eliminated its ‘jungle primary’ (where everyone ran against everyone, followed by a runoff for the top 2 candidates of any party if no one broke 50%) for federal office, so each party’s primary is Sept. 6, followed by each party’s runoff on Oct. 4. Dems compete against the GOP in the general on Nov. 4, although in the D+28 2nd, the primary runoff is the main event. (With at least 6 competitors, no one’s going to break 50%.)

“Dollar Bill” Jefferson is getting a credible primary challenge this year. (Considering that he’s awaiting trial on corruption charges and was found to have large amounts of cash in his freezer, the question wasn’t really whether he’d get a challenge, but who.) State Rep. Cedric Richmond, who represents part of eastern New Orleans, announced his bid.

In his only veiled reference to Jefferson’s legal problems, he told the crowd, “I promise — and I want to be clear about this — I promise to serve you with the utmost integrity.”

Interestingly, the Times-Picayune described Richmond as a “longtime political ally” of Jefferson, and said that prior to 2006, Richmond stated he would run only if Jefferson didn’t run. Being unacquainted with the backwaters of Louisiana politics, I’m unclear whether that means:

1) he’s broken with Jefferson,

2) he’s running to succeed Jefferson who will soon stand down (and considering that Jefferson’s brother, sister, and niece were indicted last week, he might be feeling boxed in), or

3) he’s running as a trojan horse to siphon support from other “change” candidates to allow Jefferson to squeak through to a run-off. (Like Rep. Karen Carter, who lost the 2006 primary to Jefferson and may come back for another try… I don’t know if she plans to do so; her campaign website hasn’t been updated in over a year.)

For what it’s worth, corruption issues notwithstanding, Jefferson is one of the most out-of-whack Dems in the House, in terms of the relationship between his National Journal score of 73 and the D+28 lean of LA-02.

Today we know that Karen Carter, by all accounts a good candidate, lost against ‘nearly indicted’ Congressman Jefferson.  And throughout the Blogsphere people with no experience in Louisana politics are stunned.

‘How could a man with $90,000 in his freezer, with staffers who have plead guilty still get elected?” Personally, I thought he would win all along. That prediction was based on my experience in LA-1.

Louisiana, based on my consulting with Stacey Tallitsch, a defeated candidate for LA-1 and a terribly good man, is the most unusual political place in America. One simple statistic will bear out my comment:

  After seeing their brothers and sisters die in Katrina and Rita,
  After seeing their city nearly destroyed,
  After the maladministration of help at State as well as Federal levels… 

In the election of 2006 not one incumbent in the State House or in Congress was replaced. Every single one that was in office when the disasterous decisions where made is still there enjoying the perks of office!

Do I understand this statistic? No. Even with nearly 40 of political experience I don’t get it! I can only say that I don’t have the live-in-New-Orleans experience to help me understand.

I hope we have some New Orleans citizens that can bluntly help us understand.  It is a mystery to me. Frankly, when I took on Stacey Tallitsch as a client I assumed this would be a cake walk! Who would keep the incumbents in office after such a tragedy? I was wrong.

The incumbent won with 88% of the vote and announced his run for Governor less than a week later. So LA-1 won’t really have a Congressman…only a candidate for higher office. And Stacey has a big campaign debt. I never would have guessed at the outcome.

And now Congressman Jefferson continues on his path.

I hope someone from NOLA can bring some light to all these things that are so hard for the rest of us to understand.

Today is election day for the Louisiana second Congressional district runoff between Democrats Karen Carter and Bill Jefferson. The winner gets to join the majority caucus in the 110th Congress starting in January. Tim tells us what to be on the lookout for:

Here are some notes to keep on eye on this evening: 1.) There are rumors that some members of the CBC have sent staffers down to help Jefferson.  I’ll try and see what I can dig up on that.  2.) East Bank turnout vs. West Bank turnout and how many votes Carter is able to syphon away from the other side of the river.  3.) The racial divide.  4.) Are we going to see busses bringing people in to vote from outside the district.  If we do in large numbers, advantage Jefferson.  5.) How many people stay both stay at home/vote for Jefferson in the hopes at getting another crack at him in two years, or sooner if he’s no longer able to serve.

Polls close tonight at 8pm Central/9pm Eastern. The NOLA.com/Times-Picayune site looks like a good place to watch results as they come in.

UPDATE: Results are coming in. Via NOLA.com:

71 of 492 Precincts Reporting

Karen Carter (D): 47%
Bill Jefferson (D-inc.): 53%

Polls only closed 40 minutes ago, so we likely still have a while yet to go.

