The Republicans lost another crucial election last night. It was their third special election loss in a row. All three were deeply Republican districts in the past. This one was in the heart of Mississippi and was in a district that George Bush won with 62% of the vote in 2004.

The Republicans are in deep, deep trouble. If they lose in these districts (the other two were a Louisiana seat they had kept for three decades and Dennis Hastert's former seat in Illinois), they can literally lose anywhere. The whole electoral map can be redrawn.

So, what's their new plan? Go further to the right! No, you schmucks, that's what got you in trouble in the first place. The problem is the Republican Party has become so extreme there are no moderates left to tell them they should head in the opposite direction.

I know, I know.....I've hard it before....don't get cocky.  

It's too early to get over confident.  Remember Karl Rove's Math!

Watch out for the October surprise!

But I really have to say, when you start looking at all the dynamics right now, the Republican Party, when it gets behind a closed door to try and plot a route to victory this fall, has to be absolutely petrified.  Am I blowing smoke?   I don't think so....Join me below the bump for a look at what I believe are 26 good reasons why this November could see a Democratic victory of truly epic proportions:

Well there is your problem right there. If ever a slip of a tongue defined a governments response to a crisis, forget the history of slashed federal budgets for projects that might have saved the levees. Drop the imagery of the government watching Monty Python's Flying Circus while New Orleans drowned. Ignore the symbol of bureaucrats like Michael Chertoff only using the future tense in terms of relief that they could have supplied last Monday or Tuesday.

We no longer need the President sounding like he is on some five day tape delay to summarize this debacle, we now have Mr. Chertoff indelible announcement that Louisiana is a city.

Politician after politician, Republican and Democrat alike have paraded before us unwilling or unable to shut off the I me switch in their heads consendally telling us how moved they were or how devastated they were, incapable of telling the difference between the destruction of a city or the opening of a supermarket.

This was the intro to Keith's first special comment. As he told the story, he just couldn't stand it anymore and had to say something, anything.

Well I have something to say .....

Back in January and February, the talking point among the clueless commentariat regarding the Democratic primary battle was that "Democrats like BOTH of these candidates!!"  The ensuing two months proved just how wrong that assessment was as the Democratic party has polarized along class and racial lines in a way nobody predicted.  Now, the same people who told us Democrats loved both Hillary and Obama two months ago are equally as confident in their assertion that once the heated primary season ends and Democrats settle upon a nominee, the voters will assuredly come together to give John McCain and the Republicans a stinging rebuke come November 4.  Based on specific observations, both personally and anecdotally, I seriously doubt that these stubborn Hillary voters will ever come around to Barack Obama.

Congratulations to Congressman-elect Don Cazayoux, new Representative of Louisiana's 6th District, and to all who had a hand in his election. The Sixth District, which voted for Bush 55-43 in 2000 and 59-40 in 2004, will be represented by a Democrat for the first time since the Dixiecrat era.

This was a terrific win for the party, for a number of reasons. First, it is always exciting and inspiring to win an election in such strongly Republican territory. Only 15 Democratic Representatives out of 235 hail from more GOP-friendly districts than Louisiana's 6th, and taking another seat on such red turf is yet another indicator that Democrats are in the catbird seat heading into November. This is the second special-election victory in a former Republican stronghold within the span of three months, and it was nearly accompanied by another victory in the crimson First District of Mississippi (and may yet be, come the May 13 runoff).

We had no real business winning this district, but we managed to do so anyway, by running a candidate who was a good fit for the district, by wisely allocating national party resources to help that candidate compete, and by simply being lucky enough to face a genuine nutcase on the Republican side.

Needless to say, this is a major feather in the cap of the DCCC, and a terrific blow to our Republican counterparts. NRCC chairman Tom Cole must be losing his breakfast, especially on the heels of the loss in IL-14, and facing another possible loss in an even redder district (MS-01). On our side, the DCCC did a fine job; they fended off the combined forces of the NRCC, Freedom's Watch, and the Club for Growth, and came out on top.

