BESE needs to reinforce honesty by banning dishonesty

From their earliest days, schoolchildren are taught to not to cheat. Their elders on certain school boards could take a lesson from their charges.

In particular, the East Baton Rouge School Board is weighing a plan to adjust accountability scores for their schools. Following the precedents set by Jefferson and Iberia Parishes, rather than compute test scores for a school based upon all students attending that school, they want to gimmick the process by taking scores of students attending magnet schools and count them towards the schools in their attendance zones (if not already in it). Typically, this would have the effect of raising the averages at the home schools which may help some of them avoid being designated as unacceptable and whose governance then could be transferred outside of the district.

Supporters argue this already is done for alternative school students, or those who have learning or behavioral problems, and that it has been sanctioned in the other two parishes. The state’s highest school board, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, has no current policy on this but some members are sympathetic to the EBRPSS argument.

Democrat candidates paint stripes on horse, call it zebra

Regardless of whether it is past performance or future promises, Louisiana Democrats running for reelection to Congress keep trying to say one thing and hope you don’t look deeper to find out what they say they are and what they truly are in fact are different things.

Both Sen. Mary Landrieu and Rep. Don Cazayoux keep trying to run from their liberalism, carefully choosing their rhetoric to shield themselves from reality. But their actions and words keep tripping them up.

Landrieu’s actions belie the “centrist” label she keeps trying to claim, even as it has fooled some otherwise intelligent, attentive people. She will spout off how the for 2007 the publication National Journal rated her at the median of senators on her voting record and how she votes with her liberal party the second-least of any senator.

But looking at Landrieu’s relative standing among her peers obscures the fact that she is very liberal, by her record, because even if she is among the least liberal of all the liberals she’s still being very liberal. Or another way to look at it, put Landrieu-endorsee for president Sen. Barack Obama, and his associates the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the Rev. Michael Pflegler, and admitted terrorist Bill Ayres together in the same room, and Obama might be the most “centrist” of the bunch. Yet that does not change the fact that he was rated in 2007 by the National Journal as the most liberal senator as he is scored as extremely liberal.

Landrieu the magazine ranks on the liberal side, if not by much, at 53.7 (100 being perfectly liberal) in 2007. However, Landrieu has a history of sliding towards to center in the years leading up to an election. A better indicator comes from the American Conservative Union’s scorecard of her, which shows she has a 22.4 lifetime rating (1997-2007, where 0 is the perfect liberal score), but remove the years 2001, 2002, and 2007 where she scored 28, 35, and 40, respectively, her average when she thinks she isn’t being watched is an 18. Somebody who votes the liberal line when uninfluenced by electoral politics 82 percent of the time simply is no “centrist” or “moderate.” (Her liberalism is mirrored if not better shown in the ratings put out by the Americans for Democratic Action, where, for example, she scored an 80 of 100 for liberalism in 2007.)

The same applies to her party defection rate. Maybe she’s second-least loyal in the Senate, but when you vote with your party about 78 percent of the time, that’s still being pretty loyal to a party a minority of Louisianans voted for in eight of the nine latest statewide elections. Landrieu’s rhetoric on this matter simply attempts to con voters.

While Cazayoux doesn’t have Landrieu’s record because he’s hardly spent any time in Congress, it’s his talking out of both sides of his mouth which gives him away. At a recent candidate forum, he, who also has endorsed Obama, stated he was against tax increases, for cutting the federal budget, and saying any increased spending would have to be offset by cuts elsewhere (known as “PAYGO”).

Of course, these stated preferences run counter to his party’s articulated goals and, most importantly, against Obama’s who has promised tax increases that will end up affecting negatively most Americans, over a trillion dollars of new spending supported mainly by tax increases (which would not come close to finding that amount of revenue), and, in something Cazayoux hasn’t seemed to have heard yet from his own party, PAYGO is dead.

