Dinner With La. Gov. Goes $1 at Auction

Washington Times ^ | 12-13-06 | MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

[tx_eggman]

"poor joke gone awry."

A subject about which J f'n K has recently become the world's leading expert.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Most north Louisiana whites voted for Jindal,who was of Indian descent.

My snark was based on the post-election analysis from 3 years ago where the drop in support for the GOP gov. candidate in northern LA in that election versus the previous elections was greater than Blanco's margin of victory.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1023949/posts

So how did Blanco win? By getting 40% of the white vote. That didn't come from New Orleans, where 70% of whites voted for Jindal, but from the poorer, more rural areas, where Blanco won 52% of the white vote -- a coup for a Democrat in culturally conservative areas. The Medicaid ad was well-tailored for this demographic; the speaker in the ad, a doctor who used to work in the public health system and is now in a wheelchair, ends his statement with the words, "'By the way, I'm a staunch Republican." But there's a less savory reason that Blanco made inroads in northern Louisiana. This is where former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke got the votes in 1991 that propelled him into the run-off election against the corrupt former governor Edwin Edwards. (The latter is now serving time in jail for taking bribes; this was the race that gave us the classic bumper sticker, "Vote for the Crook. It's Important.") "If there was a racist backlash against Jindal anywhere, it would be in north Louisiana, in Duke country," Louisiana political analyst John Maginnis told Rod Dreher of National Review Online after the race. To some extent, Blanco laid the groundwork for a such a backlash herself. She dusted off her maiden name and campaigned as Kathleen Babineaux Blanco. Voters encountered the full name on the ballot, where her opponent was listed as "Bobby" Jindal, complete with quotation marks (Jindal's given name is Piyush).

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1024146/posts

Why did Jindal lose after leading his Democratic opponent, Kathleen Blanco, in statewide polls in the weeks before the election? In a word, race. What occurred was the "Wilder effect," named after the black Virginia governor elected in 1989. Wilder, a Democrat, polled well, then won narrowly. Many white voters, it turned out, said they intended to vote for a black candidate when they really didn't. Questioned by pollsters, they were leery of being seen as racially prejudiced. Jindal's advisers worried that he might lose the "Bubba vote," rural whites unwilling to vote for a black candidate or even a dark-skinned Indian-American. The Jindal camp's fears were realized. A Republican normally needs two-thirds of the white vote to win in Louisiana to compensate for losing nearly all of the black vote. But Jindal got only 60 percent of whites, according to an analysis by GCR & Associates Inc., a political consulting firm.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1618256/posts

a survey taken last month in four parishes between Monroe and Alexandria registered 61% support for Jindal, up 22 points from the 39% he received in the same areas during the gubernatorial election. Results from the 2004 First Congressional District election mirror the findings of the recent North Louisiana poll. Against a field of four candidates, Jindal received 66% of the vote in Washington Parish, up from his 43% finish against Blanco just one year earlier.

Though to be fair:

While the GOP is happy to see the Jindal surge in rural parishes, one Republican strategist is quick to point out that candidate Jindal ran a good race in North Louisiana in 2003 in areas where it counted most, winning in the heavily populated areas.

Thankfully the bias against Jindal that some GOP voters had in 2003 seems diminished today, according to the article I linked to.

[gb63]

Thanks for the data. I think we can all agree, a lot of folks in Louisiana learned a good lesson the hard way. I learned enough to move over to another state, though.

[deport]

Dinner with La. gov. goes $1 at auction

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press Writer 26 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - A chance to dine with embattled Gov. Kathleen Blanco fetched a winning bid of $1 at a recent fundraising auction hosted by a group of business leaders.

The president of the Monroe Chamber of Commerce, in northeastern Louisiana, said she called Blanco's office Tuesday to apologize for a "poor joke gone awry."

"It's something we deeply regret," chamber president Sue Edmunds said Wednesday. "Our organization has worked very well with the governor. We have been pleased with her efforts on behalf of this community."

Dinner with Blanco was the last item up for bid at the fundraising auction last week. Edmunds said the bidding opened at $1,000 and dropped to $500 before the auctioneer accepted a $1 bid from bank executive Malcolm Maddox, a regional chairman for Capital One.

Others were trying to bid on the dinner when the bidding abruptly closed, according to Edmunds.

"We were all stunned," she added. "It was at the end of the auction, so there was no way to go back and amend that."

An apologetic Maddox came forward Monday to donate $1,000 to the chamber, Edmunds said. He won't be dining at the governor's mansion, however: A chamber official will go in Maddox's place.

Maddox didn't immediately return a telephone call from The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The episode comes at a trying time for Blanco, who has been criticized for her response to Hurricane Katrina.

Republican lawmakers Wednesday blocked Blanco's attempt to spend $2 billion in newly available state funding, a plan she wanted to steer through a special session of the state Legislature before it adjourns.

Blanco spokeswoman Marie Centanni said earlier that the governor was too busy with the special session to be bothered by the apparent slight.

"She's really not even paying attention to it right now," Centanni said.

Blanco had wanted additional money for state employee and teacher pay raises, road repairs and health care, among other things.

Instead, the House passed a $300 million package of tax breaks for homeowners and parents and set aside money for incentives to attract a German steel mill to south Louisiana.