I was born and raised in Baton Rouge, which is the seat of the LA-06 district. There has recently been some surprise over the fact that the seat, which has been solidly held by Republican Richard Baker since 1987 is suddenly leaning towards the Democrat, State Rep. Don Cazayoux.
My shock came not as a result of the poll showing Cazayoux ahead, but that Republicans were dumb enough to choose Woody Jenkins.
Note: While technically neither Jenkins nor Cazayoux has the nomination yet, Jenkins missed winning the Republican nomination outright by only 84 votes and Cazayoux got around 35% in an five-way race. Don Cazayoux hasn't sealed it up yet, either, but he will.
More below the fold.
Reasons Woody Jenkins will lose:
#1: Woody Jenkins has lost many high profile races
Woody Jenkins is known primarily for being crazy and running for every possible race he can. This is not something you can understand by simply reading his wikipedia page, but it affects people's perceptions of him. He's just the perennial loser, much like Jim Oberweis and has lost four consecutive races for higher office.
#2: Post-Katrina rise in Democrats
While this district went for Bush by almost 60% in 2004, that was before Hurricane Katrina. Our population in LA-06 almost doubled after the Storm, and now the majority of voters are registered Democrats.
#3: Richard Baker is very popular in Baton Rouge, not so much the Republican party
Unlike most cities, the urban area of Baton Rouge actually leans consistently Republican, while the outlying "hick" parishes lean Democrat. However, we are not a solid Republican city. In 2004, we ousted the Republican incumbent and elected our first African-American Mayor, Kip Holden. In that same election Baker carried Baton Rouge with 69% of the vote and GWB carried it with 54%. So, it wasn't like 69% of people are Republican, it's just that Richard Baker was really popular.
People in Louisiana are situational Republicans or Democrats depending on who is running. For example, Richard Baker and Woody Jenkins are both former Democrats. This is very common in Louisiana, because we were controlled by the Democratic machine for so long that the vast majority of people are used to voting for a Democrat. It's only recently that this has changed. Additionally Kip Holden has something like an 70% job approval rating in Baton Rouge now.
#4: Most importantly, Woody Jenkins is hypocrite criminal
Now, if he were just a criminal, no one would care. Seriously, my current district is represented by none other than William Jefferson! One of my favorite family friends like to tell stories about flying around on a helicopter with his father and dropping bags of money off at random Louisiana football fields during the Edwards re-election campaign.
Thus, the important thing is hypocrite. As an indication of how strongly people remember this story, I was twelve when the following happened and it was the first thing that popped into my head when I think about Woody Jenkins.
In 1996, while running for Senate against Mary Landrieu, Jenkins lost by about 6,000 votes. He cried out that she had committed massive voter fraud, including having people vote multiple times, paying for votes, and dead people voting. He went on every media outlet he could find to spout these claims. And he even got the Republican controlled Senate Rules Committee to conduct a 10-month long investigation, that was carried live on C-SPAN.
The result: The only person found to have committed any fraud was Jenkins. Hahaha. Apparently, his operative, Thomas "Papa Bear" Miller, a convicted murderer, who coached the witnesses on how to tell make up stories of voter fraud. Oh, and Papa Bear also paid one of the witnesses to have sex with him.
I have no idea why the crazies at Human Events omitted that part of the story.
Conclusion
Woody Jenkins is supported by the Christian Coalition for unknown reasons. Everyone else thinks he is a crazy loser. Baton Rouge was trending toward the Democrats anyway, and now with popular mayor Kip Holden and post-Katrina population influx is leaning Democrat. There is no way that LA-06 is voting for him over the extremely well-respected Don Cazayoux. And while MissLaura is half-way right that Don wouldn't be popular here, he is a strong advocate of making trade more labor friendly, wants to bring the troops home, expand SCHIP and enact stronger ethics laws. And on a personal note, my mother knows his whole family and says he's a great guy. To me, it's a perfect example of how by running quality people, we can win elections even in districts that the departing Republican won with 82% of the vote in 2006 (he was only challenged by a Libertarian).