My legacy will never die!
Posted on 09/06/2005 6:03:03 PM PDT by LdSentinal
To put things in a different kind of perspective, the numbers in the 2004 Presidential election tell a story about Louisiana politics. Outside of Louisiana, the landscape of the Bayou State’s politics is perhaps not well understood.
It’s true that all politics are local, but, being local, all politics are also unique.
For instance, it is erroneously believed that Louisiana is governed by Napoleonic Law.
It’s not. And it never has been. While the French Civil Code came into existence at roughly the same time as the Napoleonic, the former, not the latter, has always governed Louisiana.
In fact, as a result, Louisiana is the only state governed by Roman, Spanish, and French civil law, rather than British Common Law.
The results of the 2004 elections in Louisiana tell a story unique to the state of Louisiana—just as they tell a political story different in every other region of the country.
In 2004, for instance, according to the Washington Post (go here) Republican nominee George W. Bush won 1, 101, 871 popular votes.
Democratic nominee John F. Kerry won 819, 510 votes.
“Other” won a measly 20, 628 votes.
In other words, Bush won with 57%, Kerry trailed badly with 42%.
At the same time, Republican David Vitter won with 51%, to Democratic John Kennedy’s 29% for the U.S. Senate.
In the U.S. House District 1, Bobby Jindal (Republican) won 78% of the vote to his Democratic opponent’s 7%, while in District 2, Democratic William J. Jefferson beat Republican Arthur Schwertz 79% to 21%. In District 3, Republican Billy Tauzin won a tight race with 32% of the vote, against his opponents who garnered 24 and 23% of the popular vote, respectively. In all other congressional districts, Republicans won comfortably—although Republican Charles Bostany won with only 39% of the vote in the 7th district because two democratic candidates split 50% percent of the popular vote with 25% each.
Looking at the numbers, one would get the impression that Louisiana is a solidly Republican and conservative state.
It is not.
People who live there—like the folks in Chicago, Illinois, perhaps, or Detroit, Michigan—know that the politics of the state are local to the extent that they are driven by cities.
New Orleans—until sometime last Monday—was the political force in statewide politics. Cities are generally run as elsewhere by Democrats; National politics in Louisiana is run by Republicans. As the major population center for the state—along with Baton Rouge, which was half its size—and, perhaps Shreveport (which boasts a population of a little over 200 thousand people), New Orleans was the “make or break” constituency for many a candidate at state and federal level elections—and, at the city level, a democrat has always been favored in New Orleans over a Republican.
While Bush won Louisiana comfortably in his 2004 campaign, for instance, New Orleans—with its half-a-million citizens, voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry.
For years it has been known that if a democratic candidate for statewide or national office could carry New Orleans, he or she was a shoe-in for office.
In 2002, Mary Landrieu (D-New Orleans) won re-election with an extremely slight 35,000-vote margin in an election cycle that saw the Republicans hold onto a razor thin majority in the U.S. Senate of 51 to 48 seats. Landrieu’s win was actually in a very crowded field: she won 46% of the vote in the state to runner-up Republican Suzanne Haik Terrell’s 27%--but in a 9-person field. This is because the election rules in Louisiana are different than anywhere else—candidates from all parties enter the primary and a run off is determined (regardless of party) as a result. This means that democrats often run against democrats for governor and senate; republicans (less freguently) against republicans.
But because of Hurricane Katrina, that political landscape is perhaps unalterably changed.
Consider for a moment, in political terms, the fact that an entire city has disappeared. New Orleans does not exist at the moment and will not reappear on the landscape for years—perhaps for decades.
Mary Landrieu, who may owe her Senate victories to the people of New Orleans, has just had the major portion of her constituency moved out of state.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin literally has no city over which to preside. When he runs for re-election, for which city will it be—Baton Rouge?
Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco has just seen the most populated—and liberal and democratic—city disappear from the face of the map in Louisiana. Does she have the political gravitas in this situation to convince a plurality of voters outside of a political sphere that no longer exists to return her to office, given her performance in the last week?
Louisiana politics has been, along with the literal landscape of New Orleans, changed forever.
Will the politicians respond or will it be business as usual?
Allow me to be extremely cynical right now. Prediction: some clever politician in Louisiana will sponsor legislation that allows displaced Louisiana citizens to register and vote in the 2008 elections as if they still reside in a no longer existent New Orleans.
Should that be allowed to happen?
Democratic politics in Louisiana has just been devastated.
Well, Democrats have always been in favor of allowing dead people to vote in living cities. Why not allow absent people to vote in a dead city?
Is recall possible? If so, I suggest we get petitions together and circulate them in the shelters while it would be easy. Get thee people out now.
"Louisiana politics has been, along with the literal landscape of New Orleans, changed forever."
I'd like to know what happened in the private meeting between Bush and Blanco on Air Force One. After it Bush told Nagin he gave Blanco two options, she wanted 24 hrs. to think on it. Blanco told Nagin nothing.
Jindal was on the plane too, said Bush and Blanco had a private meeting on the side.
There's this story:
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20050904/1066662.asp
Bid for federal takeover
Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Blanco. Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, according to a source within the state's emergency operations center.
The administration had sought control over National Guard units, normally under control of the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request, noting that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law.
Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state's victims and hired James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort. ...
--The memo was probably a follow up from the conversation earlier on Air Force One. Did Blanco delay 24 hrs. in order to keep her hand on a redevelopment fund? Did the delay hold up the buses?
I suspect a lot of native New Orleans people would want federalization of everything, given their experience with State govt. Nagin sounded like he wanted that too.
I just saw the latest forecasts of Ophelia's path...One puts her crossing Central Florida (My Home) then crossing in to the Gulf of Mexico and heading west along the Gulf Coast towards New Orleans.....Oh My!
Oh no. Somebody has got to stop Karl Rove and his Hurricane Machine.
Very interesting article. If Bush would only order a natural disaster for Milwaukee & Philadelphia, we'd be in good shape.
This "analysis" piles up all kinds of numbers, then says Louisiana politics is radically changed, then knifes itself in the gut by admitting that the Rats might just keep the flood victims on the voter rolls. Since they control both the legislature and the governorship, what is to stop them?
Surely FReep can do better than this ...
My legacy will never die!
"...some clever politician in Louisiana will sponsor legislation that allows displaced Louisiana citizens to register and vote in the 2008 elections..."
...but, following longstanding tradition, the dead will not be required to re-register...just vote straight-ticket democrat in alphabetical order, like always.
I don't think it take much to set them back at this point. They don't need the rain and who knows how sturdy those repairs are on the dikes or levees or whatever they are called.
He's mistaken about that. New Orleans will be back in operation in less than a year, albeit quite a bit smaller.
bttt
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