Posted on 01/28/2006 7:30:28 PM PST by NormsRevenge
BATON ROUGE, La. - Even before Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana Democratic Party was struggling in a conservative state skewing more Republican in its voting tendencies.
Voters overwhelmingly backed President Bush for re-election in 2004 and selected their first Republican U.S. senator since Reconstruction.
Katrina dwarfed those concerns with even bigger problems: nonstop criticism of Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco and the scattering of thousands of residents from New Orleans, normally a Democratic stronghold, amid questions about how many will return.
As the Democratic State Central Committee on Saturday chose attorney Chris Whittington as its third state party chairman in less than three years, many Democrats said they wanted to refocus the party in the increasingly Republican South.
"We have let the Republicans define us into something that we are not," said Whittington, of Baton Rouge, the party's general counsel.
Whittington said his first priority is raising dollars. The party hasn't done much fundraising since the hurricanes, and its fundraising base of New Orleans was devastated by the storms.
"I think the most polite term that you can use is disarray," said Elliott Stonecipher, a Louisiana pollster and political analyst. "The party apparatus seems to have taken a knockdown, if not a knockout punch."
The last party chairman, Jim Bernhard, resigned less than three weeks after Katrina roared ashore Aug. 29, nine months into the job.
Bernhard said he needed to focus on his engineering and construction company, The Shaw Group Inc., but critics said he needed to resign to avoid allegations of favoritism as Shaw received millions of dollars in post-hurricane rebuilding contracts.
Bernhard had replaced Mike Skinner, a former U.S. attorney who left the chairmanship after a series of disappointments in the 2004 congressional elections, including the election of Republican David Vitter to the U.S. Senate.
On paper, the party is still dominant, with about 1.6 million Democratic voters in Louisiana to 694,000 Republicans, according to January voter registration numbers from the secretary of state's office. About 600,000 are registered with other party affiliations.
However, Democratic voter rolls are shrinking while the number of registered Republications has grown in recent years.
Democratic Party spokesman Andrew Koneschusky said he thinks GOP gains in Louisiana are overstated and that Democrats can regain their footing by talking about the issues that unite them.
"I firmly don't believe (Republicans) have the better product. I think in recent years they've had better marketing," Koneschusky said.
Katrina muddied the political scene by dispersing voters to other states, making accurate polls and easy campaigns nearly impossible.
Stonecipher said the Democratic Party needs New Orleans' black voters, who usually vote heavily Democratic, to return in large numbers.
James Carville, national Democratic strategist and a Louisiana native, said the response from the Republican-led Congress and White House to the hurricane damage and the needs of the people can boost support for Democrats in Louisiana.
"The way they've gotten the back of the hand from this administration, I don't see why people would want to vote Republican right now," Carville said.
Blanco told Democrats at a fundraiser earlier Saturday that the Republican administration in Washington doesn't understand Louisiana's needs after the hurricanes and that will help the Democrats.
"I think life is looking up and really good and strong for Democrats right now," she said.
'Fraid not, Chris. You have defined yourselves into something that you are.
(With these people it's always somebody else's fault, and facing the truth is not something they do well, if at all.)
I've heard of a political pendulum that swings left to right- and I think this is a nudge along the downward cycle.
Well, what exactly is the Dem 'product'? Is it just hating Bush really a lot? Or was there something more to it?
And what specifically does the word "refocus" mean in this context? Are they 'refocusing' their views, or...?
Carville says that LA has gotten the back of the hand from this Administration???
Yeah...sure...Bush has visited over a dozen times...
And there has been BILLIONS legislated to go there...
I am sure there are a lot of states, cities, that would LOVE that kind of a "back of the hand"...Carville!
AND...they are darned lucky the stupid Mayor and Governor have been bailed out as much as they have...Bush has been nothing but needlessly respectful to them, and about them, IMHO.
With good Police work, many "democrats" will be absorbed within the population if you know what I mean.
Louisiana will become a solid Conservative state.
And may they return in very large numbers to NO, phuleeze! Get them out of Texas and other suffering surrounding states.
Exactly. The Louisiana Democrat Party has retained power for one reason: Mindless robots bussed to the polls in Orleans Parish and instructed to pull the lever by the "D."
The Dems here are in full panic mode, because they know if they don't get their robots back from other parts of the country, their Party will effectively cease to exist here.
No way. Let them stay where they are.
Landrieu, Nagin and Blanco are doomed unless they return, and firmly in power if they do.
"Blanco told Democrats at a fundraiser earlier Saturday that the Republican administration in Washington doesn't understand Louisiana's needs after the hurricanes and that will help the Democrats."
Hey incompetent beech...it's YOU who didn't know the needs of your own state just prior, during and after Katrina hit. Bush and the Feds bailed your sorry butt out. And you have the gall to complain about Federal Govt. not understanding the needs of La. You are a pathetic joke of a Gov.
And the Lousiana Democratic party knows that a significant portion of their consistent voter base is just gone. I'd be scared too, if I was in the same situation.
The RAT party has already refocused...Refocused to TX, FL, GA, OK, CA ......
""We have let the Republicans define us into something that we are not,..."
And what would that be??
"We have let the Republicans define us into something that we are not," said Whittington, of Baton Rouge, the party's general counsel.
What a load of crap ! you defined yourselves no one had to do that for you ....
Yea, sure.
It was the nasty Republicans who made Mary Landrieu, the LA cutie, say that she wanted to "punch the President." Bet that remark got her lots of earmarks in the FY06 budget.
It was the nasty Republicans who convinced the media that it was FEMA's fault that 100,000 poor black NOLA residents didn't evacuate.
Americans know that the Dems in LA were a bunch of whiners. So do the voters in LA. They will vote overwhelmingly Republican in the next general election.
I thought that New Orleans was mired in poverty
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