The Club for Growth has been backing losing candidates for some time-they're far more interested, it seems, in having doctrinaire nutters on the Republican ticket than in actually winning a majority-but this is a particularly bad black eye for Freedom's Watch, a group which has already taken a lot of hits. Having targeted LA-06 as their first big experiment-apparently, backing Woody Jenkins was the first thing their leadership could agree on as a priority for this cycle-Freedom's Watch looks positively impotent. They were supposed to be the scary new kid on the block, the shadowy Republican hit squad doing all the GOP's dirty work this election cycle. But if they can't swing a special election in an R+6.5 district, they're going to have the devil's own time swinging the presidential election.

As reported, the GOP's strategy in this election was to tie Cazayoux to national Democrats like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. I should think that the results speak for themselves, and that they indicate that this strategy has failed. From the Wall Street Journal:

Don Cazayoux's victory against Woody Jenkins to represent Louisiana's Sixth District, a seat held by Republicans for decades, has further boosted Democrats' optimism heading in to the fall elections.

Not only were Democrats able to increase their majority in the House, but Mr. Cazayoux emerged the winner despite a multimillion-dollar national and local effort to nationalize the race by defining him as a liberal Democrat in lockstep with Mr. Obama.

At the very least, their efforts to demonize Cazayoux by linking him to Obama proved a double-edged sword. Although Woody Jenkins did outperform expectations in several areas of the district, and it's possible that that was due to the NRCC's attempts to link Cazayoux to Obama, it was certainly negated by increased black turnout in East Baton Rouge, which appears to have ultimately provided Cazayoux with his margin of victory. In other words, the GOP lost at least as much by alienating black voters as they may or may not have gained with these attacks.

DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen had a nice comment on these tired old Republican tactics:

"For the second time this cycle, Republicans were reminded that ‘all politics is local,’" said Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen , the DCCC chairman. Saying that "House Republicans tried to nationalize this election," Van Hollen stated that the GOP "used false and deceptive special interest smears and funneled nearly a million dollars into a district that Republicans held for more than three decades."

Van Hollen claimed that Cazayoux "won by focusing on the concerns of LA-06 voters — good paying jobs, affordable health care, and better education."

Demonizing the national Democrats is in no way going to be enough to win them this election. They went hard after Obama and Pelosi, as they have gone after Bill Clinton and Al Gore and Howard Dean and John Kerry and Hillary Clinton in the past. And they have nothing to show for it, except a humiliating loss in a former Republican stronghold.

If running against national Dems in a district where Kerry got 40% of the vote in 2004 isn't enough to save their crappy candidates, it won't be enough to save them anywhere. The GOP had better come up with something new if they want to start turning things around.

Unfortunately, according to Minority Leader John Boehner, they are counting on us to do their jobs for them. Essentially, the GOP is relying on the Democratic presidential battle to drive voters away from the party; they know very well they're cooked in downballot races if it does not. Their last hope for this cycle is that they can use national Democrats to sink the local candidates on the ballot, and the LA-06 results are a strong indicator that that won't work very well.

One final irony from this election is that the GOP loss can, in a sense, be thrown at the feet of one of the party's rising stars, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. For it was Jindal who backed Republican Jim Tucker to serve as Speaker of the Louisiana House, a decision which essentially gave Tucker the speakership despite a 53-50 advantage for Democrats in the House.

The Democratic candidate whom Jindal passed over was Don Cazayoux. It is likely that if Jindal had selected Cazayoux to serve as speaker, he would not have elected to run for the U.S. House, and Republicans might well still hold this seat.

Be careful what you wish for, Governor Jindal.