Cazayoux can’t have it all ways, but that’s obviously something he won’t tell voters. And it’s probably not going to be his way anyway, because if the Democrats get control of both branches of government, the leadership will breathe down his neck to vote their way on these controversial issues, needing every vote it can get to pass such radical changes. Chances are, if he could get reelected, he will end up voting for tax increases and spending increases and probably the only budget cutting he’ll get a chance to vote for is cutting off funds to win the war in Iraq.

At least his opponents state Rep. Michael Jackson and state Sen. Bill Cassidy are honest about who they are and what they’ll do. But, like Landrieu, Cazayoux knows the only chance he has of winning is to appear to be something that he is not. And thus we get this convoluted exercise from both of painting a pale horse with stripes and calling it a zebra.

Ministers misplace faith in Jefferson endorsement

Am I missing something here? A collection of black ministers has endorsed embattled Rep. Bill Jefferson, who is black, for reelection despite the fact he is under indictment for influence peddling, against political newcomer and non-black Helena Moreno for the Democrat nomination.

As regards someone accused of dishonesty in government, one might think ministers in particular would shy away from that candidacy. But apparently not, as Jefferson is touted as the best choice because they believe him to be “effective.”

Ministering to the faithful requires some degree of wisdom, yet in remarks made about the endorsement leads to wondering whether they possess the good judgment needed to lead their flocks. Their spokesman, for one, believes in Jefferson’s innocence. While this certain adheres to the power of faith, after a certain point faith becomes wishful thinking. Besides the mountain of evidence and Jefferson’s associates, friends, and relatives singing like birds about his role, just last week former state Sen. Derrick Shepherd plead guilty to a separate crime which implicated Jefferson. Legally, anyone not yet found guilty of a crime is innocent of it, but at a certain point when giving political direction credulity must factor in.

But let’s really give Jefferson the benefit of the doubt beyond what he deserves. Regardless, there must be great doubt about whether he is “effective” as a member of Congress. He has been stripped of committee assignments where most influence is attained and is shunned by the Democrat leadership, desperate to deflect attention from other scandals such as those concerning Reps. Barney Frank with improper influence and Tim Mahoney with hush money.

All right, let’s concede that, somehow believing Jefferson still could have more pull that a new representative unencumbered by all of this baggage. Yet this brings us to the most baffling aspect of the endorsement, where the spokesman argued even if Jefferson were found guilty and subsequently removed, “I would rather at least go back and have a special election than put the wrong person in.”

Silly me, but if that happened, wouldn’t that prove that Jefferson himself was the “wrong” person? So wouldn’t it make more sense to put someone in office initially that could build up some seniority and not have to go to the trouble of a special election in the first place? And thus avoid the risk of starting over and dealing with a felon?

(“Wrong” is a poor choice of words in this instance; I hope it isn’t being used as a synonym of “not black.” Further, it bears noting whether these ministers also favor Sen. Barack Obama at the presidential level who bleats incessantly about the necessity of “change,” couched in illusory terms. Would that not be inconsistent with their support of a nine-term incumbent?)

Why should men of God recommend such a flawed specimen and with odd reasoning? These spiritual leaders sound like they have let too much of worldly concern affect the electoral advice they implicitly give their congregations.

Column needs history, economics lessons to contribute

Unfortunately, ignorance about political history and economics is all too common in the American public, but it is particularly tragic when we see it in those who disseminate information (that does not constitute a politically dishonest attempt to persuade; in that case it is not tragic but venial). Regrettably, longtime political journalist Jim Beam fell victim to this in a recent column.

Beam asserts that the recent difficulties in the credit markets that caused big selloffs in the equities markets make 2008 too uncomfortably close to 1929, considered the start of the Great Depression, raising the specter of another economic dislocation of that magnitude. This misunderstands that the precipitant of the two events, easy credit. In 1929, borrowing money to buy securities without any real collateral was the straw that broke the camel’s back, whereas in 2008 the borrowing comes with substantial real assets attached. Nor are the magnitudes of the events even closely comparable.

