Yeah, I'm always a day late on these things, and god knows I'm no Granny Doc, but here goes.
From the front page to the lowliest diary comments, it is impossible not to encounter somebody's grave, disheartened disappointment at something the Democratic nominee did or didn't do in his quest to gain office.
You're shocked. You're hurt. You're going to take your $25 and go home. You're going to give up on the big ticket and concentrate on state races.
You think I can't understand your outrage. That I don't know how tough and scratchy it goes down when you have to swallow principle and vote for some sellout triangular barely-D because it's the only D on the ballot.
Riiiiiight.
Let's take a look at the ballot I'll be facing in November.
Like every second year, we'll be voting for a congressperson. Dollar Bill Jefferson is running again and could likely as not be the nominee.
His last serious competitor, Karen Carter-Peterson, was destroyed among white, West Bank voters by Jefferson Parish Harry Lee, who resented her comments about the bridge incident in Spike Lee's movie. Lee's dead now, but his legacy still lives across the river.
The next-most-likely, Derrick Shepherd, is, like much of Jefferson's family, under indictment himself right now. Not likely he'll be in the running as his money-laundering trial is scheduled to start in October.
Some are talking up Hizzoner C. Ray Nagin for Jefferson's seat. Be still my fucking heart.
The embarrassment that Dollar Bill's career has become is so total that his re-election campaign is now a spectator sport on RedState.
On the Senate side, Mary Landrieu's running for re-elect. Habitues of this blog need little refreshing on the many reasons why a progressive Dem might be less than fanatical about supporting Sen. Landrieu. Big Oil. Big War. Big Blue Dog.
Still, she fights for the vets and she fights for the levees and she fights for reproductive rights, a pretty hard place for a Roman Catholic in a red state to stand. She's about as D as one can be and still keep a seat in this state.
Her campaign has already asked me to phone and canvass and I probably will. And donate. Even encourage folks here to do the same.
Barack Obama, the guy who's lambasted here as a centrist sellout or cryptoconservative or whatever, is almost certain to lose Louisiana, despite my hopes and cheerleading. According to the latest Southern Media and Opinion Research numbers:
In the presidential race results, McCain led with 52.2 percent versus Obama's 35.5 percent.
The numbers indicate Landrieu might be better off if Obama did not campaign in Louisiana, partly because Landrieu's overall favorability rating is 53 percent among white voters while Obama's is only 26 percent, Pinsonat said. Obama's "very unfavorable" rating with white voters is 55 percent.
Starting to get the picture? Maybe I could clarify it a little.
George Bush, Mr. Twenty-Something Percent to the rest of you, has an overall approval rating of 56% in Louisiana. Whoresthrall David Vitter's only a point behind him.
Gov. Bobby Jindal, after enduring what had to be his Worst. Week. Ever. still boasts an approval rating of 59%. Think about that a second. You're the governor of a state refusing to veto a policy 85% of your constituents oppose. A recall petition is being circulated against you. Every paper in the state is ripping you. And you're still pulling a 59% favorability rating.
My state, in short, is red. Redder that the sky is blue and the grass is green.
What's worse, as the rest of the country blushes purple and even breaks blue, we are getting redder. And the ideological fantasies that obsess Republicans are thriving here, like the refugee animals that are packing our Atchafalaya Swamp as their habitats across the South fall to development.
School vouchers? Got 'em. Creationism in the classroom? Check. Public housing demolitions? Read the papers. Tax cuts? Hoo boy, you want tax cuts. . .
Between the decimation of our major (Democratic, African-American majority) city and the ascendancy of the GOP in the legislature, we have become a laboratory for every cockamamie social theory Grover Norquist has salivated over in two decades.
And y'all are going to throw a hissy fit over FISA? You're going to pull back funding the Democratic candidate because he won't proclaim himself Wes Clark's BFF? Really?
It must be nice to have that kind of luxury. To live in a state where you can count on your legislature to keep abortion legal when Roe v. Wade is struck down by a McCain Supreme Court. To know that your state government will have the revenues to take up the slack when the McCain administration starts gutting the federal government's "discretionary" budgets.
I don't know how you're going to keep your state's Guard out of Iran, Syria and whatever garden spots the Maverick Travel Agency's got scheduled for them, but I'm sure they'll appreciate the fervor with which you stood up to the turncoat Obama while they swelter in the sandbox.
Me, I'll be at the fire house, with a curtain drawn behind me, holding my nose until it bleeds and voting for every D I can. Because I know what the stakes are.
And so do you.
I'm not one for embedding videos, having recent memories of dial-up frustration. However, to reward you for slogging through this long batch of bitch, here's Julie London singing the title track from this diary:
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