Tag: Jindal

Drawing from a rather long comment I had on a previous diary, I’ve decided to expand my one part diary on redistricting in the Bayou State to two.

The first part will run through recent developments in state politics and who controls the redistricting process, while the second will include my proposed map for Louisiana’s 6 congressional districts.

In my honest opinion, Louisiana is the state least alike the other 47 states that make up the continental United States.

Administrative subdivisions are called parishes, not counties. It is a civil law state, as opposed to the other 49 common law states.

Politics in the state are no different.

Party labels are very fluid. In state government, there are conservative Democrats – although less so now – and some fairly moderate Republicans, especially for standards of the Deep South.

In the past few months, Democrats have taken a hit, and in Louisiana, it has been no different.

For the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans control the state house. There is a Republican governor, and after Attorney General Buddy Caldwell’s party switch last week, the only statewide elected Democrat is Sen. Mary Landrieu.

That leaves the state senate, which currently is split right down the middle, 19 Democrats and 19 Republicans.

This gridlock is a result of party switchers, notably state Sen. John Alario, and a single vacancy.

Redistricting in the state is done by the legislature and the governor and it seems the last chance for Democrats to be at the table, outside the Holder DOJ, is the state senate.

Let’s look at that vacancy.

The 26th district is vacant after Sen. Nick Gautreaux resigned to become Bobby Jindal’s commissioner of the Office of Motor Vehicles.

(Just an aside, this appointment and that of a former independent state senator as the Commissioner of the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control was smart politically by the governor and is VERY reminiscent of President Obama’s appointments of Jon Huntsman and John Mchugh)

The 26th district includes all of Vermillion parish and parts of Acadia, Lafayette and St. Landry parishes.

The district takes in areas of Cajun country west of Lafayette and stretches down south to include Vermillion parish, ending at the Gulf. To better understand the region, the 2000 census reported about a quarter of people in Vermillion speak French or Cajun French at home.

This area is historically Democratic. In the jungle primary in the 2003 gubernatorial election, 3 of the 4 parishes in district 26 were won by Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, who would win only 7 parishes and grab only 18% of the vote but squeak into the general election against Bobby Jindal.

This small chunk of Acadiana will decide which party will control the state senate.

After Gautreaux’s announcement that he would resign, Republican state Rep. Jonathan Perry, who represents much of the sparsely populated coastal parts of Vermillion and Cameron parishes, entered the race.

Soon thereafter, Democrat Nathan Granger, a member of the Vermillion Parish Police Jury and owner of an oilfield services company, entered the race.

At this stage in the race, both camps have released dueling internals showing each with about a 10 point lead.

Anecdotally, I have heard from a friend from Crowley that the area is swamped with advertisements from Granger and after reviewing campaign finance reports, it appears that is the case.

As of Jan. 31, campaign finance reports show Granger raised about 280k, of which 220k was self-funded, with 100k COH.

Perry has raised 90k and has 30k COH.

Take all this with a grain of salt, but it appears that this Blue Dog might just dispatch a Tea Partier in a very important race for Louisiana politics.

In part 2, the map I unveil will show why Democrats need to have a seat at the redistricting table as I attempt to create a VRA district based in New Orleans that DOES NOT stretch all the way to Baton Rouge.

The race to fill the position of Lt. Gov. is heating up here in the Pelican State.

The winner fills the seat now held by Lt. Gov. Scott Angelle, a Democrat who was appointed by Gov. Bobby Jindal to replace Mitch Landrieu, now Mayor of New Orleans.

The position has very few powers, but it provides a clear path to higher office and is first in the line of succession to the governor’s office. Specifically, the job of Lt. Gov. is “to promote culture, recreation and tourism,” according to The (Baton Rouge) Advocate.

To fill the seat, Louisiana will use a jungle primary. If none of the eight candidate receive a majority of the vote, then the top two vote getters, regardless of political party, will enter a runoff held on Nov. 2.

The first round of election occurs Oct. 2; however, as both LSU and Southern University play at home that day (a Saturday), more voters are expected to turnout during the early voting period, which ends today, than usual.

Turnout so far has been very light. According to the Secretary of State’s Office and reported by The Advocate, only 50,540 of the state’s 2.92 million registered voters have turned out to vote as of Thursday. Election forecasters expect turnout to hover around 20% of registered voters.

Due to the number of candidates, the race will certainly head to a runoff. Secretary of State Jay Dardenne, a Republican from Baton Rouge, will almost surely be the top vote getter.

Thus, next week’s election will determine who will face him for the seat. A poll conducted Aug. 15-16 for WWL-TV of New Orleans shows that country music singer and perennial Republican candidate Sammy Kershaw in second.

The poll gave 20% to Jay Dardenne (R), 15% to Rep. Sammy Kershaw (R), 8% to St. Tammany Parrish President Kevin Davis (R), 4% to state Republican Party Chairman Roger Villere (R) and 2% to each of the other remaining candidates.

Notably in the poll, no Democrat tops 2%. That is because up to recently, the Democrats in the race had very little name recognition. The Democrats in the race are State Sen. Butch Gautreaux, New Orleans lawyer Caroline Fayard and former Caddo Parish Police Juror Jim Crowley.

Since then, a couple of news developments seem to have changed this. First off, former President Bill Clinton endorsed and hosted a fundraiser for Caroline Fayard, a former congressional page and intern in the Clinton White House.

Additionally, campaign finance reports were released from the latest period, showing Ms. Fayard raised more money than all other candidates. Those reports do not include money raised during the New York fundraiser with Mr. Clinton.

Finally, Ms. Fayard has gotten on the airways with television buys in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport.

The goal of this campaign is to finish second to Mr. Dardenne.

