Obama wins, Huckabee leads in Louisiana presidential primary The results of the Democrat primary in Louisiana yielded no surprise, but a mild upset almost emerged on the Republican side. Sen. Barack Obama pulled in numbers pretty close to what I predicted a few days back and he will very likely then win the majority of popularly-elected delegates when the party state central committee meets May 3. But given that Sen. Hillary Clinton will get the nod of almost all of the “superdelegates,” at best Obama will win a narrow majority of the state’s delegates. This means overall at this juncture Clinton was the real winner, since the dynamics of future primaries plus the large advantage she will hold in superdelegates when the dust settles means Obama needed to put as much space as possible as he could between him and her and he got little. For Republicans, the expectation was that the suspension of his campaign by former Gov. Mitt Romney would discourage enough people from voting for him that it could allow Sen. John McCain to claim the 50 percent plus one vote needed to ensure that elected Republican delegates become pledges to him, about half of the total to be decided next weekend. Instead, support in north Louisiana for former Gov. Mike Huckabee thrust him into the position of potentially eclipsing the absolute majority statewide needed to capture these delegates. All night as votes were counted, Huckabee cruised in the upper forty percent of the vote, However, since several candidates unlike Romney had withdrawn rather than suspended their campaigns, their votes were thrown out of the calculations to compute a winner, with those candidates getting about 2 percent of the overall vote. Thus, Huckabee’s effective overall percentage need to get the delegates was only about 49 percent. In the end, Romney’s decision not to withdraw may have led to Huckabee’s inability to crest over the magic mark. Assuming those voters would not have voted or of those who did at least half voted for Huckabee, the 6 percent Romney did pick up was enough to deny him. And a vote for many for Romney could have bee purely intentional, even knowing effectively he was out of the race – a show of defiance against McCain for lacking too many core conservative beliefs, against Huckabee for his desire to tax and spend, and against Rep. Ron Paul (who Romey still outdistanced) for his inability to understand optimal foreign policy. Thus, the actual distribution of delegates will be decided next Satruday. So in the end, the Republican version had little meaning bearing on a McCain progression to the nomination, while the Democrat exercise helped keep the competition going between Clinton and Obama without any substantial advantage to either side. (If you'd like to have Prof. Sadow's column mailed to you, go to http://www.between-lines.com and click on "Join the mailing list!" on the left-hand side.) …
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Broadmoor residents host House District 6 candidates The fun started when U.S. Rep. Jim McCrery announced his retirement at the end of 2008 but what really set things in motion was when then-state Rep. Mike Powell not only passed on this race, but also on his own seat. The resulting chaos points to 2008 being an interesting year for political watchers in northwest Louisiana. Powell had long been considered one of the front runners for the Fourth District slot and his state post was as secure as could be, witnessed by only him qualifying for it last September. But by the end of the year he had resigned it and begged out completely, citing the need to feed the various mouths of his large family. This has perturbed some who wondered why Powell simply didn’t run for reelection, arguing that the need to concentrate on a full-time career wasn’t one that appears suddenly, which would not have required the special election this Saturday for his seat. Regardless whether Powell is in office he has built a substantial political organization in east Shreveport and the efficiency for it to elect preferred candidates is maximized by controlling the timing of the election to replace him. That candidate may be former city councilman Republican Thomas Carmody who many of Powell’s supporters backed in his two successful runs for the Council finishing his service there in 2006. That candidate probably is not Republican Barrow Peacock, who ran against Powell in 2003 and who just finished up a try for the state senate seat in this district. Success in this election is crucial for Peacock, now making his third attempt for the state legislature in slightly more than four years. When somebody makes a couple of spirited if unsuccessful attempts for office, he’s often seen as persistent and eager to serve. But strike out three times and for subsequent attempts he’s often viewed as a crank who won’t give up even as the people’s verdict is clear. While Peacock almost doubled his proportion of the vote in 2007 over 2003, the fact is he missed the general election runoff both times running campaigns that were a mile wide and an inch deep – leading one to wonder whether he has a license to print money as his largely self-financed, expensive campaigns both times have revealed not much support from the activist base of the Republican Party. And he did himself no favors last fall with this group by refusing to back publicly genuine conservative Republican B.L. “Buddy” Shaw in the Senate runoff against ex-Democrat state Rep. Billy Montgomery (especially as it is Montgomery donated to Carmody's campaign). Peacock will benefit from his recent joust as the name recognition garnered from it will carry over into this contest barely three months removed from the last. But the dynamics differ dramatically in this special election held concurrently with presidential preference primaries because the lower turnout will …