Perhaps he does not recognize the difference because he does not understand what caused the Great Depression in the first place. Too much credit was being extended, but that doesn’t answer why that happened. The answer: government intervention that distorts the marketplace (this summation of a larger academic work probably explains it most elegantly). In the 1920s it was because of government’s expansionary monetary policy obsessed with price stabilization and trade flows, coupled with a sufficiently immature central banking system. None of these conditions operate today; rather, a reason just as political has caused it: policy to push lending to individuals of dubious ability to manage that debt (which Beam doesn’t seem to grasp, either).

Instead, Beam relies on one of the most discredited pieces of boilerplate explanation for the Great Depression, income inequality causing underconsumption at the lower end of the wealth continuum. This view totally ignores that overproduction from easy credit causes a supply problem (too much) yet props up prices artificially so underconsumption occurs not because too many people have too little money, but that artificially low credit pricing encourages them to overextend and waste their resources on something they cannot afford. (During the 1920s, this caused wage stagnation even as prices barely crept up, not the case today.) Proportion of wealth held by various income classes has nothing to do economic performance (unless it is a matter of government policy to redistribute income for that very reason of perceived inequality, which then impedes economic performance and growth).

Not only does Beam not know what caused the Great Depression, neither does he know what ended it. While he believes it was Pres. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies, the historical record shows otherwise (this summarizes a good nonacademic and recent work on this point). It actually started with Roosevelt’s predecessor Pres. Herbert Hoover who began to ramp up government spending and planning but it was Roosevelt who started on direct cash payments. Either way, what could have been a relatively short if sharp downturn was prolonged by government interference in the marketplace. In fact, almost a decade later economic conditions hardly were any better than they had been at the beginning of 1929, years after New Deal implementation. Beam needs to understand there was little Roosevelt’s policies did that improved the situation in any way, while his optimistic rhetoric at least boosted confidence. What did end it was World War II, which demanded a massive efficient use of resources that government on its own could not and is institutionally incapable of engineering.

Properly understanding the past and how it relates to conditions today, this helps explain why Louisiana is less likely to be affected by the fallout of this retrenchment. Had Beam a surer knowledge of history and economics, he might have contributed meaningfully to this assessment.

Debate shows Kennedy has chance to make up ground

While polls show Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu holding a decent lead in her reelection bid against Republican Louisiana Treasurer John Kennedy, she has been unable to gain a decisive advantage with public’s intended vote (which to some degree probably only reflected name recognition rather than real intent). She had a chance make progress towards that goal, and Kennedy an opportunity to work to closing the gap, at their Louisiana Public Broadcasting-sponsored debate Sunday night.

Landrieu’s strategy has been to assert she has some kind of “independence” from her party and ideology – despite the fact that she votes with it most of the time and has a lifetime 22.4 rating from the American Conservative Union (0 meaning a perfect liberal voting record – and trying to convince voters that Kennedy is shiftless. By the same token, Kennedy plays up her liberal votes and stresses a mix of conservative themes especially on fiscal issues while trying to demonstrate he has rethought some of his past preferences. In their debate, both candidates went after each others self-drawn perceptions.

On several occasions she touted how she was “independent,” that her “seniority” would benefit the state, how she had displayed “effectiveness,” and that she could work in a “bipartisan” manner – playing to the populist mentality in Louisiana where many see their elected officials as paraders throwing goodies off of floats. He refused to concede, such as describing her agreeing philosophically with Sen. Barack Obama’s nationalization of health care policy, or voting with Obama on the Democrat measure that would have forced withdrawal from Iraq, or that even as she is chairwoman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security responsible for disaster relief that her influence amounted to nothing in speeding up the ongoing recovery process from the 2005 hurricane disasters.

Politics exacerbates downturn to Louisiana's detriment

The good news for Louisianans is gas prices are falling. The bad news for Louisiana is gas prices are falling, and it’s probably only going to get worse given election dynamics.

People often forget that prices in a marketplace are set not just by changes in supply, but in changes in demand. Typically, demand is highest in summer and slacks off to the end of the year. So the decline in prices is not unexpected.

