Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco acknowledges applause from worshipers after she was introduced during a mass at Saint Joseph's Cathedral in Baton Rouge, La., Sept. 4.
Posted on 09/11/2005 8:09:18 PM PDT by Libloather
Louisiana governor's political future in doubt
Associated Press
Sept. 11, 2005, 5:33PM
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco acknowledges applause from worshipers after she was introduced during a mass at Saint Joseph's Cathedral in Baton Rouge, La., Sept. 4.
SLIDELL, La. — "I've probably been to hell and back," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said as she traipsed back to a military helicopter that would lift her from this hurricane-ravaged city back to Baton Rouge.
Her eyes were bleary but she looked fitter than she had in the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina's Aug. 29 strike. Waylaid by one reporter after another, she granted interviews until it was too dark Saturday night to make an aerial sweep of the north shore city where City Hall, the police station and three fire stations were inundated.
Blanco was doing her best to bolster hope, even as the stories out of New Orleans remained bleak: yes, water was going down, but that only meant the grim task of recovering bodies was picking up.
Physically and emotionally, she appeared to be holding up well.
"I'm doing fine as each day produces a little more positive results. You know, I see life coming back in the regions that are drying off. I get strength from that. I get stronger.
"And, you know, we're not living these bizarre hours. I can at least go to bed about midnight and get up early in the morning somewhat refreshed now, whereas in those early days we were doing some all-nighters and all-mornings — kind of a wild schedule."
Politically? That is the question, as post mortems on the immediate response to Katrina continue along with a recovery effort that will likely still be unfolding when re-election time arrives in two years.
Republican lawmakers, such as U.S. Sen. David Vitter, were quick to criticize the immediate federal response but also took pains in television interviews to say there were problems at the local and state level as well. Conservative bloggers have been more insistent, calling for her impeachment.
Silas Lee, a New Orleans political analyst working these days at his satellite office near Washington, said it is too early to write Blanco's political obituary.
"There's enough blame to go around," Lee said in a telephone interview today.
Aside from voter satisfaction or dissatisfaction with her performance after Katrina, there is also the question of who is left in the state to vote for her. New Orleans is predominantly black and low-income, an important part of the Democratic governor's base, and most of the black and low-income population of the city was hit hard by Katrina. Many have relocated out of state and the question now is whether they will return.
"After the city returns to some semblance of normalcy, we'll have to see what the demographics look like," Lee said.
Another Louisiana political analyst and pollster, Elliott Stonecipher, agreed that a big question is who returns to the city and who doesn't. Still, without that knowledge, and in the current absence of any statewide polling data, Stonecipher said he believes it will be tough for Blanco to win re-election. He believes news accounts of her handling of state military and her dealings with the federal government do not make her look good and will be exploited by an opponent.
In her series of Saturday interviews, Blanco did her best to appear above all the political rhetoric. Despite what appears to be a strained relationship with President Bush — she was told by reporters, not the White House, that he was headed to the state last week — Blanco even made made a brief defense of the president: "The president should not be victimized," she said.
Like all the rest of the incompetent liberals, she makes me puke.
Couldn't pull those all-nighters? Go sell Avon, you idiot!
What a putz.
Well of course she can make disingenuous defenses of the President, now that her party has Mary "Ronald Reagan flooded New Orleans" Landrieu around to engage in the mudslinging.
boo hoohoo, poor poor me, nobody like me.
Ping - a -ling...
applause????????????
Impeaching her is out of the question. Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu would then become Governor. That's all the state needs now, a corrupt family dynasty controlling the federal and state levels of government.
She can save herself by doing a lesbo strap on video with Paris Hilton. Sex videos work like a charm every time.
This horrible political hack should be tarred and feathered, along with the moron mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, and that total incompetent female, Senator Mary Landrieu. I have no doubt that the people of Louisiana will send these idiot Democrats packing, the first chance they get. And...I might add GW Bush does not shine here either. He should have known this Democrat scum could not govern a pig sty, and he should have moved quickly to shove these failures out of the way. But, no he hung back, because Ms. Blanco is a female and Mayor Nagin is Black. Sorry GW, I love ya, but these are incompetent people, no matter what gender and race they are. End of story!!!
