Did Jindal's past shape GOP VP pick, his political future?

If your name is Gov. Bobby Jindal and if you are politically ambitious, there’s good news and bad news with the pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the running mate of Sen. John McCain for the presidency for the Republicans in 2008. And it’s a pick Jindal perhaps inspired McCain to make.

The bad news is that should McCain win, Jindal’s not likely to get a presidential nod from the party for a long time. Palin is only seven years older than Jindal and would become the prohibitive frontrunner to succeed McCain as long as she serves without controversy as vice president. Like Jindal, she is seen as a conservative reformer, family (wo)man, and also would be an atypical nominee (i.e. not white and/or male) that could pique interest and votes for the GOP. With at least four years on the national stage, if she wants it she would be difficult to stop.

Should McCain lose, Palin still provides additional competition for Jindal. Even though the record of defeated vice presidential candidates then assuming the presidency is almost exclusively bad – only Franklin Roosevelt 12 years after his second-fiddle bid in 1920 came back to win the presidency and it took the Depression to do it – in the past several decades almost every single vice presidential pick who was in current office when tapped later ended up making a run for the presidency, regardless of whether that ticket won. At the very least she almost is a sure thing to compete in the future provided she does not self-destruct politically, thereby reducing Jindal’s chances of success.

The good news for Jindal is, if willing, his chances have increased to be on the national ticket in four or eight years. Palin will not try the second slot again so if Jindal wins the nomination despite her momentum, he’s there on it. But if he tries and loses to Palin, unless there is a lot of acrimony in the campaign (which seems unlikely given the combination of their personalities) he would create an outstanding choice to balance the ticket with her. McCain’s choosing Palin has markedly improved his status on this account.

One wonders, in fact, whether Jindal himself inspired McCain to select her – perhaps not in a way he would have desired. Palin and Jindal do have much alike and perhaps McCain at some point vacillated between the two. But what might have gotten Palin the nod (who, if you count Jindal’s congressional experience, has less national experience although she started serving as governor of Alaska in 2007 and was mayor of Wasilla prior to that) was her reformist zeal stayed truly close to conservative principles. When the time came for Jindal to support individual income tax decreases and to oppose self-serving legislative pay increases, he hesitated and unnecessarily made himself look like a proponent of established interests and big government. By contrast, Palin never showed loyalty to big government and five years ago broke with the state’s GOP over ethics issues (although she generally has been a tax-cutter as a politician, she does occasionally go off in a populist direction such as floating a windfall tax idea on oil companies).

Or, to be more blunt, did Jindal blow it with McCain when their actions showed her to be more the conservative reformer, even a “maverick” just as McCain styles himself? Had Jindal stumped immediately for the tax cut and impressively told the Legislature no huge pay increase was coming (although that would have made it a much lower-profile issue) maybe McCain, if he was looking for someone fitting this mold, would have picked him instead?

Only McCain and a different history could answer this, and only Jindal will know whether he will think about this in years to come, pondering whether some political misjudgments on his part cost him the opportunity to send his political trajectory higher than he may end up ever achieving.

Tempest in teapot aggravated by ill-suited function

To comprehend why controversy has emerged concerning the LSU Board of Supervisors over its officer elections requires understanding the very controversial function the Board was given long ago. (Technically the Board ultimately oversees me and at times like these often with chagrin as not all of its members or the system as a whole will end up agreeing with me on issues.)

In its upcoming election to be chairman-elect, one candidate being backed for months by many board members is being challenged by another who apparently is favored by the Gov. Bobby Jindal Administration. Governors appoint these members and neither member was appointed by Jindal.

This is claimed by the long-time candidate to be divisive and one of his supporters claims the entry of the other candidate and the lobbying, which he claims without verification included threats not to reappoint a member who did not vote the Administration’s way, will wreck the Board with bitterness. Further, the candidate feeling aggrieved by competition sees this as an undue interference by an administration into the workings of the Board.

Three things immediately are worth noting about these claims. First, competition for an office is a healthy thing that provides opportunities for evaluation of different policies that in all likelihood strengthens the quality of the victorious program. By nature this will produce division, but it will create better policy than if consensus is allowed to play too prominent of a rule in the process. Successions that are too orderly too often have a way of perpetuating rigidity and inflexibility.