UPDATE: WWLTV appears to have quicker updates. They show Jefferson ahead, 54-46, with 43% of precincts reporting.

UPDATE: Wow, that was depressingly quick. Tim says that local TV is already calling it for Jefferson. Suck.

An article in the Times-Picayune has the details on the most recent fundraising numbers down in LA-02:

Carter, a Democratic state representative from New Orleans, raised $320,741 in a month, compared with $72,485 for Jefferson, the eight-term incumbent whose political fortunes — and fund-raising ability — have been dampened by a federal bribery investigation.

Clearly Jefferson’s support is drying up, though he does still have a $117K to $58K cash-on-hand advantage. Actually, I should say that he did have an advantage. For one thing, these reports only go through 11/19. And for another, as Tim points out, Carter has already filed several supplemental reports (you have to file frequent notice of new donations over a certain size when you get close to election day) since the full report was released.

In those four supplemental reports (called “48 hour reports”), Carter has raised almost $130K – and they only start on 11/27, so they leave out the week between the 19th and the 27th. Jefferson’s campaign has filed exactly zero 48 hour reports.

The article also offers a nice mention of the online community’s efforts via ActBlue. While Blue Majority has spearheaded this drive, I’m really pleased to see that Carter has now been added to eleven different ActBlue pages.

As always, keep checking in with Tim over at MyDD for on-the-ground coverage. He has an important new piece up today about the centrality of Katrina to this entire race. For those of us outside New Orleans, this perspective is invaluable.

(I believe PeterB is making us an offer we can’t refuse. – promoted by DavidNYC)

OK, all the gung-ho folks have already given by now, and the rest of us who haven’t gotten around to giving to the Carter campaign are left.

Time is growing short before the runoff – $ needs to be given to the campaign now to have the greatest effect.

Until 9pm PST tomorrow, I am offering a little inducement by matching any Carter donations made at my ActBlue page up to $10 – dollar for dollar.

I’ll donate up to $250 to her campaign if I can get 24 more donors.

Won’t you be one of them?

Tim Tagaris is on the ground in Louisiana with the Karen Carter campaign, and over at MyDD, he lays out exactly why this race matters:

For starters, there’s the corruption.  If we are ever going to convince the American people we truly want to “drain the swamp” and clean out the House, we need to prove we are willing to clean out our own house first.  As the Blue Majority fundraising page notes, “send a message that the Democratic Party doesn’t tolerate corruption on either side of the aisle.”  Coming out of the Republican culture of corruption, it’s time to take away the primary GOP talking point on the issue of ethics reform.

…

There’s Katrina — the storm and the flood.  Unfortunately, one of the problems up on the Hill is “Katrina fatigue.”  Having been down here for a few days now, I can assure you the people of the 2nd Congressional District do not share a similar affliction.  They need help, and Congressman Jefferson is really in no place to deliver it.  He was stripped of his committee assignments by the Democratic Caucus, and continues to place his quest to retain personal political power above the needs of his constituents.

And this isn’t just an anti-Jefferson movement:

Karen Carter has also taken some courageous stances on “social issues.”  She is pro-gay marriage, choice and stem-cell research.  These are not easy positions to take in the deep South.  Indeed, her opponents (primary, run-off, and future) are hammering her, primarily through a network of churches, for those positions.  In the face of that pounding, she refuses to run from her convictions.

Carter’s philosophical position is exactly mine:

“I believe in treating people as I would like to be treated.”

If only a few more politicians felt this way. At least, though, we can make sure Carter joins the 110th Congress. I know everyone is strapped from the campaign season, but if you have any spare coin, please toss some Karen’s way over at Blue Majority.

The goal is simple: Blue Majority wants to raise $10,000 for Democrat Karen Carter this week. I’ve already laid out in detail exactly why we’re backing Carter in her runoff against the corrupt William Jefferson, and I encourage you to read that earlier post. But the most important point is this one: We need to send a message that we won’t tolerate corruption on the part of any public official, regardless of party.

Jefferson has a long rap sheet and doesn’t deserve to be a part of the Democratic caucus. If we’re going to run a clean House, then we need to clean house first. Karen Carter can beat Jefferson, but she needs our help. We’ve already raised some cash for her, but I know we can do more. So let’s get her another ten grand this week from the grassroots. The runoff is soon – Dec. 9th – so time is short.

Let’s get to work!