But demand also is a function of overall economic activity, and that is tapering worldwide in part to the overleveraged mortgage market now being addressed by world central banks. However, in the short term, perceptions spawned from all of the alarmist attention being paid to government interventions have taken over from reality and are changing people’s investing, borrowing and spending habits. This results in an artificial depressing of financial activity that contributes to the slowdown.

Worse, election-year dynamics are exacerbating this reaction. Democrats in particular such as presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama have been hyping the circumstances because they believe it helps them electorally, something that in Obama’s case seem to work as he has been creeping up in polls resting on the Democrats’ case Republicans are to blame – the tremendous irony being it was Democrat policy that set the stage for problems in the mortgage industry.

This now is creating a vicious cycle that threatens to make matters worse than they should be. In another irony, even though it is a Democrat-led Congress that has more responsibility for and control over the economy than the Republican president, Democrats are benefitting electorally from the uncertainty which depresses things further. While some of the recent incredible decline in the equities market obviously is due to the ramifications of the credit crunch, a significant portion of it as well comes from the fact that as Obama rises in the polls and Democrat congressional gains look larger, investors understand that their articulated policies are going to cause economic damage to the country if enacted and therefore are reducing their commitments.

This is no surprise given these markets serve as leading indicators of future economic performance. But the danger is that declines in stock markets create a bigger crisis in the general public’s mind, which then seems to increase further Democrats’ chances of being elected, and then feeds itself as more informed investors continue to reduce equities commitments, and the cycle begins anew. Further, regardless of who gets elected they will talk down the situation as much as possible to increase perceptions of whatever beneficial effects products of their policies will have in the future, maintaining the cycle.

As a result, the slowdown could last some time, particularly if Democrats end up controlling both majoritarian branches of government. Oil prices will remain lower as a result and while that saves Louisianans money, it will have a negative impact on state finances. Now that roughly $82 estimate for the average price of a barrel of oil used by the state for budgeting purposes doesn’t seem so bad, but also predictions of any surplus may have to be trimmed. And going forward, any economic slowdown will make state budgeting more bleak.

Jindal spending statement consistent with conservatism

It’s all right to be clever, but when you are trying to be clever but aren’t clever enough, you don’t realize that your effort ultimately was not clever. Such is the fate with an editorial written by the Baton Rouge Advocate concerning Gov. Bobby Jindal.

While the piece lacks some clarity and coherence, the gist seems to be that The Advocate asserts Jindal, well known as a conservative, borrows from the left to argue for a public policy goal. When Congressional legislation recently passed to create a mechanism by which the federal government could fund potentially large financial concerns, Jindal decried the fact that while this was getting funded, progress was slower on emergency funding to assist the state in recovery from the September hurricanes.

Such a view by the editorialists misunderstands the nature and purpose of government. Jindal is criticized for comparing one kind of spending to another, in essence saying one purpose with less legitimacy gets money while another with more does not. It’s not exactly clear what it’s trying to state here, but it appears The Advocate equates use of a rhetorical strategy comparing different things and using spending on one to justify another is a kind of demagoguery, and one that has been used by the left in reference to the Iraq war.

But note the inherent assumption: it grants sufficient legitimacy to all spending claims. That is, if Democrats claim more ought to be spent on wealth transfer policies, a bedrock demand of liberalism, because so much is being spent to prosecute the war, then it presumes Jindal adopts the tactics of the left because he now is criticizing the bailout, which because it would assist first businesses that is argued is a hallmark of conservatism, in order to justify transfer of wealth to Louisiana, the syllogism works only if all instances of government spending are mere matters of policy choice within a framework that legitimizes any choice.

