Thanksgiving Day, 2015

This column publishes usually every Sunday through Thursday after noon (sometimes even before; maybe even after sundown on busy days) U.S. Central Time except whenever a significant national holiday falls on the Monday through Friday associated with the otherwise-usual publication on the previous day (unless it is Independence Day or Christmas or New Year's when it is the day on which the holiday is observed by the U.S. government). In my opinion, there are six of these: New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veterans' Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas. My column for The Advocate will run on Easter Sunday.

With Thursday, Nov. 26 being Thanksgiving Day, I invite you to explore this link.

Fluke election result won't alter LA politics maturation

Politically attentive conservatives in Louisiana must feel like the Frank Costello character in the movie The Departed, groaning “How … did this happen?” with the election of Democrat state Rep. John Bel Edwards as governor. Understanding how leads to the realization that its uniqueness likely does not change the evolution of Louisiana’s political culture.

Costello uttered this plaintive question after having gotten shot in a police ambush organized by his mole in the state troopers, betrayed because the mole thought Costello would betray him to federal authorities. In this instance, conservatives statewide suffered betrayal at the hands of some voters who typically cast ballots for Republicans in statewide contests but did not this time because they feared delivering the state’s top office into the hands of Republican Sen. David Vitter. After all, they got told often and long enough, even by Republicans, that Vitter was mean and that Edwards served in the military.

The state’s populist heritage played some role in this, a trait that Edwards skillfully exploited. With a public conditioned so long to evaluate politics on the basis of personalities and not issues, the Edwards campaign hammered at this and obfuscated as best it could, if not falsified, to mass audiences that large majority of his issue preferences incongruent with the Louisiana public’s, with some obvious success.

NW LA produces most surprising 2015 election results

Perhaps the most surprising, and deviant, results from Louisiana’s round of state and local elections in 2015 came in the northwest part of the state – where big money outside of the area appears to have played significant roles in these contests.

In one instance, that accrued to the advantage of conservative political elements. Republican businessman Tony Davis narrowly defeated appointed incumbent Republican educator Mary Harris for the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education District 4 seat. Davis entered late, backing the Common Core for State Standards Initiative and worked to expand school choice, while Harris opposed both.

Aided by large spending on his behalf by political action committees that favored education reform, Davis overcame a 43-36 percent deficit coming out of the general election, where the opponent who did not make the runoff sounded more like Harris than he. Possibly a change in rhetoric by Davis, from supporting Common Core to stating a desire to “scrap” it and to “revise and replace Common Core with our own Louisiana standards” – in other words, follow the current process taking place under the auspices of the Department of Education and Legislature – may have helped win over some voters.

For LA, quadrennial winter will pass, leaving better future

I recommend reading the series of seven articles at The Hayride by site publisher Scott McKay (perhaps easiest would be to start here and then find links to the remainder of these as “related links”). While perhaps too pessimistic, a broad review of their general themes and fine-tuning the their implications indicates that the pain and suffering most of Louisiana seems set to undergo to enrich a few in the end likely will produce something positive and enduring for all.

McKay correctly worries that the ascent of Democrat state Rep. John Bel Edwards to the Governor’s Mansion early next year constitutes a clear step backwards for those interested in a better quality of life, greater prosperity, and safeguarding individual liberty for Louisianans. Edwards’ cornfield liberalism directly descends from the state’s horror show history with populism, which for decades made it the laughingstock of the country, ranked near the bottom in almost positive indicator for a person’s life prospects and towards the top of almost every negative indicator of such. Not only do he and his cronies think along the lines that produced this agonizing waste of human potential and happiness, some of them actually aided and abetted in the operation of this fiefdom, and show either indifference to the wages of their foolishness or revel in it as they attempt to extend their command and control over society to their benefit and society’s detriment.

No doubt that as governor Edwards can do considerable harm to the people. I noted in a recent Advocate column just some of the negative policy decisions he has a chance unilaterally to produce, given the powers of the office. Forcing the public regardless of its rights to religious freedom to act in ways that validates homosexual behavior as normative, raising the state’s minimum wage paid out by contractors that kills jobs, engaging in sue-and-settle tactics to impose policy bypassing democratic means (although, as McKay points out in general terms, incoming Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry might have the capability to restrict that exercise of executive power), condemning more families and children to substandard education by defunding some school choice options, all Edwards can inflict through use of administrative discretion, executive orders, and line item veto decisions.

The Advocate column: Nov. 22, 2015

Bobby Jindal plagued by poor timing
http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/14036295-75/jeff-sadow-jindal-plagued-by