Is there anything in the State Constitution to vote to remove her?
"Physically and emotionally, she appeared to be holding up well."
Well, that's the important thing. /sarcasm
"Kathleen Blanco acknowledges applause from worshipers"
LOL, that's about all she's got left, her own little amen corner.
Awwww...let's all break out the violins for poor Kathy. Didn't anyone tell her disaster management goes with the territory of being elected governor.
Can you imagine what would have happened if President Bush has said such a whiny, self-pitying thing after 9/11/01 or now in the aftermath of Katrina?
And interviews are more important than surveying the damage done in the state? I guess it's easier answering/sidestepping reporters questions than those of the people who's lives depended on her blatant incompetence. What a total POS! She ought to be brought up on murder charges!
Was it my imagination or did she lie through her teeth today saying SHE called the Mayor of Houston and asked to sent evacuees there????? I swear I saw an interview with Perry who said he spoke with the President and offered the Astrodome??
Oh well, I am so glad. Poor little thing had such a hard time of it, what with all that sniveling and hand wringing.
I'm sure the old man who was dead in his wheelchair at the Superdome would really be glad to hear that she is getting a little more sleep now.
I will not be crying when the karma train runs over her.
No mention of the hell and back her constituents went through.
What an ultra maroon. She must be related to Clinton: Me, me, me.
"I'm doing fine as each day produces a little more positive results. You know, I see life coming back in the regions that are drying off. I get strength from that. I get stronger.
That's important to know. It's too bad the media doesn't usually tell us important details like these when the executive officer is male.
"I can at least go to bed about midnight and get up early in the morning somewhat refreshed now"
... she said, just prior to dispensing a few quick pointers on the importance of proper skin moisturization to a mass of grateful evacuees.
This woman has got to stop bawling in public. I'm sorry, but it simply perpetuates the stereotype that female leaders crumble under pressure.
My husband works past midnight nearly every night managing his company here in Cali and it's subsidiary in Asia. Blanko gets more sleep than he does; more than many Californian entrepreneurs for that matter.
I've already called the Secret Service on her. So far...nothing.
LOL! Thanks for the ping. She tried that crying thing before and voters bought it at the last debate. Guess she thinks if it worked before it will work again.
Sister. Wife. Mother. Governor. -
As she’s done her whole life, when Kathleen Blanco most needed help during the race for governor, she drew from her family. On Monday that family will move into the governor’s mansion.
Times-Picayune, The (New Orleans, LA)
January 11, 2004
Author: Robert Travis Scott
Capital bureau
There she was, the pollsters’ underdog, just three days before the Nov. 15 gubernatorial runoff, perspiring under the camera lights during a final televised debate with her quick-tongued challenger.
Given the chance to question Bobby Jindal, her 32-year-old Republican opponent, the 60-year-old Kathleen Babineaux Blanco drew a blank. A long silence ensued before Jindal quipped, "You could ask me my favorite food."
Blanco’s advisers shivered over the appearance of a "senior moment."
She seemed to have blown it all.
Then, minutes later, near the end of the program, when the candidates were asked to name a defining moment in their lives, Blanco related a deeply emotional struggle to hold her faith and family together following the sudden death of her 19-year-old son seven years ago.
"My defining moment was to know that I can survive it, and to know that the people of Louisiana are there to lift me in prayer," Blanco said, holding back tears as she finished her answer.
Some family members and advisers believe that response was a late-hour turning point in her candidacy. They may be correct. In the runoff, Blanco won 52 percent of the vote and the right to be sworn in Monday as Louisiana’s first female governor.
It will be the capstone to an unlikely rise from small-town girl to teacher to political candidate and, finally, to the governor’s office.
Blanco’s unusual career, in which a nearly full-time mother of modest background has turned to politics and succeeded on every ballot on which she appeared for the next 20 years, has its roots deep in her traditional Cajun lifestyle. Strict Catholic religious teachings, a close family and a sense of place among her siblings defined her values and contributed to an inner strength that has helped her cope with adversity, family members say, especially the potentially crippling ordeal of her son’s death.
That episode was more tragic than is widely known. Her response to it represents an aspect of her character that many people seem to have underestimated.