In fact, the argument breaks down precisely because that is untrue. While expenditures on disasters are a legitimate federal government purpose (see Art. IV, Sec. 4 of the U.S. Constitution, to protect states from domestic violence), as are those for the prosecution of war (Art. I, Sec. 8), and, even though it is a stretch through the “necessary and proper clause” (same passage), spending on wealth transfer programs can also be deemed a proper function of government constitutionally speaking. But arguably it stretches way too far that government should intrude so decisively into the economy as through the bailout plan. Thus, Jindal may argue that spending is occurring for an illegitimate and unwise policy rather than another that is legitimate and he thinks wise, a conceptual difference that appears to escape The Advocate.

Further, The Advocate does not seem to understand the place of “business” in conservatism. Advancing the interests of an institution known as “business” is not a principle of conservatism. Rather, conservatism concerns itself with advancing personal liberty and reducing government power to prevent that being an obstacle to this goal – a position that The Advocate appears to disagree with if it argues that spending on any purpose seems equally legitimate, as implied in its argument.

One manner by which liberty is advanced is by government noninterference in markets which may encourage the formation of entities involved in “business” but the object conservatism addresses is the individual and his autonomy, not that of corporations. So when Jindal or anybody else argues that a bailout is not a wise use of money, his objections from a philosophical stance are this action reduces liberty by transferring property – tax dollars – out of the hands of individuals when it is unnecessary. Thus, Jindal is not railing against “Wall Street” on the basis that is it “Wall Street,” but on the basis that government assistance on this scale and to this degree of intrusiveness violates individual liberty – not the argument being made by The Advocate.

Because The Advocate editorialists seem to believe that the exercise of any government power is permissible so long as there is some “good” from it, and because they misunderstand basic conservative principles, they draw entirely the wrong conclusions from Jindal’s statement. Asking government to spend money on a legitimate purpose of government instead of on a dubious purpose that decreases individual liberty very much is reflecting conservative principles, and does not mean “Comrade Bobby” should be “welcome[d] to the left.”

Racial voting carries Jefferson to likely nomination

Yesterday we learned why legally-challenged Rep. Bill Jefferson was able to come in first in the Democrat primary for his Second Congressional District seat. Here, we’ll see why he will win the runoff against former television reporter Helena Moreno in the Nov. 4 nomination runoff.

The first part is its usual, if not somewhat lamentable, self: race. Most analysts, drawing upon their experiences without resorting to detailed use of numbers, argue that there are too many black voters present for Moreno, who is Hispanic, to be able to defeat the black Jefferson. It’s just the way things are in and around Orleans Parish: in a black vs. non-black contest, non-blacks will vote largely for the non-black candidate, while blacks will vote overwhelmingly for the black candidate.

The numbers confirm this. Of the 492 precincts in the district, 93 or almost 19 percent have total registrations (not just Democrat and independent ones who were the only ones who could vote in this contest; several more would be added if Republicans were removed) of fewer than 2.5 percent white voters. They represented 10,569 of the 69,149 votes cast, or 15.28 percent votes cast. They may be used as a close proxy for the proportion of the black vote received by the candidates (but will slightly underestimate the black vote received by Moreno because in mixed-race neighborhoods there tends to be more crossover voting, and thereby will overestimate it for the black candidates).

Reviewing the results of these, Moreno cannot win. She received slightly less than 4 percent of the black vote. Jefferson got a little over 38 percent of this vote, with the other five black candidates obviously receiving the remaining 58 percent or so. Keep in mind Jefferson got about 25 percent of the overall vote, Moreno about 20 percent, and that the registration of blacks among Democrats and independents in the district is a little over 68 percent. (Interestingly, multiplying Jefferson’s share of the black share of the vote with the black proportion in the district puts him almost exactly at his percentage for the election, suggesting he received almost no non-black votes.)

Therefore, in order to win, assuming everybody who voted in the primary will turn out for the runoff and no non-blacks vote for Jefferson, he needs only 45 percent of the remaining vote to win of which it appears about three-quarters are black. Going by race alone, Jefferson is 30 points to the good.

