LOUISIANA SENATE PRESIDENT CONSIDERS ANOTHER PARTY SWITCH

Politics1 ^ | 11/25/2003 | Politics1

[Abram]

LOUISIANA SENATE PRESIDENT CONSIDERS ANOTHER PARTY SWITCH. Louisiana State Senate President John Hainkel (R) enjoys his leadership job and wants to have a good working relationship with incoming Governor Kathleen Blanco (D). Blanco -- who is replacing a term-limited GOP incumbent -- let it be known she'd like the next House Speaker and Senate President to be Democrats, according to CQ Politics Today. Hainkel told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that the most important thing to him is retaining his leadership post: "Maybe I’ll be [a] Democrat ... If that is the biggest freakin’ thing ... to [Blanco], I’d change my party affiliation. It doesn’t make any difference to me. I could be an independent or a Libertarian or a Tory." Hainkel, a conservative, served as House Speaker as a Democrat in the late 1980s, before switching to the GOP in the 1990s when the tide shifted in his state. Hainkel also briefly flirted with making a GOP run for Governor earlier this year.

[Abram]

What an opportunist...I am not from LA and don't know LA politics very well, but this doesn't sit well with me as he switched parties approximately 10 with the tide and now is considering switching again. This stinks of Jeffords.

[JohnnyZ]

In his defense, party affiliation is not a big thing in Louisiana. There are three main parties: Black Democrats, Conservative Democrats, and Conservative Republicans. With the occasional Landrieu liberal thrown in for a little added corruption.

[Impy]

(Censored)

Why isn't a rat (well I guess technically one is) the Senate President?

A group of conservative rats backed Stinkel for President?

[Impy]

Louisiana seems to be the most politcally messed up or "whack" if you will, state in the union.

[Abram]

You are right The New Orleans political machine make Tammaney Hall and the Chicago Daley machine look like a side show at a three ring circus. Lotsa dead people voting in LA...We saw it when Jindal lost and when Terrell lost.

[Abram]

I don't know...that is a good question. LA politics are more confusing that CA politics. The whole Cajun style politics are pretty confusing to a Northwestern...Do we have any LA readers that can comment?

[Kuksool]

The LA GOP is largely made up of ex-Dems. Rep. Billy Tauzin (LA-03) and Outgoing GOP Governor Murphy Foster were once registered Dems. Jindal was probably the first GOP Governor candidate to never have switched parties.

[Kuksool]

Ping!

[Abram]

I can understand that...the National Democrat Party has left a lot of Southern Conservative Democrats in the cold. A lot of them have joined the Republican Party as they stand a lot more for their ideals. I think that LA will move more and more to the Republican Party, especially if the Ds nominate a Kuinich, Dean, Sharpton, Braun...Southerns tend to be much more socially conservative than many northern Republicans, such as myself. We Northerners (Yankees), of the Republican Party, tend to be more fiscal conservatives than social conservatives... We saw and will continue to see some large-scale defections of Southern Democrats to the Republican Party. Zell Miller has done everything but change who he caucuses with...he is hated by most of his Senate colleagues that see him as a sellout. I see that the National Democrats have left him (and like-thinking conservatives) vs. the other way around.
I was concerned that the National Republicans were moving so far to the right a couple of years ago that we would lose more liberal Republicans to the dark side. Jeffords was a first, but even he could not take himself to call himself a Democrat. I have thought about it before, but that would be going against way too much of the way that I think and decided that I would attempt to influence the Party from within to espouse liberterian tendencies when it came to social issues. The Republicans are the true "big tent" and think that disenfranchised Ds and Independents will see that. It is not all or nothing...it is a give and take.

[Abram]

Thanks for the history lesson. I knew overview of the Cajun system and knew it was patterned after the French political system, but didn't know it stemmed from Edwards' Constitutional conventions. Very interesting...

Do you think that Blanco is going to make a good governor? What about Jindal? Is he done politically in LA? Do you feel that it was a racial issue that he did not get elected?

[Clintonfatigued]

If I'm not mistaken, Hainkel represents a solidly Republican district. He could be setting himself up for a defeat.

[Galactic Overlord-In-Chief]

I believe he's term limited out in 2007, so it really doesn't make a difference in his case.

[deport]

Lotsa dead people voting in LA...We saw it when Jindal lost and when Terrell lost.

---

Seriously, how do you know that? Do you have proof?

[razorback-bert]

Being buried above ground makes it easier to vote.

[Abram]

I maybe should have premised that with, "it is my opinion", but the Ds didn't temper their emotional charges that the Republicans stole the election in FL.

It seems a little questionable that Jindal was ahead in some polls by 10% and then loses by 4%....True, I never really trust polls, but just about every poll had him ahead within at least the margin of errors.

[deport]

Jindal got eaten alive by a blitz in the last few days of the campaign and he never responded. Along the Bayous in cane country they played the Sugar issue which killed his chances.... They played the issue of seniors and their health care being impacted like it was when he ran the Health system in LA and he never corrected or responsed.

Jindal lost all but 12 parishes.... The democrats came home to their known candidate and didn't cross over to Jindal...... Apparently the white voters in rural areas went heavily to Blanco 52 to 48 Jindal. Jindal can't win with those numbers.

La has instituted a picture ID to vote now. That makes it much harder to pull off fraud, but it can be done. Why take the risk when you don't have to. Jindal was on the decline the last week in polls and it never stopped. La is basically a democrat state and still remains that way today. It will change over time........

As far as Terrell she ran a bad campaign at the end. She was elected once in a statewide race when two republicans got in the run off in 1999 for a no name job of Commissioner of Elections which has since been eliminated .... Otherwise she's never been a big impact on La politics. New Orleans City Council 1994 and reelected in 1998. Lost her last two races out, Senator and State Attorney General.