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McCain pulls ahead; Clinton, Obama close Many in the political class nationwide snickered when Louisiana placed the imperatives of Mardi Gras ahead of bumping up its presidential preference primaries four days as did almost half of American states and territories. Many predicted the irrelevancy of the primary. But given delegate results to date, unexpectedly the state will get plenty of attention over the next few days and already the increased importance of the event is rippling through the state’s political environment. Where the state really will matter is on the Democrat side. Sen. Barack Obama will visit New Orleans tomorrow although Sen. Hillary Clinton at this point plans not visits. The latter may indicate that her campaign will write off the state courtesy of the dynamic in play starting with the South Carolina primary: black democrats overwhelmingly choose Obama, even as whites in large but lesser proportions choose Clinton. At present, of the state Democrat electorate 45 percent are black but it must be realized that a significant chunk of white Democrats regularly do not vote for Democrats and will not want to participate in Saturday’s primary, giving Obama the edge. Still, complicated apportionment rules for Democrats don’t mean that Obama will come out ahead in Louisiana, even if in the delegates selected by popular vote. For one, only 37 of the 66 delegates will come from the popular vote, and Democrat rules are that these must be apportioned by congressional district with any candidate (or uncommitted slate) getting at least 15 percent of the vote to receive a delegate (other rules apply in no one does, but that won’t happen). Districts have delegates available on the basis of party performance in the 2007 elections where higher-supporting districts get more delegates. Applying a rule of thumb that all black and 75 percent of white Democrats vote with 90 percent of blacks for Obama and 80 percent of whites for Clinton, the former would win 21 and the latter 16 delegates. Statewide, Obama would pick up 57 percent of the vote which also would give him the edge with the delegates to be selected at the state central committee meeting May 3 – 19 up for grabs and if the proportion is followed, Obama may get 11 of them giving him an 8 delegate overall edge. But Clinton still could “tie” the state because of the 10 additional “super-delegates” to be selected at the meeting, only one, Rep. William Jefferson, may lean Obama’s way. And since Obama has to overcome an overall national deficit of delegates with Clinton, if she can hold his delegate haul from Louisiana near parity with hers, it’s practically speaking a win for her. The GOP side is simpler to calculate but potentially even messier since apportionment of delegates actually will be made the weekend after the vote (unless one candidate gets at least half of the vote which is highly unlikely) at a convention …
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Transparent as mud “Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel” is an aphorism attributed to someone who actually did buy his ink by the barrel, Benjamin Franklin – and one that perhaps Gov. Bobby Jindal will test, but with good reason. Jeremy Alford – who’s an independent journalist who therefore has to contract out his stories without a set paycheck to rely upon – put into print frustration that other journalists no doubt have felt concerning Jindal and his administration’s tight control of information it will release about the inner workings of his governing. No doubt exacerbating Alford’s distress is by not being on some corporate payroll, he has less of a margin for error in what he can deliver and thereby becomes more dependent on getting information for stories. Without it, it’s harder for him to do the job the way he thinks it should be done. Whether Jindal’s infant administration will end up being more closed-lipped about stuff than any others – we all too quickly have forgotten how reluctant the Kathleen Blanco Administration was to release documents about her handling of the hurricane disasters (never completely, and with, from her political perspective, good reason not to) – chances are even if it isn’t you will hear more grumbling out of the media about Jindal’s than those of past governors. But the reasons why really rest with the media itself. Like it or not, and regardless whether the media will admit them, there are certain realities about reporters in general that are going to cause reactions similar to Alford’s. To all my friends in the media, do note that I write here in general terms, for not all reporters carry these attitudes. But if they are honest with themselves, they will recognize the veracity of these observations concerning many in their profession – particularly in those who regularly cover politics: First, the only profession whose members are more cynical about politicians than political scientists is journalism. Because journalists have seen so many up-close-and-personal examples of self-interest getting in the way of policy, the natural (and lazy) reaction is from any political action to wring out the possibility that self-interest is not the primary motivator for the politicians in question. Indeed, many evolve to the point where they think the system cannot keep such people out of office, so they think practically anybody who wins elections, if given a chance, always will sell out the public good for the private, which then complements and magnifies a second attitude. That is an inflated sense of place they give themselves as journalists. Seeing politics as so corrupt and venial, they become convinced that journalists are literally the figurative finger in the dike that prevents water from washing away democracy through their provision of information, holding the politicians’ veniality at bay. Some feel if it weren’t for them, constantly pressuring politicians from trying to hide things and exposing dirty laundry when …