Mr. Dardenne will almost surely win. He has a decent record, statewide name recognition and comes off as experienced and friendly. He is the closest thing to a generic Republican I can think of.

He is probably slightly to the left of the state Republican party but has the type of ideology that would be typical of establishment Republicans across the U.S.

This race for second place does, however, carry some significance.

Rumors around the state suggest that the party is grooming her to run against Gov. Jindal in 2011. Right now, there are no viable democrats up to the job, and a strong second place showing by Ms. Fayard would certainly help.

Most likely, Ms. Fayard would not win against Mr. Dardenne or Mr. Jindal, but at age 32, she could be a viable candidate for future higher office.

Please, if you would, support Caroline Fayard for Lt. Gov. of Louisiana, and if you are a registered voter in Louisiana, please vote for Caroline next Saturday.

(Just to be clear, I am in no way connected to the state Democratic Party or the campaign of Caroline Fayard)

Few people are paying attention to the 14 gubernatorial races that will be decided in the next 15 months (3 are happening this fall, and the 11 remaining are set for 2008). Yet, these contests will play a major role in deciding who holds control of Congress in the next decade: The governors who will be elected in those 14 states will hold control of redistricting after the next census, and each party wants to be ready for maximal gerrymandering in 2011.

With that in mind, let’s rank these races, from the most vulnerable to turnover to the one where the incumbent party feels the safest. It immediately appears that very few of these races are likely to be contested at all, especially the ones that will be decided in 2008. Democrats and Republicans will swap Louisiana and Kentucky this fall, and then fight in only  two-three states next year. A stark contrast to the 2006 cycle.

The first 3 races are listed after the jump. The full rankings and detailed descriptions of all 14 races is available here, on CampaignDiaries.com

• Likely Takeover

1. Kentucky (Gov. Fletcher)
The first of the 2007 races. Fletcher has been facing huge allegations of misconduct and has even been indicted. This pushed Anne Northup, a congresswoman defeated in 2006, to challenge him in the primary last spring, but Fletcher inexplicably survived. He is now almost assured of going down in this November’s election against Democrat Steve Beshear, who has led every opinion poll by an average 20%. Democrats are now running ads using Northup’s words against Fletcher. Count on Fletcher losing his executive immunity in less than two months.

2. Louisiana (Open)
The second of the 2007 races. Republican Bobby Jindal almost became Governor in 2003 but came short against Blanco, who chose earlier this year to not run for re-election given her low approval ratings post-Katrina. Jindal became a House member in 2004, and he now looks unstoppable. Louisiana has no primary system, and the first round will take place in late October. Democrats have fielded weak candidates, and their only hope is to hold Jindal under 50% to force him into a one-on-one runoff in early December, but they would have little chance even then. Louisiana is rapidly drifting Republican.

• Toss-up

3. Missouri (Gov. Blunt)
Blunt barely won his first term in 2004 against Democrat McKaskill, who since then became Senator. The 2008 campaign started almost immediately, as it became clear that AG Nixon intended to take Blunt on. The race has been nasty for months already. Given Nixon’s statewide recognition and Blunt’s unpopularity, Nixon might have the slightest of edges.

The rest of the rankings, and detailed descriptions of all 14 races, available here, on CampaignDiaries.com

http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/08/jindal_leads_comfortably_in_la.html

Southern Media & Opinion Research poll, conducted August 3rd-6th asked 600 likely voters, MoE +/- 4.0%

Jindal (R): 63%
Boasso (D): 14%
Campbell (D): 4%
Georges (R): 1%

SMOR also asked about the Governor's race if New Orleans Ray Nagin (D) were on the ballot:

Southern Media & Opinion Research poll, conducted August 3rd-6th asked 600 likely voters, MoE +/- 4.0%

Jindal (R): 60%
Nagin (D): 10%
Boasso (D): 10%
Campbell (D): 3%
Georges (R): 1%

Southern Media & Opinion Research did two polls in March in preperation for a potential bid by either current Governor Blanco or former Senator John Breaux, and showed Jindal ahead of them, earning 59% and 56%, respectively. Without either of those two top-tier Democratic challengers, its not surprising to see Jindal polling above 60% in their polling.

This polling also paints a different picture than Anzalone Liszt Research polling did in between the two sets of SMOR polls, which showed Jindal's share dropping from 62% to 52% in the same period of time that State Sen. Walter Boasso (D) started running television ads statewide. While two polls is not enough to paint a trendline (though it didn't stop people from trying anyways), it did show Jindal vulnerable to not winning outright in the October jungle primary, whereas this new poll doesn't reflect the same picture.

There are a few reasons why this may be the case. First, speaking technically, different polling outfits use different methodologies, which usually count for discrepancies between them. There is no reliable way to determine which is more accurate until after the election. Anzalone could run a poll next week and find Jindal at 35%, and it wouldn't make either of their polls any more or less reliable. Because of the different methodologies, it is also difficult to make a straight-cut comparison between the two. For instance, you cannot say that Jindal rose ten points between this poll and the most recent Anzalone poll.

Another reason may be that Jindal has started to run statewide TV ads now. TV ads were the primary impetus behind Boasso's rise in the polls, so it stands to reason that the same would happen with Jindal.

Whatever the case, this poll clearly stands in the way of the train of thought that Jindal is not the heavy favorite to win in 2007. Don't get me wrong, this poll is not infallible, and anything can happen, especially in Louisiana politics. The purpose of this poll, and this diary, is not to say one way or another what will happen, but only to give a platform from which people judge what needs to happen. In order for Jindal to lose, someone needs to take a lot of support away from him. According to SMOR, that person doesn't appear to be Walter Boasso or Ray Nagin, and whoever that person may be will have their work cut out for them.