One could argue that perceptions of corruption would trump racial voting in this case. But even if just 60 percent of black voters who voted for other black candidates in the primary put racial voting first, Jefferson wins. And the electorate well may be expanded in Jefferson’s favor with the presence at the top of the ticket of black Sen. Barack Obama. Further, the vanquished opponents could go into the tank for Jefferson, not endorsing her in the hope he wins and then resigns upon a future conviction, reopening the seat for them.

Moreno shouldn’t give up – anything could happen including underestimating public revulsion over Jefferson’s alleged misconduct. But some unusual things are going to have to happen for her to advance to the general election.

Jefferson success recipe: environment, opponents, luck

The most interesting question about how Rep. William Jefferson, despite federal corruption indictments, managed to lead a Democrat primary for reelection is not really how he did it, but why he was able to. It’s an answer not so much connected to Jefferson, but to a political environment largely untouched by modern forces.

We must recognize that Orleans Parish, which comprises the majority of the Second District, is the least mature political culture not only in the state, but perhaps in the entire nation. “Maturity” is a concept defined by how much of a role personalistic forces play in determining a vote decision. Thos forces are defined as qualities of candidate image – inferences about a candidate’s experience, leadership, and other personal characteristics – that voters make. The more that candidate image plays a role in voters’ decisions, the more personalistic and less mature is the political environment. By contrast, the more that impersonal institutions like political parties and that issue preferences play a role in the vote decision, the less personalistic and the more mature the environment is.

Note in the Orleans area, when reviewing this office and that of mayor, the second-level offices after the so-called starter level of city council, state legislature, and others, for decades not only are the winners of these experienced politicians, but almost all of the candidates contesting them have been and are people experienced in government. The one great exception going back well into the middle of the 20th century is current Mayor Ray Nagin (and technically former U.S. Rep. Lindy Boggs, but to be honest she received impetus to win office right after the tragic death of her husband former U.S. Rep. Hale Boggs).

This is because the political environment creates conditions that make these kinds of candidates successful. They must build a political base on their ability to satisfy individuals and small groups not on grand matters of policy but on their skill in passing along rewards – patronage, contracts, government programs, and the like – to these intermediaries who then, either substantively or symbolically, pass down a portion of these rewards to key constituencies that can be mobilized for elections to vote for the favored candidate.

This does not mean that election decisions aren’t made with other tactical considerations in mind – as my colleagues have demonstrated – nor that external institutions aren’t important. In fact, New Orleans is distinguished from almost every major city in the country in that a passel of “alphabet soup” political organizations for decades have played a major role in elections. But keep in mind that these organizations themselves are built around particular individuals (such as Jefferson) and historically have had difficulty in separating themselves from them as the founding force (and/or his family) detaches from politics. They are, in other words, an extension of personalistic politics.

This is why it is not surprising that former television reporter Helena Moreno would run well enough to make the runoff with Jefferson. Hers also is a personality-based candidacy – the familiar face she is from years of constant television appearances. While she has no political background, the same personalistic dynamic worked for her as an alternative (non-black, female, unconnected politically) for those Democrats and independents who disdained the existing political forces in the district.

Jefferson did well enough because he could, as he has done for over 20 years, operate well in this environment. But, more importantly, he did so better than the other politically-connected candidates in the contest – and in no small accident due to fragmentation among his presumed opposition.

One hallmark of political organization in New Orleans has been it ability to coalesce eventually around a very small number of leadership figures that had some ability to transfer power from one elite to another, a trait forced on it beginning nearly a century ago when the reformist machine of former Gov. John Parker began to try to eat into this power base, then in its trying to resist the encroachments of former Gov. Huey Long’s and his successors’ apparatus. After the era of former Mayor Ernest “Dutch” Morial this has become increasingly difficult to attain (for interesting reasons), most recently demonstrated not just by Nagin’s initial win but especially by his reelection, as Nagin has disrupted the process by not actively seeking to create and sustain an organization with a designated successors.