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Landrieu, others defend earmarks Sen. Mary Landrieu is not going to go away without a struggle, as she indicated with her defense of “earmarks” in the face of a growing public revulsion about them. These are specific spending requests placed into appropriations bills during the committee phase of investigation, often by members on the special committees assigned to look at all appropriations bills, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. Democrat Landrieu currently serves on the Senate’s and already is in hot water about a series of earmarks for funding schools nationwide (including in Louisiana in the first year) with a reading program mainly geared towards Washington, D.C. schools. Officials there claimed they didn’t really want the program and the timing of the earmark relative to campaign fundraisers staged for Landrieu have led many to charge Landrieu with exchanging her support for campaign donations (which followed on the heels of yet another incident of questionable fundraising.) More generally, Landrieu argues for earmarks – using rhetoric stunningly myopic. For one, Landrieu seems to think the $17 billion currently set aside for these “is made to sound like a huge amount of money.” That’s only because it is a huge amount of money, as well as spent for the wrong reasons. It’s funny how Landrieu has whined on several occasions over far smaller sums of money, such as when the state and federal government were jockeying over whether the state should pay $800 million in matching funds for hurricane recovery (the federal government by now having pumped in perhaps 100 times that figure). To math teachers, a number’s value is its number and larger numbers are always larger than smaller ones. To Landrieu, it seems numbers and their relative placements are defined only by politics. Myopia also extends to her philosophical defense of the practice. Along the lines of the argument that “worthy” projects may be stalled for years that earmarks promote, she said “There are actually some good ideas that don't come out of the federal bureaucracy.” Perhaps, but that does not then necessarily mean that an overtly political process is the only or even best way to create a priority list given that process creates tremendous incentives to place more priority on a legislator’s political career than on any objective criteria. While some argue that this process helps “good” projects along, they conveniently forget to admit that it equally elevates “bad” projects that otherwise never should see any funding. An excellent example in the case of Landrieu concerns the occasions she used her political muscle to influence money to be spent for other dubious purposes that could have gone to flood protection prior to the 2005 hurricane disasters (on one, interfering with the evaluation process that qualified a marginal project). Generally speaking, Citizens Against Government Waste named her “Porker of the Month” for Sept., 2003 and gave her a special award for profligacy in 2006. Part of the …
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Jindal unveils ethics proposals for LA special session Much anticipated, the call for the special session promised for months by Gov. Bobby Jindal is here and, as he had argued he wanted a “gold standard” of ethics laws, that’s what he produced, and he may get it out of the Legislature. However, he didn’t ask for a titanium standard. That would have meant an outright ban on lobbyist gifts to and elected or appointed policy-maker and applying financial disclosure requirements to all without exclusions for jurisdictions of fewer than 5,000 (who under Jindal’s request will file general affidavits of fidelity). Still, gold is very good and denotes the top rank in things as varied as the Olympics and beer-tasting competitions. The question now shifts to how much of it will find it way into law. Jindal set the session at three weeks – realistically 15 days given weekends unless that last Saturday gets requisitioned – which shows there’s a lot to do and there will be some controversy. Some items have come up before with varying degrees of progress – a ban on free tickets to events involving sports (in the past almost all) and culture (and barely any instances), offering a constitutional amendment to have forfeited taxpayer-paid portions of pensions if an official is convicted of a crime related to public service, and prohibition of legislators from changing votes made on the floor after disposition of a bill (still practiced in the House of Representatives). Of course, none ever succeeded in getting made into law or rule. Now, these all ought to go through. Of the first two, with so many new legislators in the House having no exposure to the benefits of free tickets and (most of them) not having acquired any vesting towards a state pension, House majorities on these should be sufficient to put too much pressure on the more-veteran senators who will be more resistant. As for the third, the veteran nature of the Senate probably would lead to its defeat – except the rule already is present in the Senate, and the many new House members never having taken advantage of a switch have little loyalty to the existing rule allowing them to do that. Also expect the request to extend reporting requirements to candidates for office to get enacted. These legislators will take the attitude that if they have to follow more stringent requirements as elected officials, so ought their future opponents – maybe discouraging some quality challengers to them. And they’ll fall over themselves trying to put into law the item preventing all statewide and legislative candidates, not just those presently in those offices as is current law, from conducting fundraising during legislative sessions. Where Jindal might find his requests the most endangered are those dealing with the ability of legislators, spouses, siblings, parents, and companies in which they have any “interest” (what portion of ownership of an entity is an …
