As of today, Louisiana now joins Wisconsin and too many other states in having unified Republican rule of both the executive and the legislature.
The Democrat in a special election to the Louisiana Senate lost by a 52%-48% margin. My question is: where were we?
Could we have made calls into Louisiana and possibly averted this? The people of Louisiana are our sisters and brothers, just as are those of Wisconsin and Egypt. Except, while most of us can't do more that watch events in Egypt and few of us can travel to Madison, we could have made calls into Louisiana had we known that a tough special election was upcoming. This is what we need to be able to do if we are to counter the Koch and FOTF types.
The NYT story is below the fold. Something's missing from it, though: us.
ABBEVILLE, La. (AP) — A Republican candidate late Saturday won a special election for a Louisiana state Senate seat, according to unofficial returns, a result that if certified would give the GOP control of the Senate for the first time since Reconstruction.
The Louisiana Secretary of State's office reported on its website that Republican state Rep. Jonathan Perry narrowly defeated Democrat Nathan Granger in the race to fill a vacant state Senate seat. Unofficial returns show Perry receiving 52 percent of the vote to Granger's 48 percent, with all 106 precincts reporting.
The contest was closely watched because the state Senate is currently split, with 19 Republicans and 19 Democrats. After a number of party switches, Republicans recently took control of the state House. Republican Bobby Jindal is the governor.
"Action" should be a top-level tag on DK4. We didn't even try to help in this race.