U.S. voters catching up to LA's in voting by ideology

When it came to the 2016 presidential election, while Louisiana’s voting behavior may have typified past such elections, voters in other states joined majorities in Louisiana in that citizens nationally became more likely to vote in their own self-interests.

The political left will try to spin an interpretation of the election that whites, particularly men, achieved some kind of political consciousness based upon antipathy towards others not of their race and to larger cultural changes allegedly “inclusive.” This rallied them to turn out in large, unified numbers to allow Republican Pres.-elect Donald Trump to defeat Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton. The only problem with this view is that the data support a completely different, far less dramatic and less pejorative reality where issues matter more than image.

For the leftist thesis to hold, the count would have to end with increased Trump support over the total for 2012 GOP candidate Mitt Romney, who faced criticism for tepid turnout of expected voters and that exit poll data would show that whites would offer him significantly more support than Romney received in 2012. In fact, neither happened. When all the votes come in, Trump likely will receive fewer than did Romney, and he only improved one point in the proportion of white voters he pulled.

Returns squash notion of LA Democrat comeback

In today’s election Louisiana Republicans held serve and look to have confirmed that the shock win of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards was a one-off event.

Concerning the U.S. Senate, Treasurer John Kennedy, the front-runner essentially wire to wire, as expected led the field. That Democrat Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell barely outdistanced Republican Rep. Charles Boustany and who combined with other Democrat votes only drew 30 percent – compared to Edwards getting 40 percent by himself in his general election contest – shows he is toast, with Kennedy finally realizing the Senate on his third try over a dozen years.

Congressional contests ended as expected. Excepting the Second, the majority-minority district where Democrat Rep. Cedric Richmond easily dispatched fellow partisan Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden, of all other districts only Democrat lawyer Marshall Jones managed to make it into a runoff, barely leading Republican state Rep. Mike Johnson. This ensures the election of Johnson, who will collect most of the votes of the other Republicans who ran, who got almost 50 percent – with the silver lining for Democrats being the most articulate social conservative in the Legislature will exit that body.

Campaign missteps highlight LA 2nd appellate race

As the level of government-by-judiciary increases, along with judges’ salaries in Louisiana, so has the amount of negativity in these contests, as a battle for a Second Circuit Court of Appeals race demonstrates.

Republican 26^th District Judge Jeff Cox challenged incumbent Republican Judge Jay Caraway, a veteran of two decades. Neither ever has run a campaign (or, technically, had a campaign run for them, as legally judicial candidates cannot involve themselves in their own campaigns), always finding themselves unopposed.

In Louisiana, roughly 90 percent of the time judicial races go off without opposition, and of those that do, most of the time those concern open seats. Rarely does a sitting jurist draw an opponent, as the legal community that deals with the incumbent often hesitates at opposing openly a judge who will rule on their cases.

Scam at EBR schools highlights need for choice

This should make Louisiana taxpayers hopping mad and does nothing to build trust in traditional public school systems, if not encourage educational choice.

Turns out the East Baton Rouge Parish School System got hooked by a phishing scam. A senior executive not once but twice inexplicably sent $46,500 to two suspicious bank accounts in a span of two days, and may have done it a third time except another administrator figured it out. The rules called for his countersignature on all of them, but in the first two instances he was out of town so she went ahead and violated the rules to do it anyway.

More specifically, the notes purported to come from Superintendent Warren Drake, who the recipient was led to believe could not be disturbed in his office – next door to hers. The sender address clearly did not come from EBRPSS personnel. It directed to send an amount of $22,500, and then $24,000 the next day, to the New York City area to names associated with people from Nigeria, giving their banking information.