Clean Campaign Vowed {for Baton Rouge Mayor-President Race}

Mayor-President Bobby Simpson, a Republican, and state Sen. Kip Holden, D-Baton Rouge, are pledging to steer clear of negative campaigning as they battle in the upcoming runoff election.

Simpson, however, said he has little hope the race will stay positive because a political action committee called BRNEXT plans to continue its attacks against him.

"As long as BRNEXT stays in this race, it (a positive campaign) probably won't happen," Simpson said.

Simpson said he expects BRNEXT to continue its "anybody but Bobby" campaign through the Nov. 2 runoff for mayor-president.

BRNEXT is a newly formed political action committee that claims to focus on issues in local races, but doesn't make candidate endorsements.

BRNEXT Executive Director Caroline Roemer said her organization plans to continue focusing on Simpson's record.

"The mayor is trying to make us go away by trying to make us look like we're something negative, something ugly, something illegitimate. But that's not the issue here, and he knows it. The issue is his record," said Roemer, who served as Rolfe McCollister Jr.'s campaign director when he ran against Simpson in 2000.

Roemer said Simpson should be concerned about finishing second in Saturday's primary with only 34 percent of the vote.

"If I were the mayor or if I were the mayor's campaign (manager), I would not have gone home last night feeling warm and fuzzy with that 34 percent. The fact is that almost 70 percent of the people that turned out to vote voted for somebody else. They voted for change," Roemer said.

Roemer said it doesn't matter if people like or dislike BRNEXT; the important thing is that the group has served as a catalyst for discussion and debate in the mayor's race.

Holden said he's planning to run a positive runoff campaign, but stands ready to defend himself if attacked.

"We're looking to keep it pretty clean; but on the other hand, we're not going to sit back and allow someone to try and take potshots at us," Holden said.

"We're going to run an aggressive campaign; but, we don't intend to run a mean-spirited campaign," Holden said.

Holden said he doesn't consider his promise to avoid negative campaigning to prohibit him from pointing out problems with Simpson's record.

"I want to examine some of the things that the mayor's taking credit for, and begin to show the public that I have had a role in them, the state has had a role in them and many other people have had a role in them."

As an example, Holden pointed to the redevelopment of downtown Baton Rouge, which was featured in one of Simpson's television ads.

BRNEXT attacked the ad as misleading, and noted that Gov. Mike Foster deserves credit for pumping millions in state money into downtown construction.

In Saturday's primary, Holden and Simpson secured runoff spots by finishing first and second, respectively.

Holden was the front-runner with 39,470 or 35 percent of the votes cast Saturday, while Simpson was second with 38,206, or 34 percent, according to complete but unofficial returns.

Simpson won a majority of precincts in the heavily Republican southeastern portions and the rural northeast parts of East Baton Rouge Parish.

State Rep. William Daniel, D-Baton Rouge, who finished a distant third with 27,662 or 25 percent, won several precincts in and around his legislative district in the southwestern part of the parish.

The upcoming runoff will be a rematch of the 2000 runoff, which Simpson won with 57 percent of the vote.

Simpson's looking to make history repeat itself, while Holden, an African-American, said he's working to expand his base of support to reach a larger cross-section of the community.

Simpson said he views this election as a battle between a select few who want to control Baton Rouge, and his own efforts to make government work for everyone.

Simpson admits he had some concerns when large amounts of money surfaced in the race during the final days of his campaign.

BRNEXT Chairman Lane Grigsby, founder and chairman of Cajun Constructors Inc., loaned BRNEXT an additional $100,000 on Aug. 25.

During the same 19-day reporting period, BRNEXT received an additional $30,500 in loans from Grigsby's company.

Meanwhile, Daniel loaned his campaign an additional $100,000 on Sept. 1 to help run a television ad that borrowed footage from a BRNEXT ad to criticize Simpson's inability to keep traffic flowing in Baton Rouge.

"We worried right at the end, with all of the money that was thrown in. But our tracking showed that it wasn't sticking, and so we were happy about that," Simpson said.

Holden spent very little money during the primary, and had only $24,358 in funds on hand when the latest reporting period ended on Aug. 29.

Holden, an attorney, attributed part of his victory in the primary to his endorsement in the final week by the Baton Rouge Association of Fire Fighters, IAFF Local 557, which represents more than 500 firefighters in the parish.

Closer mayor's race runoff predicted

By SCOTT DYER
sdyer@theadvocate.com
Advocate staff writer

Staff photo by Richard Alan Hannon.
Bobby Simpson
The runoff for mayor-president in East Baton Rouge Parish may be a rematch of the 2000 race, but don't necessarily look for an instant replay.
Four years ago, Mayor-President Bobby Simpson won the runoff with 57 percent to state Sen. Melvin "Kip" Holden's 43 percent.