Race tracker wiki: LA-06

Just before 10PM last night I was standing in a crowd of people at the Women’s Club in downtown Baton Rouge, Don Cazayoux’s election headquarters, anxiously watching election returns from the Louisiana Secretary of State’s web site being projected onto a screen.  The print was hard to read but a friend standing next to me confirmed that arch-conservative Woody Jenkins was holding on to a slim lead with only 25 of 314 precincts in East Baton Rouge Parish left to report.  On a day where turnout was an anemic 23%, Jenkins had built his lead early on the strength of hardcore support in his base in rural Livingston Parish and held on even as results from Baton Rouge slowly came in.  

I recently completed a bicycle tour from the Georgia coast through southwest Louisiana to west Texas.  For years I have looked forward to cycling through the marshlands of coastal Louisiana, a remote region of unique beauty and Cajun culture.  This is the story of Cameron, Louisiana.

What I saw stunned me.  I had long known of our nation's failure to address the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  The impacts of Hurricane Rita were just as severe and remain largely ignored two and a half years later.

Crossposted at MyDD

"Don" Cazayoux win in LA 06 shows that Obama will have coattail come November..  Hillary. McCain, Superdelegate and the GOP take note because a new Teflon candidate has been born. And this is why.....

In the run-up to Saturday's special election, the state representative's image popped up time and again in local television ads, paired with that of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

One spot had side-by-side photos of Cazayoux and Obama with the words "big government scheme" describing the local candidate's stance on health care. Another showed Cazayoux with Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and charged that Cazayoux supports a "radical liberal agenda." Another spot mocked him as "Don Tax You."

Louisiana special election results:

Sixth District

61% of Precincts Reporting

Don Cazayoux (D):          47% (28672)
Woody Jenkins (R):         49% (30039)

First District

55% of Precincts Reporting

Gilda Reed (D):                25% (5804)
Steve Scalise (R):            73% (17072)

As you probably know, the Sixth District race is expected to be close, and a possible Democratic pickup; the race has received a good deal of national attention over the past few weeks. The First District, on the other hand, is about as red as they come.

Update by kos: SSP has a handy results chart of the LA-06 April 5th runoff election, so you can get a good idea in which parishes Cazayoux should perform well:

Ascension and Livingston parishes are the GOP strongholds here. Iberville, St. Helena, and Pointe Coupee (where Cazayoux's home is located) are strong Democratic parishes in local and federal elections and Cazayoux should perform well here tonight. East and West Feliciana are historically Democratic, but have trended GOP in federal elections in recent years. Between the runoff performance and Cazayoux's small town profile, I feel optimistic about the Democratic chances in Feliciana tonight.

Update: With 6% in, there's been a break for Jenkins, as he has opened a nine-point lead (mostly from votes coming in from his stronghold in Livingston Parish). It's still very, very early.

Update #3: Nearly 30% of results in, and while it's early, things look good so far for the GOP. Jenkins has a six-point lead, and LA-01 is the GOP blowout everyone expected.

Update #4: 45% in in LA-06, and Jenkins leads by nine. Cazayoux is getting beaten badly in East Baton Rouge. He needs roughly 54% of the remaining vote to win, and that looks like a tall order.

Update #5: It ain't over! 60% in, Cazayoux is back to within 1500 votes.

Update #6: Cazayoux continues to inch upward. This is looking like a nailbiter again. We're going to start a new thread shortly.

Race tracker wiki: LA-01 LA-06

For me, politics is football, and election day is game day. Well, in the LA-06, it's game day, and according to  Talking Points Memo, the red team is just about ready to concede defeat in a plce they would have won easily in another time.

Cross-posted over at Daily Kingfish.

So, tomorrow is the special general election for LA-06 between Republican Woody Jenkins and Democrat Don Cazayoux.  

Apparently robocalls are being made to registered African-American voters here in LA-06 tonight, with the script roughly along these lines:

"The Democratic Party has never funded any African-American candidate in this district, and Don Cazayoux has no endorsements from any African-American leaders in the community"

Tomorrow is special-election day in Louisiana's 1st and 6th Districts, and with a red-hot race in the 6th District favoring Democrat Don Cazayoux, the GOP is putting everything they can into avoiding an embarrassing loss in bright-red territory.