Family pillar
Good-looking, bright and full of ambition, Benedict Blanco at age 19 "had every dream in the world," recalled Blanco’s brother Kenneth Babineaux. Known as Ben, Blanco’s youngest child spoke of one day becoming governor or even pope. To earn money for school, Ben took a part-time job at an industrial site near Morgan City.
It was there, at work, on Jan. 2, 1997, that a malfunctioning crane dropped a giant weight that crushed Ben and narrowly missed his brother Raymond Jr., who witnessed Ben’s instantaneous death. With one son gone, another traumatized, her husband in despair and the rest of her family in shock and grief, Kathleen Blanco faced a family crisis as well as a personal spiritual challenge.
According to people who attended Ben’s funeral at Our Lady of Fatima Church in Lafayette just two days after the accident, Blanco stood before several hundred people gathered at the service and, shaky at first but shedding no tears, delivered a tribute to her son.
"A mother just has to say goodbye," Blanco said during the service, according to a newspaper report at the time. "I don’t know if we can make it, but we hope we do."
In a recent interview, her husband recalled the moment: "People still tell us it was one of the most profound things they’ve experienced in their life."
When her husband started to break down at the grave site, Blanco simply said his name, and he shook himself out of it.
"That’s all it took," Kenneth Babineaux said. "Her strength was there, even at her son’s burial. It was like her faith was just sticking out of her in a time of need."
Another of Blanco’s brothers, Baron Babineaux said, "Instead of the family folding and separating, they came together and made something positive of it.,"
In it together
Her grace under pressure was even more remarkable considering that she had endured an earlier family tragedy on Labor Day weekend 1975.
Kathleen’s brother Louis Babineaux Jr., the one closest to her in age and 31 at the time, took his 5-year-old daughter Patricia shrimp trawling in Vermilion Bay, one of their favorite leisure activities. No one is sure exactly what happened, but Blanco’s brothers say the girl somehow fell overboard. Louis Babineaux dived repeatedly to save her, and eventually he didn’t surface, either. The bodies were found later.
The oldest of seven siblings, Blanco at the time realized she had been cast as a role model, Kenneth Babineaux said.
"We all turned inward, examined our depth of faith, and then we came out with each other," he said. The stronger ones, including Kathleen, would strengthen the weaker ones, he said.
"It will just go one from the next supporting each other," he added. "We contribute to the whole family’s strength of faith. Our elders instilled it in us."
That sense of family unity and responsibility are dominant themes in the three Babineaux brothers’ descriptions of their sister. In interviews, when asked about her, they often say "we," speaking of the family group rather than of Blanco specifically.
"I don’t think they think of themselves as individuals," Blanco’s husband, Raymond Blanco, said of the Babineaux clan. "I don’t know of a family as close as they are."
Family grounding and inner strength are what have also brought Blanco through political campaigns no one thought she could win, those close to her say. And it may be the central trait she’ll need as governor, to deal with the 144-member Legislature and to tackle the problems of job growth, poverty, health care and education on a tight budget.
Family roots
Kathleen Babineaux spent most of her pre-teen years in the village of Coteau, which is still little more than a bend in the road on Louisiana 88 among sugar cane fields south of Lafayette. The only institutions of note were her elementary school, Our Lady of Prompt Succor Catholic Church and her French-speaking grandfather’s grocery store, where the locals gathered.
The three siblings closest to her in age were boys. "I grew up with the boys more so than with the girls" in the family, Blanco said. They fished, climbed trees and shot pellet guns at nutria on grandfather’s pond.
"We just roamed the countryside," she said. "Coteau is where I had a lot of living going on."
Her brothers remember the young Kathleen as maternal and as a role model. Her mother was always on her case about reading at the table.
The Babineauxs were "not a financially rich family," brother Erroll said. "But you can do a lot with a little if you have the will to do it."
Kathleen Babineaux and her brothers describe a strict Catholic upbringing, with strong religious influence in high school. "Nuns ran the roost," Erroll Babineaux said. They instilled beliefs in the children, "and the parents reinforced it," he said.
Her father, who died about two years ago, sold Electrolux vacuum cleaners then started a carpet-cleaning business before becoming a tax collector. Her mother, at 83, still lives in New Iberia.