Some political observers predict a much closer race or even a different result Nov. 2.

For instance, former Secretary of State Jim Brown said he thinks Holden, a Democrat, can become the city-parish's first African-American mayor-president if he can attract enough white voters to support him.

"My guess is that Kip needs 22 percent of the white vote, and he can get elected," said Brown, who served six months in federal prison for lying to the FBI while serving as state insurance commissioner.

He now publishes a regular political column for an Internet site.

Advocate staff photo by Kerry Maloney.
Kip Holden
In precincts that were at least 90 percent white, Holden won only 12 percent of the vote cast Saturday, compared to Simpson's 50 percent and third-place finisher state Rep. William Daniel's 38 percent.

Overall, Holden was the top finisher with 35 percent of the total votes cast in the primary, compared to Simpson's 34 percent and the Democratic Daniel's 25 percent.

Brown, a Democrat, said the key for a Holden victory is to bring some white business leaders aboard his campaign.

"Whether anybody wants to talk about it or not, there are tremendous black-white demographics in this race," Brown said.

"And Kip's got to show that he can open his campaign and bring in a cross-section of people who will bring a comfort level to middle-class, undecided white voters who see him as a qualified, articulate guy, but has some reservations about voting for an African-American mayor," he said.

Census Bureau figures from 2000 show the parish's population is about 60 percent white and 40 percent black, while black people make up a slight majority of the population in the city limits.

Inside the city limits, Holden won 58 percent of the votes cast compared to Simpson's 35 percent.

Under the city-parish form of government, voters in Baton Rouge, Baker and Zachary and unincorporated parts of the parish can elect the mayor of Baton Rouge, who also serves as parish president.

The 12-member Metro Council also serves the entire parish.

Brown said many white voters are concerned if Holden is elected, there may be "nothing but African Americans running Baton Rouge."

"That may not be a fair knock to make, but Kip has to show that he's going to have an all-encompassing administration," Brown said.

On the other hand, Brown said Simpson, a Republican, should focus on attracting Daniel's supporters to his camp, even though Daniel has endorsed Holden for the runoff.

"If I were Simpson, I would be on the phone and going to see all those people on Daniel's fund-raising list, and trying to bridge a lot of that opposition," Brown said.

Daniel, D-Baton Rouge, said he ran a close second to Simpson in the many of the heavily Republican precincts in the southeastern part of the parish.

Daniel said he didn't do nearly as well in the predominantly black urban precincts north of Florida Boulevard dominated by Holden.

In the precincts that are least 90 percent black, Holden got 86 percent of the vote, compared with Daniel's 8 percent and Simpson's 6 percent.

Daniel said he thinks the fact that Simpson received 34 percent of the votes in the primary shows the incumbent is in trouble.

"It shows that 66 percent of the voters want change," Daniel said.

Frank Ransburg, a political science professor at Southern University, agreed.

"In the primary, 66 percent of the people essentially said they were unhappy with Bobby Simpson. Whether or not those people go to Kip remains to be seen, but it is significant," Ransburg said.

Ransburg said he's looking for a much closer runoff this year than in 2000.

State Rep. Mike Futrell, a Baton Rouge Republican who previously served on the Metro Council, said it's a mistake to assume Daniel's votes will go to Holden.

"I don't think Daniel's votes will automatically go to Kip, because I think a lot of them came from people who considered Daniel to be a moderate candidate. I don't know that you could call Kip a moderate," he said.

Futrell said Daniel made every effort to stay in the middle during the campaign, but still failed to wrestle the southeastern part of the parish from Simpson.

"Daniel had to win there in order to have a chance to win," he said.

By contrast, Holden has a liberal legislative record and is up front about it, Futrell said.

"If you ask Kip, he'll tell you, 'I am going to raise your taxes,' and I don't think Baton Rouge is ready for a mayor who is quite so left-leaning," Futrell said.

In campaigning during the primary, Holden was the only candidate to pledge to push a property tax election to fund police pay and equipment if he can't find the money in the existing city-parish budget.

"To lead with that is probably not a good idea," Futrell said of Holden's tax proposal.

Futrell said he wasn't surprised to see Simpson survive the primary.

"I thought Bobby Simpson put forth a credible job and his opponents did not..." he said.

Futrell said he expects Simpson to win a second term in a close runoff.

Meanwhile, two other Republicans, an independent, Stephanie Greco, and a third Democrat, former Baker Mayor Leroy Davis, were eliminated in Saturday's primary.

Both former parish Registrar of Voters Nat Bankson, who got 4 percent of the votes cast, and John Fontenot, a former lawyer with the state Department of Insurance who finished with about 1 percent of the votes case, are Republicans.

They said they don't plan to endorse anyone in the runoff.

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