Republican Woody Jenkins has proven to be a drain on party resources; he's been a lousy fundraiser, and his controversial, David Duke-tinged past has forced outside groups-the NRCC, the Club for Growth, and the shadowy Freedom's Watch-to dump hundreds of thousands of dollars into a race in which they still trail by a large margin. In that sense, his candidacy is somewhat reminiscent of that of Jim Oberweis, another widely disliked perennial candidate who most recently lost election in Illinois' 14th District to Democrat Bill Foster.

Meanwhile, one seeming advantage for Republican Jenkins at the campaign’s outset — the fact that he was much better-known than Cazayoux — is a two-edged sword. Over the course of a 28-year tenure as Louisiana state legislator (1972-2000), Jenkins lost four statewide campaigns. Three of those bids were for the U.S. Senate, including a very close loss to Democrat Mary L. Landrieu in the 1996 general election, and one was for state elections commissioner. So while Jenkins can claim extensive political experience, it is difficult for him to portray himself as a political outsider at a time when many voters think that Congress and the Bush administration haven’t come close to solving the nation’s problems.

In fact, Jenkins has drawn comparisons to Oberweis, the dairy executive and frequent candidate who lost that Illinois special election in March. Oberweis had high negative ratings in part because he had waged three losing campaigns for statewide office, and it was hard for him to rehabilitate his image as a flawed candidate.

"Probably an additional factor in Louisiana is Woody Jenkins has been around a long time. This is the same thing we had to some degree with Oberweis," NRCC chief Cole admitted. "You get some scar tissue if you’re in politics and you make tough calls and tough decisions."

Unfortunately, Jenkins' proxies are running into their own troubles: a CBS affiliate in Baton Rouge pulled the Freedom's Watch ad from the air after the Cazayoux campaign correctly argued that it was false. Nicely done, watchers of freedom.

As Republicans always do, they have tried to divert attention from Jenkins (who is disliked) and Cazayoux (who is liked) by using Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi as their big bad liberal scarecrows. The new scarecrows are in wonderful company, of course, following in the proud footsteps of every prominent national Democrat before them. We'll see how well it works for them; the last poll showed Cazayoux leading by fully nine points, so it sure doesn't look like a world-beating issue.

We'll be covering the election results tomorrow evening. James L. at Swing State Project reports that yesterday the DCCC put an additional $267,000 into the race, bringing their total expenditures in the race to just under $1.2 million.

Their commitment to this race indicates that they're perfectly prepared to go toe-to-toe not only with the NRCC, but with their shadowy surrogates like Freedom's Watch and the Club for Growth. If we win, it will not only be a blow to the NRCC, but to the credibility of these groups as well. Freedom's Watch will have a hell of a time trying to swing the presidential election if they can't swing this one.

Let's hope that Sunday finds a punch-drunk Freedom's Watch licking their wounds and ruminating on how they can find a way to escape their irrelevance.

Race tracker wiki: LA-06

former Mayor Marc Morial isn't happy with the management of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center here in New Orleans, because they've been downplaying the Morial name in recent promotions and other literature they generate.  

I haven't chatted with hizzoner in some time, so I thought I'd write him a letter...it's below the fold.

Eighteen months ago Gilda Reed started her journey to lend voice to the unheard, to represent the people of Louisiana's 1st congressional district.  Fifteen months after Hurricane Katrina stormed through her district, fifteen months after the man-made damage of the Army Corps left the greater New Orleans area in shambles, fifteen months after we witnessed our citizens abandoned on rooftops, Gilda took a quantum leap forward and entered the political fray.

Gilda had a most fulfilling life as mother of seven, grandmother of soon-to-be fourteen, teacher of thousands at the University of New Orleans, friend to many, until her world was shattered by prior decades of sheer political negligence, until her world was ravaged by the decision to protect her family, her neighbors, her district as if they were cattle.

Now, the Special Election is but 2 days away.