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Ballots set for U.S. House races Qualifying for the two special elections for U.S. House in Louisiana are over, and conservative Republicans are immediate favorites to take both seats. That’s not such a bold statement concerning the First District. Vacated by Gov. Bobby Jindal who won overwhelmingly both times out, the winner of the Republican primary in March or April would have to become incapacitated prior to the April or May general election in order for a Democrat to win. The three major Republicans – state Sen. Steve Scalise, state Rep. Tim Burns, and Slidell Mayor Ben Morris – are very likely to pursue conservative policies in the House. Scalise would be favored among the three. Not only has he served in elective office longest but he has been the most high profile of the three and has picked up some heavyweight endorsements. Further aiding him is that Burns and Morris are northshore candidates, splitting that vote potentially and leaving the southshore entirely to Scalise. It’s not likely Scalise can win without a runoff with Burns being the more likely opponent, but he should be able to get past his former state House colleague in April. The Sixth District in contrast might have been more competitive but the dynamics in the Democrat primary may hand the election to the Republicans. Louis “Woody” Jenkins would be the favorite on the GOP side because of much more name recognition and past campaign acumen. Many still recall how he beat more prominent Republicans to come within a few thousand votes of winning the U.S. Senate seat still held by Mary Landrieu (and most won’t remember how he waged a futile protracted battle to overturn the decision which cost him support in his failed run to win the old elections commissioner job in 1999.) It will be difficult for his two other major opponents to outdistance a longtime fixture on the Baton Rouge and state media and politics scenes with an impeccably conservative reputation. Jenkins could win without a runoff. Despite knowing that demographics make it impossible for a non-conservative black candidate to win this district, two quality black candidates signed up to run on the Democrat side of the ledger along with two major white candidates. Jason Decuir came within double digits in votes of knocking off prominent former state House member state Sen. Yvonne Dorsey last fall, an impressive showing for a first-timer despite that power broker former state Sen. Cleo Fields supported Dorsey. The other black Democrat isn’t chopped liver, state Rep. Michael Jackson, but whether he can beat DeCuir depends upon how much animus Fields and his political machine feels towards DeCuir and whether that means Fields will actively support Jackson. Major white candidates are state Rep. Don Cazayoux and former government official under the previous two governors Andy Kopplin. Between these two, Cazayoux has the edge because of his lengthy and relatively …
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63 exemptions granted in Jindal hiring freeze Just what kind of game are Louisiana higher education systems playing in regard to the hiring freeze implemented by Gov. Bobby Jindal? The executive order mandates that state agencies obtain exemption to hire in any open position, since Jan. 15, from Commissioner of Administration Angèle Davis. While the Louisiana State University system won approval for the one blanket exemption, to hire direct providers of health care in the charity hospital system that it runs, Davis has rejected two other requests from Commissioner of Higher Education (soon to parachute into the presidency of the University of Louisiana- Lafayette) Joseph Savoie, first a blanket exemption for any university hiring, then one adjudged by university heads not Davis just turned down by Davis. While all of this jockeying from higher education has gone on, other agencies have been dutifully compiling the data and getting exemptions – one of them being Savoie’s employer, the Board of Regents itself. In the meantime, Savoie has been complaining about having universities do the same – and not always recounting his case for blanket exemptions in an accurate way. In a letter to Davis the day after the inauguration, Savoie wrote “More importantly perhaps, it would send a signal throughout the entire academic community that Louisiana is not a state upon which faculty, researchers and top-flight administrators can depend for good faith recruitment efforts.” If he believes this, it shows that despite his dozen years in his position and almost two decades in higher education prior to that, Savoie hasn’t learned a whole lot about faculty hiring in higher education. Position freezes are not at all uncommon for job applicants to deal with and they are not seen as unusual nor automatic disqualifiers of a prospective employer precisely because they are so common. Later, Savoie argued that the freeze would affect hiring for adjunct positions. Adjuncts instructors are hired on a course-by-course basis to fill in gaps not able to be covered by the full-time faculty members. But unless I have totally missed something in the wording of the order, the freeze doesn’t apply to adjunct positions because they are temporary and part-time. We also have to understand to context of the complaints Savoie is making. Remember that Jindal knows full well how higher education works, having led the University of Louisiana system. He probably knows that, in fact, the process of re-justifying new faculty positions is probably easier than what most other agencies face. In academia, new faculty jobs are created at the behest of academic departments who provide evidence of the need of the position – burgeoning enrollments, for example – which then must be approved by a chain of command all the way to the system level before any hiring can begin. This means most of the work Davis is requesting already has been done. In other words, if Savoie would just give the order to system …
