The result served as a personal rebuke
to Gov. Bobby
Jindal. Myth. The perception that the McAllister campaign and others tried
to create was that Jindal worked in cahoots with former Rep. Rodney Alexander
and defeated runoff candidate state Sen. Neil
Riser to time Alexander’s departure with an appointment by Jindal to be
Louisiana Secretary of Veterans Affairs. While Jindal never endorsed Riser,
each expressed admiration for the others’ record.
The
shortcoming to this is it’s unlikely that more than a trivial proportion of
voters even considered this to be an issue that, frankly, only a small segment
of the public was interested in and debated. Candidates who ran explicitly on
this theme, trying to distinguish their own self-articulated conservatism to
contrast themselves with Riser’s fared poorly in the general election, because they
missed the real issue at hand, being …
…
The result showed an anti-political
establishment bias among voters. Fact.
McAllister, with no elective experience, was able to position himself as an “anti-candidate,”
particularly by his picking up endorsements from local television celebrities
who were able to influence voters who typically are less interested in
politics. This made him the most credible antiestablishment candidate to those
who are less involved in politics precisely because they feel a political
establishment of elected elites, regardless of party, doesn’t really address their
concerns. His campaign’s ability to mobilize these voters, as indicated by in
the runoff the attraction disproportionately of nonpartisan voters and expansion
upon that base by getting new voters to the polls, as analysis
of aggregate data shows, proved remarkable and critical.
The result indicated rejection of
Republicans and the TEA Party.
Myth. Riser had the endorsement of
every elected state GOP U.S. House member who made one, the House party’s
fundraising arm, and of TEA Party groups. But on the basis of what McAllister
articulated, he agreed with most principles of both the Republican leadership
and the TEA Party. In the end, taking what he articulated on face and assuming
he truly believes in it, the district elected somebody who was a moderate
conservative over a staunch conservative – not unlike the representation they
had under Alexander in the district with the highest proportion of registered
Democrats and minorities in the state not represented by a Democrat. Which
leads to the actual group that was a relevant political object in this contest …
….The result showed how the Democrats can ameliorate
their decline in power. Fact. The
other major reason why McAllister won was that most of the voters who have a
propensity to vote Democrat stuck around for the runoff despite there being no
Democrats in it, and he benefitted. By veering to the left, data analysis also
shows this appeared to boost disproportionately nonwhite support of McAllister,
or largely Democrats and liberals. Normally, these people would have rolled off
from general election to runoff, but a large portion did not because, urged on
by Democrat elites, this gave them a chance to rage against the loss of their
party’s power. Because Riser was so closely attached to the GOP establishment,
this made for an easy target. As one
observer pointed out, the reality that Democrats increasingly must grapple
with in contests in the state is that their influence is limited to trying to
put into office “the Republican who angers and scares them the least.”
The result showed endorsements
matter in elections. Myth. Despite the fact that Monroe Mayor Jamie Mayo’s endorsement
of McAllister and work by other minority-based Democrat organizations served as
a dog whistle for the large minority of blacks in the district to show up and vote
for him, the political science literature is pretty unambiguous in noting that
endorsements for federal contests rarely have any significant impact. As for
the endorsement by another defeated contender, Public Service Commissioner Clyde Holloway, it
unlikely more than a handful of people took that as an explicit reason to choose
McAllister. Those who did probably did so for the same reason they had
supported Holloway in the general election: he was seen as an “outsider.” Yet
this does point to …
…The result demonstrated anything can happen
in a low-stimulus special election. Fact.
If a candidate can identify a niche market and exploit it then its impact
becomes magnified in this kind of election. Endorsements and having a lot of
your own bucks available enable you to do this, and McAllister’s campaign had
them and executed properly. By contrast, Riser’s campaign appeared to be
ineffectual in pointing out McAllister’s flip-flops and the essential contradiction
to his candidacy that this portrayed: he was acting just like an establishment politician
by acting without principle. And this led to speculation that …
…
The result produced a representative open
to moderation and compromise. Myth
or Fact. This depends upon McAllister and whether he wants to serve more
than a year in office. Those less-involved voters behind him are by and large
conservative, certainly on social issues, mostly on fiscal issues. If he votes
any way against that on more than rare occasions in order to placate the
liberals he brought on board in the runoff, he will be quickly dispatched in
2014 by a genuine conservative candidate no matter how much money he pours into
the race because the dynamics of a regular election will draw in conservative
voters knowledgeable enough to know what he is.
But
if he goes back on his hints of liberal policy preferences – that is, act as a
politician – and votes as consistently conservatively as Riser would have, he
will win over conservatives who voted against him and would give opponents of
any ideology no chance to defeat him. In that case, that he will serve as long
as he likes in the position becomes Fact.
2 comments:
No Mr. Sadow, this was a referendum against Jindal
Apology! Apology! Apology!
At least you are forever consistent.
To publicly say Bobby was not right up in the middle of this is in essence a definition of incredible.
Query: Why should we be persuaded to believe you are right about these posits when you were so wrong about the outcome of the election?
Remember?
Then to say "... a dog whistle for ... blacks ..."
puts you in a special category.
Nuff said.
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