The failure of political figures in the black Democrat community (whites and Republicans at best now can only influence elections at the margins, not as central figures) opposing Jefferson to unite around a common leader, either to run against Jefferson or to back an opponent, allowed their conquering on this occasion through their division, as my colleague suggested. This crisis enabled Jefferson to use his depleted but still viable organization as well as the perquisites of incumbency to score enough support to vanquish the opponents that were mostly likely to beat him in a runoff.

In short, had a solitary black politician rose from the infighting to challenge Jefferson, not only would that person have made the runoff, but Jefferson might have been aced out of the runoff. Most of those who did not vote for Jefferson or Moreno would have voted for this person, but of those who would not have, more might have disproportionately voted for Moreno than Jefferson leaving her and the other in the runoff. Even if Jefferson had encountered perhaps only two or even three of these politicians he might have gone to a runoff but with one of them not Moreno where his chances of winning the nomination in a month would be greatly reduced. But four other major competitors than Moreno gave him a decent chance for survival.

But perhaps what sealed the deal for Jefferson was the intervention of a woman – Mother Nature. Hurricane Gustav disrupted the election and pushed it back a month. What was left of Jefferson’s organization plus the resources he could draw from his congressional post made him best equipped to handle this curveball. Without this stroke of fortune, more likely Jefferson would have been eased out of the runoff. While the environment gave Jefferson the framework to succeed, his opponents’ disunity and luck gave him the tools by which to do it.

Fourth District Democrat runoff to please Republicans

Entering the party primary elections, the big questions were whether a Second District runoff for Democrats would include incumbent Rep. Bill Jefferson, and which two of the three Republicans vying for the open seat in the Fourth District would advance to the runoff while the Democrat nomination was sewed up by former First Judicial District Attorney Paul Carmouche.

Jefferson’s only chance to win in December was to get into a runoff with former media reporter Helena Moreno, because with a majority black registration in the district and the high past propensity of blacks to vote for black candidates, as the only non-black candidate in the contest despite his legal troubles Jefferson could use this racial bloc voting to win. Any other candidate would negate this advantage and almost surely send Jefferson to defeat. At the same time, being up against Jefferson probably is Moreno’s best chance to win because his woes would be the most likely catalyst to break up black bloc voting.

As it was, the scenario worked out this way, with Jefferson coming home first with just 25 percent of the vote and Moreno around 22 percent. The interesting question now becomes whether the defeated candidates actually endorse Moreno, or do they sit back and stay uninvolved in the hopes that Jefferson incredibly wins the runoff and the seat only to be expelled from the House after what appears to be an almost-certain conviction for federal influence peddling crimes, reopening the seat for their efforts. If regardless Moreno pulled it out, however, they risk losing any influence at all with her by their silence, so there is political risk.

Polls in the Fourth showed Minden physician Dr. John Fleming and Shreveport trucking executive Chris Gorman consistently the top two candidates in the race over Bossier City lawyer Jeff Thompson. Seen as the most establishmentarian candidate and last in the race, Thompson’s candidacy never caught fire in a year where it was better to be seen as an outsider and he finished just a little behind the other two.

Made clear during the campaign, however, was that Thompson’s preference if he did not make the runoff was for Fleming. If he makes that any clearer with an endorsement, this probably gives Fleming, who finished slightly ahead of Gorman, the nomination.

Neither of these outcomes was a real surprise given the dynamics of the contests. But a shocker was the fact that Carmouche got forced into a runoff and against military retiree Willie Banks despite (from the latest reports) outspending the entire field almost double and eight times the amount Banks spent, that Carmouche is well known in Caddo and Bossier Parishes where the majority of district voters live with Banks being from rural Leesville, and that the entire national Democrat Party apparatus had lined up behind Carmouche.

The significance is not so much that Banks can win on Nov. 4 even with a big turnout in the district for Sen. Barack Obama, being that Carmouche got 48 percent of the primary vote, but that Carmouche now must spend extra money on winning the nomination and there must be concern about how independent voters, who could participate in this primary but not the Republican, will go in December. The fact that Carmouche could not finish off a weak field itself shows Carmouche is a soft candidate for the general election which must please Republicans.