In May of this year, Progressive Democrat and fellow Kossack Gilda Reed ran against Republican Steve Scalise. Scalise defeated Gilda, but the Perfect Storm may be converging now on Scalise to deny him a full term in LA-01. The lack of interest in the Presidential race in the district, combined with a well-financed Dem challenger have forced Scalise to unleash a very ugly racial attack into the airwaves.
And I mean an ugly racial attack.
(more below the fold)
Via ryan at Daily Kingfish (who is doing the best reporting in the state on Congressional races), I read that Jeffery has an interesting perspective in his assessment of the Steve Scalise-Jim Harlan contest for the LA-01 Congressional seat when he says:
Much of Left Blogistan has entered a particularly useless late-election-cycle guffawing phase in which all the "right thinking smart people" point fingers at the "wild swinging" and "desperate scare tactics" of the Republican candidates. And sure, I'll allow that the rhetoric coming out of the GOP slate from the top of the ticket to the bottom is ugly. I'll agree that it appeals to the lowest-common-denominator fears and hatreds of the electorate. It relies on an assumption that voters are uninformed and that they will choose their leaders on a basis of emotion, and group identity.
But unlike most of the liberals out there, I refuse to pretend that this is a "losing" strategy simply because I'm in a rush to congratulate myself for not being susceptible to it.
Leaving aside the notion that most of the NOLA contingent of Left Blogistan regularly engages in useless guffawing, Jeffery is right that this isn't a losing strategy. In fact, it's a strategy that makes perfect sense, given the demographic make-up of LA-01.
I wrote extensively about LA-01 back in the spring here, here, and here, when Gilda Reed ran in the special election to fill Piyush Jindal's seat after PBJ resigned to become LA-Gov. Scalise rolled over Reed, a progressive. Mandeville businessman Jim Harlan decided to mount a regular-election challenge to Scalise, the man he's dubbed "the mistake on the lake."
Harlan is running as a "stealth Democrat." If you look at his campaign website, the layout reminds me of the sort of colors expecting parents pick out for a nursery when they don't know the sex of their soon-to-be-born child. Nowhere on the homepage does he state his party affiliation. His "Issues" section lays out his thoughts on Energy, Hurricane Protection, and Healthcare, in language befitting a "Blue Dog" Democrat or a Moderate Republican. His positions make sense to voters in a heavily-conservative district (LA-01 went 70% for GWB in 2004). Given that the Scalise-Reed was the first closed-primary election in Louisiana in two decades, Harlan is counting on this "party-neutral" approach to remove the inherent difficulties of a Democrat winning in the district that both David Duke and David Vitter call home. Under the old open-primary system, all but the newest Louisiana voters are used to general elections where the candidates are the top two vote-getters, and happen to be members of the same party. Harlan has run an excellent campaign exposing Scalise for the dirtbag he is, while promoting common-sense positions on the issues. By the time Republic voters get to the polls on November 4th, Harlan is betting they'll like him to the point where they'll ignore the "D" next to his name.
That's exactly why Scalise is on the low road back to Washington. To win this election, Scalise needs to hang that "D" around Harlan's neck loudly and often. Scalise's current TV ad doesn't show either him or Harlan. The stars of the spot are Barack Hussein Obama and the Rev. Jermiah Wright. A shadowy (dare I say, "terrorist-y") shot of Obama appears, then a clip of Rev. Wright, shouting his now-infamous "G-d DAMN America!"
Not only is Scalise aiming to alert voters that he's running against a Democrat, he's warning them that his opponent is affiliated with the Eebil Coloreds. Not only are they Eebil Coloreds, but, in Wright's case, he's an Eebil Reverend, one of those bible-thumping Protestant-types that make the ethnic-Irish and Italian Catholics of LA-01 nervous.
Jeffery thinks Scalise wants voters to choose based on emotion, and he's right. Scalise knows that an overwhelming majority of his district Doesn't Like Black People. There's no dog-whistling here; Scalise is using frequencies audible to everyone and doesn't care. Keep in mind, LA-01 now has a memorial to the late Sheriff Harry Lee, the man who ran for office on a platform of keeping "young black men in rinky-dink cars" out of Jefferson Parish. There's nothing desperate about running a racially-charged campaign in LA-01. It's been a ticket for success in the past, and that's when the up-ticket races were all-white.
It's powerful stuff. I've been listening to several friends expressing frustration when it comes to talking to their families about Barack Obama. They're scared, scared of terrorists, afraid of what's to become of their retirement savings, and yes, they're afraid of the Eebil Coloreds. It's encouraging that there are a decent number of voters in the 30-50 range who don't share the wide-eyed bigotry of their parents. Still, these folks lived for 20 years in a metro area where the congressional districts have been gerrymandered (by Democrats, mind you) to concentrate almost every minority voter in one district (LA-02), leaving the other district (LA-01) lily-white and Reagan Republican.
Can Jim Harlan beat back the slime that Scalise has vomited onto the airwaves? Yes, for several reasons:
1. Who's really seeing these ads? I saw the Harlan/Obama/Wright ad three times last night, once in the second half Olbermann's 8pm show, then Maddow's 9pm show, then in the first half of the re-run of KO at 10pm. Scalise's team must have bought time as part of Cox Cable's "cable-rep" buying program. The rates are cheap, but Cox determines when and which channels get the ads. I think it's safe to say that most of the folks watching Rachel's show aren't going to be swayed by anti-Obama propaganda.
2. Scalise is not well-liked outside Jefferson Parish. LA-01 is more than just East Jefferson and White New Orleans (Lakeview). The district also includes St. Tammany, as well as parts of Washington and Tangipahoa parishes. Several St. Tammany politicians mounted an aggressive (and at times ugly) primary campaign against Scalise in the spring. As much as these folks dislike Democrats, they don't think any more highly of politicians from Jefferson. Harlan has run a solid campaign and has broad appeal. He's attacked Scalise hard, particularly on the issue of hurricane protection.
3. Scalise is a douchebag. He was the NRA's go-to guy in the state legislature for years. He's also in the back pocket of the Louisiana Restaurant Association, which, because of legalized video poker in the state, is essentially a lobbying arm of the liquor and casino gaming industries. In the fall of 2007, Scalise, then a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, ran for State Senate. He was unable to stand for re-election to the House because of term limits. In that election, he was heavily criticized by his main opponent, Polly Thomas (R-Metairie), who urged voters to reject Scalise because his true intent was to run for Congress should Piyush win the governor's mansion. Ironically, Thomas will win that Senate seat on 4-Nov, because everything she said about Scalise last year has come to pass. Scalise brought Dick Cheney down last month for a fundraiser. In post-K metro New Orleans, the only politician more poisonous than the foul-mouthed Dick would be the Drunken Frat-boy himself.
While LA-01 is far from being an Orange-to-Blue target, Harlan may pull an upset. He's pulled close in the polls,, and Scalise's people are on the run. Scalise is refusing to debate Harlan, just like he refused to debate Gilda in the spring.
Obama may not have long coattails in this district, but the GOP incumbents may be just too toxic for the average voter to trust.
