Posted on 11/22/2015 2:27:05 AM PST by markomalley
Democrat John Bel Edwards won the runoff election for Louisiana governor Saturday, defeating the once-heavy favorite, Republican David Vitter, and handing the Democrats their first statewide victory since 2008.
Edwards, a state lawmaker, will take over the office from term-limited Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal in January.
Voters' rejection of Vitter was a stunning turn of events for the U.S. senator, who has been a political powerhouse in the state for years and started his campaign nearly two years ago as the race's front-runner.
(Excerpt) Read more at gulflive.com ...
http://theadvocate.com/news/acadiana/14048801-123/landry-ousts-caldwell-nungesser-tops
Across Louisiana, new AG, Lt. Gov. create Republican stronghold on statewide offices
Nope. The Louisiana RINO contingent didn’t want a real conservative as governor. That’s why Darden and Angelle, both card-carrying RINOS, ran against him, and cut him up.
Yes.
Well, I am sure that you know more than I do about it. Something went wrong.
This was a rebuke of Vitter entirely. The rest of the GOP slate one decisively. The Democrat didn’t win as much as Vitter was punished for a 2007 scandal which shows how stupid some Republicans are.
You've got something there. Vitter was not part of the GOPe, as we define it, but he was definitely an old face in Louisiana politics. In a way, this race is a confirmation of the "year of the outsider" narrative.
Also, speaking objectively, Edwards' advertising campaign on "prostitutes over patriots" was devastating. The Democrat base may not care about such issues, but the Republican base does. It's a political reality, and railing against the base does no good at all. The R's may have been asked to hold their noses one too many times, especially when confronted with an attractive alternative.
Appreciate the link :)
The GOP base voted for Vitter. It was the Country Club contingent that abandoned him.
Didn't his home parish break about even? I'm pulling that from memory from the live thread last night... that does not seem like a ringing endorsement, but again, maybe he hails from a RINO parish.
Is this Edwards related to Edwin Edwards the notoriously corrupt former governor?
Vitter’s home is in Jefferson Parish, adjacent to Orleans Parish. Normally, the most reliably conservative parish, Vitter lost there. The sheriff backed Edwards, and likely that had an effect.
Lincoln Parish is where I live. Usually votes GOP, but went for Edwards this time. Two universities here, so the place is crawling with people on the state payroll. Deadheads everywhere you turn. Usually, the folks at Louisiana Tech vote conservative, unless they feel their retirement and medical benefits are in jeopardy.
Of course, public employees out of control retirement costs and other benefits cannot keep going like they are now, but the deadheads will go down fighting all the way.
Jackson Parish, just south of here is blue collar. Used to vote for Edwin Edwards all the time. But it went for Vitter yesterday, as did Ouachita Parish (Monroe, West Monroe).
The professor types at Tech display RINO characteristics sometimes, so that’s why I say the reliably conservative voters stuck with Vitter.
Also, a lot of our votes stayed home.
I suspect Jindal’s record of shutting down useless bureaucracies and laying off 30,000 state employees may have ticked off those people and then had a ripple effect, in turn ticking off many others whose connections to the public teat were shut down.
I bet Edwards’ first order of business will be to rehire a lot of those money-suckers.
My own, admittedly unscientific observation as an ordinary citizen under previous Democrat administrations, pre-Katrina, was that getting ANYTHING done in Louisiana was a hair-tearing ordeal. Many everyday governmental functions were not computerized; documents were in file cabinets and cardboard boxes.
Many government offices were over-staffed by women whose only function was to tell citizens to come back later.
Auditing was essentially nonexistent, which allowed, for instance, the New Orleans schools’ payroll office—for several years—to continue issuing pay checks to “employees” who had already retired and were drawing pensions, as well as relatives and friends who had NEVER worked for the school district.
So, I’m thinking Gov Edwards will be returning the state to biz as usual, and joy will once again reign. /s
True, the state employees, especially the teacher’s union hated Jindal’s guts. When he was reelected in 2011, his first order of business was to go after teacher tenure. They vowed revenge, and were solidly behind Edwards this time.
“Once again, he won twice statewide after the issue was known”
Once again, when you run a guy with a prostitute problem, you are running the wrong guy.
It doesn’t matter if he was elected since or if he votes conservative. You are running the wrong guy. Maybe it’s acceptable for a senator and not a governor, who knows. He was the wrong guy and you can’t deal with that fact for some reason.
If you would, keep me up on the tax increases and other things that Democrats do. thanks.
So you say. The other two candidates are pure RINO. Darden is a weasel, and Angelle only switched to GOP a few years ago.
So why run a guy with a prostitute problem?
Because his conservative bona fides, proven over a twenty year record in three legislative bodies, far outweigh his moral failings.
Romans 3:23 and all that.
but they do have a history of it dating way back.
That's a given.
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