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 ...
Angelle and Darden ran specifically to keep Vitter from winning. And they succeeded.
Stupid! A flawed Republican is better than any Democrat.
We keep falling back on “voter fraud” whenever we lose a race, but it’s a crutch. I find it exasperating: voter fraud just doesn’t exist on any significant level, but if we pretend that it does we don’t have to face up to our mistakes. I’d rather take our lumps and honestly evaluate the race so we don’t repeat our mistakes.
From the outside, it sure seems like the Dems were pushing the “war hero v. whoremonger” meme. That’s a hard one to overcome once settled in, especially when the incumbent Republican governor is seen as such a failure. We needed somebody who could rise above Jindal’s coat tails dragging him down, but Vitter wasn’t the guy.
I believe the Vitter people said but too too frequently that Edwards has voted only once on an issue favorable to the petrochemical industry. He is a big taxer in waiting, but LA people can’t be persuaded until it happens.
All I can say is expect the worse and you will probably be right.
I agree.
The Democrats have a history of setting aside major differences in order to win elections. Republicans are the ones who splinter.
Dems also know how to use wedge issues to their advantage. Republicans have a history of giving Dems those issues.
Vitter went down because of his personal life. Compare/contrast with how the Dems idolize Bill Clinton. That sums it all up.
Vitter won statewide twice, whoremonger title and all.
Angelle and Darden were put up by Jindal and other Country Club Republicans specifically to keep Vitter from winning. And they succeeded. Vitter announced for Governor nearly two years ago, and he’s had consistently high poll numbers. The two RINOs never could have gotten the conservative vote here, but they cut Vitter up enough in the primary to cripple him for the runoff.
Whores, sluts and traitors. Time for the LA GOP to meet “Mr. Mayhem”.
Yeah, but 2004 might as well be a lifetime ago and even 2010 was a long time in the past. In 2010 Jindal wasn’t dragging down the Republican brand. We needed somebody clean to overcome that, especially up against an Army Ranger with heroic-looking photos for his commercials and who wasn’t afraid of throwing lots of mud.
A smart political organization rolls with the punches, deals with the reality of today and doesn’t rest on what worked five or eleven years ago. We needed to be smarter.
Move on down here. We Louisiana Republicans need any help we can get. I’ll even introduce you to around, as I served on the GOP Central Committee from 1996 to 2000, and know personally many of the conservatives here.
“Vitter won statewide twice, whoremonger title and all.”
You and I are cross-posting, sorry about that. But see #89.
Resting on laurels is the surest way to political defeat. What he did in 2004 couldn’t have mattered less in this race.
For what it’s worth, Louisiana didn’t elect Edwards. New Orleans elected Edwards with help from Monroe and Shreveport, the other two liberal bastions in this otherwise beautiful state. Louisiana has always had a way of coming up with tough choices. We never vote for someone: we’re always voting against someone. Take Jindal for example. This country thought he was a tough conservative as he was running for president. People like Rush and Hannity thought he was such a worthy contender. Jindal is a better huckster than Bill Clinton. He can sure talk it up with a camera in front of him but, in reality, Pyush Jindal is a tax and spend Republicrat. We pay the highest state taxes in the deep south. Like Obama, he was mostly absent from his office, endlessly involved in pursuits to embellish his resume’. He also hated Vitter and refused to endorse Vitter in our guv’s race.
For some reason, you assume Jindal and the other RINOs actually WANTED a republican win. I’m telling you they would rather see Edwards elected, than for Vitter to win, much as the national GOPe would rather see Hillary as President, instead than Trump or Cruz.
With my “Bawstin” accent? Y’all’d be having raffles to see who’d lynch me first.
Thank you for the offer though.
Very accurate observation.
We seem to have many, many experts on Louisiana politics posting here this morning that have never set foot in Louisiana, let alone canvassed for votes, or otherwise participated here.
I believe Vitter narrowly won Ouachita Parish; it would be Caddo (Shreveport) that was heavily Edwards. Caddo also elected a liberal DA candidate backed by Soros.
You’d be right at home in New Orleans, which has a decided Brooklyn, NY taint to their accent.
An oddity is that Jindal succeeded Vitter in the House in 2005. He carpet-bagged into the district to do so.
Yes, Vitter won Ouachita. As for the new Caddo DA, we’re talking a caricature of Idi Amin. I’ve seen him in court on the bench. A real buffoon.
Of course Vitter was in the situation that an endorsement from Jindal would have hurt him even more.
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