"She was the gentler person," while her father, "he ruled, he just really ruled," Blanco said. "They weren’t that affectionate. They weren’t huggy-kissy, but extremely loyal. You don’t talk about anybody in your family. You understood that there was love, but it was not that expressive kind of love that some families have."
A close family also meant close quarters. Everyone, even when the family grew to seven kids, piled into the station wagon for annual camping trips around the nation and for local forays to church bazaars or to visit relatives.
And there were lots of relatives. Blanco has more than 30 first cousins. When all the aunts, uncles, cousins, spouses and so on are added up, "what we consider our immediate family, we’re over 250, closing in on that 300 mark," Blanco said.
When the family was ready to move from Coteau to the town of New Iberia farther south, they put their modest three-bedroom house on a truck and took it with them. Her parents lived in the house long after the children moved out. Kenneth Babineaux eventually took over the house and the family carpet-cleaning business, which operates on the same property.
On the busy thoroughfare that their old street has become, one could easily mistake the house for just another commercial building. The black and red "Babineaux" carpet business sign is out front. But inside, Kenneth has renovated the home and made it appear almost new. That, said brother Erroll Babineaux, is what the household was always like. "If something broke around the house, the family would try to fix it," he said. "Everyone in the family is skilled in that way."
Political ambitions
In 1964, after years of commuting from home to classes at the University of Southwestern Louisiana -- now called the University of Louisiana at Lafayette -- Kathleen Babineaux earned a degree in business education, married high school and college football coach Raymond Blanco, and started teaching high school in Breaux Bridge. But with the arrival of her first child in 1965, she gave up full-time employment for 14 years to devote herself mainly to her six children.
Re-entering the outside work world, she took a district manager job with the Census Bureau in 1979. It gave her the skills to open a consulting firm conducting polls and political research. Two years later, encouraged by her politically astute husband and feeling her oats at interpreting voter trends, she ran for a state House seat and won on a shoestring budget.
Even in the Legislature, with frequent periods away in Baton Rouge, Blanco remained the buoyant member of the family.
"When she was a freshman legislator, she would prepare seven days’ worth of meals and put them in a freezer," her husband said. "The family would pull them out throughout the week."
Raymond eventually learned to cook, but he often had to take directions over the phone from his wife from the floor of the House.
She moved up the political ladder as Public Service Commissioner, entered and then withdrew from the 1991 governor’s race, and then won two elections for lieutenant governor, an office with no term limits and one she likely would have won again had she sought it. So running for governor was a risk.
"Last year I started to see the shape and form of what could happen," Blanco said. "Raymond was less secure in that. It was a bigger step for him than it was for me, to make the decision to go. As a spouse, he suffers more from it during a campaign. He suffers more anxiety."
To be governor, she had to win two kinds of elections. In the Oct. 4 primary, she had to be one of two leading candidates in a crowded field, which meant she had to defeat four other strong Democrats, all chasing many of the same votes she was chasing. Fortunately for her, former U.S. Rep. Claude "Buddy" Leach and state Attorney General Richard Ieyoub split much of the heavily Democratic African-American vote -- an outcome Blanco said she foresaw -- and her Acadian base and statewide popularity got her into the runoff.
That’s when she entered her fiercest election ever, one-on-one against Jindal in the runoff. A little less than two weeks before election day, Blanco was concerned her numbers were lagging in the polls, and she had to face the option of launching attack ads at Jindal, a politically risky strategy that sometimes backfires and a step she had never taken against an opponent.
"Raymond would not give the go-ahead on the negative ads, and I didn’t really want to do it," she said. "And then, a day came and he called me and said, you’re the only person who can make the decision, . . . and without hesitation I said, ‘We’re going.’ I said, ‘We’re not looking back.’ And I said, by the way, ‘If it doesn’t work, I take full responsibility.’ "
In the end, Blanco’s attack ads, aimed primarily at raising questions about Jindal’s health-care record and appealing to women who were undecided in the race, were credited for scoring significant points against him.
So is Kathleen Blanco tougher now than before the governor’s campaign?
"Yes. I don’t think I was necessarily soft a year ago, but I think I’m tougher," she said last week.
