Posted on 09/14/2005 11:18:36 AM PDT by pkajj
Political Machine Turned Out Votes N.O. Style 10 November 1996 The Baton Rouge Advocate
NEW ORLEANS - Red beans, parades and a thousand people all were part of the push that got nearly 186,000 voters to New Orleans polls on Election Day and gave Democrat Mary Landrieu a U.S. Senate victory.
Republican Louis "Woody" Jenkins has refused to concede defeat to Landrieu, who had an unofficial 5,899-vote lead after voting machines were opened Friday. The statewide tally released by the secretary of state on Friday was Landrieu 853,076, Jenkins 847,177, the closest Senate election in Louisiana history. Campaign manager Tony Perkins said volunteers will be working all weekend, checking out hundreds of complaints - especially in New Orleans, where Landrieu led Jenkins 143,050 to 42,653.
Bob Tucker, a businessman and close advisor to New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, said it was Morial's get-out-the-vote teams that won the day for Landrieu, President Clinton and Orleans Parish Leader Harry Connick. "All elections begin and end in the streets on election day. That's where the Clinton, Landrieu and Connick team won Tuesday," Tucker said.
For instance, when the management team got word at 3:15 p.m. Tuesday that a GOP tracking poll showed Jenkins ahead, it was time for an instant parade. "Within 45 minutes, we arranged a motorcade," Tucker said. "We found Mary and Marc, got school buses for workers and sound trucks with music and put on a parade to flush out our voters." Landrieu and Morial waved from campaign manager Norma Jane Sabiston's convertible.
"We moved them into the major housing project areas blowing horns and playing New Orleans music," Tucker said. "We were doing what we do best in New Orleans, having a parade." There were more parades in key areas during "surge time" - late afternoon and evening, when people get off work.
Tucker's teams tracked the turnout all day in target precincts. If the vote was slow compared to past elections, some of the 1,000 street workers were sent there to knock on doors and ask people to vote. A phone bank worked all day, asking voters to go to the polls.
The street workers were divided into two groups of 500 -one for the morning, and one for the afternoon. Those were split into four groups: One to work polling places; one to wave signs at intersections; one to go door-to-door; and one to go to shopping centers and employment centers.
The one time all were together was at lunch, when all 1,000 got a lunch of red beans and rice.
Nice find. Landrieu can find buses for campaign parades, but not for evacuation of the poor. Kind of sums up life on the Democrat Plantation...
All satire aside, reality is funnier than any satire imagined and this is hilarious in a twisted way....
This is patently false, since where in the world were they going to find school bus drivers on 45 minutes notice? -sarcasm
Holy cow, this is priceless...paging Rush, paging Bill O, paging Sean H....
This was the election when there was 105 percent turnout at some polling places. Most were in the 90 percent turnout.
I think Mary won Orleans parish by 100,000 votes.
Hello Rush and Sean, this one's for you!
This is too good. You just can't make this stuff up. It's Louisiana, after all.
Unfreakin believable!
That was the last election I voted in Louisiana before I moved to paradise, i.e., Texas.
This is rich.
Fabulous find, thanks for posting.
Outrageous! ping.
>>>Harry Connick
Is this Harry Connick Jr's dad? I know Harry Connick Jr is from NOLA. Just wondering.
I wonder how far I would get if I wanted to rent school buses to get Repubican votes?
On second thought, did they even pay for use?
According to Mary, they weren't working anyway.
Is this Harry Connick Jr's dad? I know Harry Connick Jr is from NOLA. Just wondering.
Yes, it's his dad.
I don't understand how it is legal to use public school buses to celebrate and/or 'get out the voters' to vote for one person or celebrate one candidate over another. Oh yeah, it was for a democrat. Never mind.
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