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Hot topics subject of documentary An interesting addition to the political landscape that connects to politics in Louisiana is the documentary film “Article VI” co-directed by Bryan Hall and co-produced by former Shreveporter Reed Dickens the statewide premier of which occurred Monday at LSUS. It raises provocative questions that, among others around the country, Louisiana voters will have to grapple with over the upcoming days as votes are cast in the presidential preference primary. Its timing and content contributes to the debate about the next occupant of the White House (the goal of the film, Hall and Dickens say, to make people think about how religious belief affects these choices) because the 2008 presidential election seems to be producing the most specific questioning of particular religious beliefs of candidates in recent memory. To be simplistic if not crass, major candidates include one whose religion just over a century ago practiced polygamy, another who has preached Bible inerrancy, a third who was in his youth educated in schools whose religious backers maintain the acceptability of holy war, and a fourth whose religious leaders forbid him to receive Communion. Perhaps the central point made by the film through the vehicle of asking people, usually with some prominence in the political, academic, or religious sectors, about the intersection of religion and politics (its title refers to that section of the Constitution which states “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”) is that, while the Constitution does not demand a religious test, some people do supply one when they evaluate candidates. Related to this, it then begs the question whether a myopic view of the specific religious beliefs of individuals would, in the minds of some, disqualify candidates who in most every other respect would gain that particular person’s vote. By way of example, Pres. Ronald Reagan was divorced (only the second president ever) and, until latter in life, only an occasional attendee of Presbyterian services (he seldom attended services during his presidency because of the public complications and distractions involved). Yet Reagan, who would describe himself as “born-again,” was well-known for forcefully championing a number of issue preferences that Christians, particularly evangelicals, liked and in his private life placed much emphasis on basing his own actions on religious belief. In contrast, Pres. Bill and his wife, now presidential candidate and Sen. Hillary Clinton were regular attendees of (a very liberal) church in Washington (although they had attended a Baptist church in Arkansas). Yet many faithful questioned not only Clinton’s issue preferences that did not seem very Godly to them, but also acts in his personal life as president as well. It’s this question about how voters consider the translation of the political beliefs of candidates into actual policy that looms as presidential party nominees are decided. To cite just one example, on issues that …
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'Fessing up, but a bit late Lest one think the Shreveport Times has the only hypocritical editorialists of newspapers in the state, the Baton Rouge Advocate showed it doesn’t want to be left out when discussing media that says one thing and then does another. The Advocate, joining the head of the state’s Democrats, took a shot at Gov. Bobby Jindal and his campaign staff that, by all accounts, made an inadvertent, incorrect entry on campaign finance documents. The state GOP spent money on the campaign’s behalf in June but campaign operatives overlooked to note it on the next filing due in June. In August, they were alerted to it and amended their previous form in September. However, this was too late to escape a fine which will be levied in the next few months. Democrat Chairman Chris Whittington, with so little for his party to crow about last fall, took the opportunity to ask that Jindal’s chief of staff Timmy Teepell resign over the matter, prompting Jindal’s communications director Melissa Sellers to describe the request as “silly” and that the process that led to the complaint was a “political stunt.” Whittington, who normally apparently is not easily offended by remarks or actions made by politicians in the area of ethics – as long as they are Democrats (witness his remaining silent over the years on ethics abuses committed by Democrat ex-state Sen. Charles Jones nor objected to Jones’ leading the committee in charge of ethics in the Senate, culminating with Jones’ recent indictment for corrupt practices while in office) – suddenly took offense to this characterization. So did the opinion page of The Advocate, huffily opining “if it’s going to be dismissed as partisanship when a Democrat raises an issue, or escape attention at all unless mentioned in the media, we don’t know how to define the administration’s operating principle. Transparent when caught?” But The Advocate itself in the piece deliberately tries to mislead on the nature of the complaint. It refers to the complaint as “from a Democrat.” True enough – but from the former head of the Tulane College Democrats who continues to play an active role in the party. The way The Advocate implies it, some concerned citizen with no agenda whatsoever accidentally one day stumbled upon the discrepancy, his pastime being reading thousands of pages of campaign finance reports. No, it was somebody whose motivation could not be only to champion politics pure as the driven snow, but somebody fact-checking with the express purpose of trying to find damaging information that could be used in a partisan fashion. In other words, does The Advocate seriously believe that this guy would have been doing this without any partisan motivation? (If so, I’ve got a great deal for them on land in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward next to the Industrial Canal.) And why wouldn’t they state the exact position of this guy? In trying to …
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