Let us be the gentle wind at her back!

Going into the special election on Saturday (yes, this Saturday), Democratic candidate Don Cazayoux enjoys a nine-point lead over Republican Woody Jenkins, according to the most recent independent poll.

SurveyUSA. 4/24-4/28. Likely voters. MoE 4.5%.

Just a few days before the special election, these are remarkable numbers for Cazayoux in a strongly Republican (R+6.5) district, one which the Republican Party has dominated since the 1970s.

Although the district is Republican turf, their brand name is hurting right now and their candidate is exceptionally bad. Jenkins is one of the most controversial politicians in Louisiana, and currently enjoys a 36/49 favorable/unfavorable rating in the district. Cazayoux's, by comparison, is a robust 43/28.

Aware of the potential embarrassment they'd face at losing this district, however, the Republicans have been throwing everything up to and including the kitchen sink into this district lately:

Despite an initial hesitancy over whether to even play in the race because of the baggage Jenkins brought to his campaign (in his March primary race, one of Jenkins’ challengers accused him of buying a mailing list from former Ku Klux Klan leader and political candidate David Duke during Jenkins’ unsuccessful 1996 Senate campaign), the NRCC has committed significant resources to the contest. According to Federal Election Commission filings, the committee has dropped more than $325,000 in independent expenditures on the race in just the past two weeks.

Meanwhile the independent political group Freedom’s Watch has spent about half a million dollars on TV ads in the 6th district. More than one of the ads produced by Freedom’s Watch has brought complaints from Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has asked the FEC to open investigations into two of those ads. The DCCC is also asking the Internal Revenue Service to strip Freedom’s Watch of its tax-exempt status. On Wednesday, one of the group’s ads was pulled from the air by a CBS affiliate in Baton Rouge

Other anti-Cazayoux independent expenditures have come from the anti-tax group the Club for Growth — which has spent more than $110,000 on the contest — and Lane Grigsby, a wealthy construction company owner, who has a history of getting involved in Bayou State campaigns. Grigsby had dropped more than $100,000 in independent expenditures on the race since April 17.

The DCCC meanwhile has spent more than $600,000 on ads and other independent expenditures in just the last two weeks. Cazayoux received additional support this week when the Service Employees International Union decided to buy air time in the race.

Hm, the NRCC, Freedom's Watch, and the Club for Growth? That's quite a Murderer's Row of lunacy. And still, Cazayoux enjoys a nine-point lead.

It's still a red district, and in a low-turnout special election anything can happen, but these are excellent numbers with just two days until the election.

Race tracker wiki: LA-06

The April NOLA/Gulf Blogathon took place approximately two weeks ago, and in spite of the crush of campaign diaries, it was, thanks to all who wrote diaries and otherwise participated, a success. The diaries were all very thought-provoking and deserved more attention than they got from the DKos community because all raised questions regarding what BushCo was, and is, really up to regarding the federal flood.

This is to announce that the next NOLA/Gulf Blogathon has now been scheduled for Thurs., May 15th and Fri., May 16th. Hopefully by then the campaign stuff will have started winding down--and hope to see you there!

Just a short diary about a local story you probably didn't hear.

First, the backstory:  Back in the spring of '06, amid a flurry of reforms to city and regional government following the federal flood of New Orleans, a group of seven candidates appeared to challenge all of the city's property assessors, running under the banner of "I.Q." or "I Quit."

Their platform:  that the city's separate assessors' offices amounted to private fiefdoms.  The assessors had to power to lowball the property values  of friends and supporters.  The I.Q. team pledged that, if their slate was elected, they would pool their salaries to pay for objective, professional assessors to make valuations based solely on comparables, in accordance with standard industry practices.

Delta Air Lines B757, in pink "Breast Cancer Awareness" livery.

I've been mulling over a situation that happened at the Delta ticket counter at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY) last Friday, trying to decide if which of the two in the title happened.

Story continues below the fold.