The long election battle changed her in other ways, Blanco said.
"I’m more direct. I think I do talk less," she said.
Another lesson
During the pivotal debate just before the election, as she awaited her turn to answer the question about a "defining moment," the foundation and lessons of her life coalesced to eloquence.
Blanco is willing to talk about her son Ben, and clearly his death was her defining moment, but she’d rather not discuss the accident and the grief in the aftermath. As Kenneth Babineaux explained it, "A lot of times I feel like if you talk a lot about something, it allows you to let up."
"I sat there and I kept trying to think of any other possible thing" except Ben’s death, Blanco said.
"But I did not know how to feel about it," she said. "I’ve never walked away from a debate like that before. I always knew where I gained, where I lost. I know when I’ve messed up, I know when I’ve hit a home run, but that night I couldn’t tell you. It was a peculiar feeling. It’s like it took everything out of me. I was an empty vessel. It had a very powerful effect."
Her uncle, Eugene Broussard, 86, is glad she did not shy away from talking about Ben. He knew she had it in her to be a strong governor back during Ben’s funeral, when she bravely spoke before the congregation during her greatest hour of grief.
"People say she can’t handle tough situations as governor," Broussard said. "If she can handle that, talking about her son in church, she can handle anything."
http://www.nola.com
I don't think she should be impeached. I think she should be imprisoned. What Nagin did was bad enough not using all his resources to remove people. What Blanco did was criminal. Refusing to allow the relief organizations to bring in basic provisions is the most detestable thing I have heard. Why she has not be charged is beyond me.
"If Sen. Mary Landrieu were as good at busing black people to safety as she was at busing them to the polls to vote, none of them would have died." (Too long for tagline. Too good to forget.)
"Blanko gets more sleep than he does; more than many Californian entrepreneurs for that matter."
I'm still "at work," and will be back at it by 8 AM in the morning (I'm on the east coast, it's 11:30). No snivelling here, either. Sometimes you've got to put in the hours to make it work.
Pandora's Box and all....
Blanko and Numbskull Nagin played politics, and it cost lives. Don't blame the feds for the inaction of the state and local governments.
"Her uncle, Eugene Broussard, 86"
Broussard? Bawling for the camera must run in the family, then. It really is a family affair down there, isn't it?
All that really matters, huh. Sounds like my mother in law.
[He believes news accounts of her handling of state military and her dealings with the federal government do not make her look good and will be exploited by an opponent.]
You mean her political opponents might remind voters that she has a demonstrated record of total and complete incompetence at her job???
HOW UNFAIR!!!
YGBSM! No wonder he had so much face time......
It's painful.
She will not seek reelection. I will bet the ranch. The legislators will refuse to be seen with her. She never exhibited and leadership qualities and now they will refuse to even pretend that she has any. She is toast.
Good.
Would like to see her smear the Lt. Gov. a bit too.
"New Orleans is predominantly black and low-income, an important part of the Democratic governor's base, and most of the black and low-income population of the city was hit hard by Katrina." Karl rove had them bussed out of the state to help republicans.
The president should not be victimized?? Oh really Blank one, do tell.
ROTFLMAO. An all-morning! LOL
Whatever Governor (not for long) Blanco went through is nothing compared to what her constituents endured as a result of her incompetence.
Bobby Jindal for Gov.?
Which is why you can expect Blanco to do everything in her power to secure Federal funds to relocate them to New Orleans.
She couldn't be bothered to get her black constituents out in time to save lives, but you'd better believe she'll do everything she can to get them back in.
You got that right, those damned NO buses will run this time to truck them back, with toilets and mass transit or not.
Surely you jest, Jindal has berated and blamed Bush more than the dems have. Same goes for the dear Rep. Senator Vitter, he is a POS of the first water.
"I've probably been to hell and back,"
Should've stayed there.
If you love the President why do you assign his reasons for choosing not to overrule the Constitution to be because she is a woman and the Mayor is black?
Give me a break. Clearly the fact he argued for days for evacuation, publicly appealed for evacuation, begged her to evacuate, and considered if he had the right to assert the Insurrection Act defy your claims he neither moved quickly or that he had to do with sex/race.
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