Posted on 05/04/2008 7:38:46 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Even as Democrats rejoiced Sunday at having snatched a Louisiana congressional seat long held by Republicans, an observer warned it doesn't mean voters are spurning the GOP and said the victor's hold on the seat is shaky.
State Rep. Don Cazayoux polled 49 percent Saturday to beat Republican publisher Woody Jenkins, who received 46 percent, for the 6th District seat in the U.S. House.
Cazayoux and Jenkins share conservative positions on gun rights and abortion, but interest groups' ads attacked the Democrat as a tax-happy liberal and accused the Republican of tax evasion.
Some ads against Cazayoux, who raised much more money than Jenkins, painted him as a supporter of presidential contender Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Jenkins spent 28 years in the state House but has failed in attempts to win wider support. He lost a bitter Senate race in 1996 to Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, and a 1999 race for state elections commissioner.
The solid Christian conservative is a polarizing figure known for displaying plastic fetuses to gain attention to his strong anti-abortion stance.
Bernie Pinsonat, a pollster with Baton Rouge-based Southern Media and Opinion Research, said Sunday that Jenkins was mainly to blame for the loss and that the outcome had little to do with any national political trends.
And the Democratic win does not mean the district's voters have turned against Republicans, Pinsonat said.
"Democrats have a hard time winning in Louisiana, except when Woody runs," Pinsonat said. "I think Cazayoux got the only Republican opponent he could have beaten."
"I think Cazayoux was able to take advantage of Woody's high negatives with white voters," Pinsonat said.
Returns showed Cazayoux won in Jenkins' backyard, East Baton Rouge Parish, by far the district's most populous parish and with a makeup of about 30 percent loyal Democratic black voters. Cazayoux won East Baton Rouge with 33,634 votes to 28,755 votes for Jenkins.
Jenkins swept white, suburban Ascension Parish with 3,297 votes to Cazayoux's 1,845, according to the secretary of state's office.
Cazayoux's win means the district has a Democratic congressman for the first time in three decades. The seat opened up when longtime incumbent Richard Baker resigned to take a lobbying position.
Louisiana now has four Republicans and three Democrats in the House. Its U.S. Senate seats are split: Landrieu is expected to face a tough re-election campaign this fall, and Republican David Vitter, mired in a prostitution scandal, faces re-election 2010.
Cazayoux attributed the special election win to his campaign's focus on such issues as health care, saying, "We talked about the issues in this campaign. The other side was more divisive."
Jenkins, who offered congratulations to Cazayoux, blamed his loss on low turnout and the large amount of money spent during the campaign. Only 23.5 percent of the district's voters turned out, elections officials said. Jenkins said he has not ruled out another run for the job.
Pinsonat said he expects Republicans to pick a stronger candidate to go against Cazayoux when he's up for re-election this fall.
"Cazayoux is not better than an even bet to win in the fall," Pinsonat said. "He'll have to work from now to November to hold on to that seat, and it'll still be iffy."
Jenkins said he is not ruling out another campaign in the fall.
In another Louisiana congressional election on Saturday, Republican state Sen. Steve Scalise won 75 percent of the vote to beat Democrat Gilda Reed, a college instructor, and two lesser-known candidates.
That 1st District seat, which covers the New Orleans suburbs, opened when Republican Bobby Jindal resigned before being sworn in as governor in January.
Scalise also will have to run for re-election in the fall.
The GOP has morphed into DemocRAT light.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
49 to 46 percent. It’s a landslide, I tell you!
ENOUGH of Rev. Wright already!!!
>> The GOP has morphed into DemocRAT light.
That’s right. It’s misleading to call (for just one example) John McCain a “RINO”, as though the party itself stood for something different than McCain does.
The Republican party itself has become the party of spend, spend, and spend some more.
As well, the party of “we know what’s best for you” big government.
And, too, the party of “embrace UN nonsense” like LOST and the “global warmism” religion.
Oh, yeah, and fight some of our enemies while we work double-overtime to appease MOST of them (Iran, Syria, North Korea). Why? Because the UN and the Yurpeans say we should.
Compassionate conservativism, my rear.
Cold comfort. We need to fight like CRAZY to make sure this isn’t an omen. Don’t count on McCain to deliver votes for conservatives...he is going to have to work to GET their votes.
We need to work FOR CONSERVATIVES as much as we can. Are you in a RAT DISTRICT that is safe? Like, Maxine Waters’ district, or Barney Frank’s, or some other liberal hack? Then FIND a nearby conservative to support...or work to find one SOMEWHERE you can help with money or time.
Please, FELLOW FREEPers. We cannot let the ‘rats just “have” the government. Unless you want TOTAL surrender to terrorists, higher taxes, and more justices like Ruth Buzzi Ginsberg.
In a conservative district that hasn't gone for a Democrat since 1974, it comes awful close to being a landslide.
It appears, in this case, the Dem turns DINO.
Actually, this district hasn’t elected a National Democrat since 1964 (James Morrison). From 1967-75, it was represented by a DINO that made most Conservative Republicans look like Nancy Pelosi (John Rarick).
Republicans, though, said their strategy of linking Cazayoux and other Democrats to Obama and Pelosi can work. GOP polls showed Jenkins trailing by nearly ten points before the two major Democratic figures were introduced into the race. Though Jenkins never broke 45% in internal polls, making the race a national contest kept it close despite Jenkins' own high negative ratings.Whole thread can be read HERE. Shows what Obama Hussein and Pelosi Galore could do to the down ticket. Interesting!
"When Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi were introduced into this campaign, Don Cazayoux was leading by a large margin in the polls," an NRCC memo released last night said. "Since then, Republicans saturated the Baton Rouge airwaves in an effort to nationalize this contest and make the election about the real life consequences of a Barack Obama presidency and a continued Pelosi-run Democratic Congress. In that time, Republicans made substantial ground."
Sadly, it probably did take the Obama linkage to bring Cazayoux down to this level. I’ve heard some polls had Jenkins behind by as much as seven points, and had negative approval ratings in the 30s, if not the low 40s.
It's sad that we might not pick up this seat. In fact, it's sad that the seat isn't Jenkins' already. Landrieu in all likelyhood got the seat through major election fraud back in '96. I remember reading about it in National Review and other publications. Maybe that's why Jenkins keeps at it--he thinks he was robbed (which he probably was).
“Landrieu is expected to face a tough re-election campaign this fall,.....”
http://www.southernpoliticalreport.com/storylink_423_344.aspx
With barack mcgovern on top and lil mary next, I like our chances in Louisiana in the fall.
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