Second, a governor and/or his staff have a right to lobby for whoever they please. If they believe one candidate as opposed to another will produce policy that better helps the state, not only should they express that preference, they would be derelict in their duty not to.

Third, the Board is independent of the governor’s office and the only way its members lose that is to surrender it themselves. Even if an administration in order to get its way threatened recalcitrant members with not reappointing them to the Board, one must question the motives of Board members for their service if reappointment is seen as such a prize. The first priority of any board member should be to the organization and who it represents, the people of Louisiana in this case. They are there first and foremost to serve, and you best serve by making the best decisions possible without letting an extraneous consideration such as reappointment get in the way. One must wonder if a member so highly values reappointment to allow it to exert leverage over his decisions that perhaps he is there for the wrong reasons – not so much to serve but to enjoy power and privilege that comes with board membership.

But considering more deeply this issue discovers a larger implication. The complaining board members believe the policy dispute leading to rival candidacies comes from questions about governance of the health care portfolio for the LSU system (which actually takes up more resources than its educative function). Louisiana famously is the only state in the union which primarily runs its indigent care system through a series of state-owned hospitals, and for over a decade these have been run by the LSU system.

Regardless of the merits of the differing views of governance issues, if this assertion is true the fact remains that this would not be an issue at all if LSU did not have this (for an educational systme) bizarre function. As health care redesign in the state continues, hopefully the “charity” system will be dismantled, or at the very least its administration transferred away from a university system so that it can concentrate on its core mission of education.

To some extent the dispute is a tempest in a teapot, encouraged more internally than externally. At the same time, it’s a dispute that really need not exist were the LSU System not saddled with providing a service only tenuously connected with its genuine purpose. Perhaps some change on this account will occur as a result of this election.

Landrieu, Melancon, Morial: vapidity reigns over them

Sometimes one must shake his head with incredulity at the divergence between the real world and what Democrat politicians claim things actually are. Some Louisiana political figures gave us excellent examples concerning the unreal world imagined by Democrats at their national convention.

First up was former New Orleans mayor, now head of the National Urban League, Marc Morial. He opined that comments about how the party’s almost presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama draw unfair criticism about him being too inexperienced to run the federal government, observing that relatively recent presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and current Pres. George W. Bush had no national political experience, so why should Obama with his eight years in the Illinois legislature and four in the Senate be considered so unseasoned, he argued.

One may forgive Morial the obvious denseness of this remark, as it was Morial the executive who more than any New Orleans mayor drove the city into the ground and whose relatives associates not yet convicted remain under criminal investigation while he fights a lawsuit accusing him of corrupt practices. His mentioned chief executives actually ran a government and each accomplished significant things during their six to 12 years in office. Obama has no such experience and has not one significant legislative accomplishment in any office. Even his putative Republican opponent Sen. John McCain can claim over two decades in the Senate with some significant (if not always the wisest) policy accomplishments and committee leadership, as well as executive experience in the military. Morial must never embark upon a career as a fruit salesman because he clearly doesn’t know the difference between apples and oranges.

But there’s more from this buffoon. He then chides the media for not bringing up this point (which no doubt they avoid to prevent themselves from looking stupid) and even implies the media is in some sense biased against Obama because they don’t “bring a little perspective” to the charge. If he believes this, he truly lives in a fantasy world as media perceived and displayed favoritism for Obama in the campaign has been documented time and time again.

Then almost on cue we have confirmation of, if not Obama favoritism at least sympathy towards Democrats in general or perhaps more specifically Sen. Mary Landrieu, when the New Orleans Times-Picayune’s national political reporter Bruce Alpert ineptly relays her remarks at the convention. She spoke in part about her idea with first nine, now 15, other senators to deal with dwindling energy supplies for the U.S.

Inexpertly, Alpert describes the plan as “The measure combines increased domestic drilling with more conservation and development of alternative fuels and cars powered by nongasoline products.” But this is like handing a person who knows nothing about oranges the unpeeled fruit and inviting him to bite into it by describing how the inside tastes. Alpert makes no mention that the plan only marginally increases the amount of potential drilling that could be done while imposing $84 billion in new taxes that will get passed through to consumers. To have reported it this way, either Alpert didn’t know what he was writing about or he’s in the tank for Landrieu.

Yet as ridiculous as Morial sounded, Landrieu actually does him worse when she insisted “I am not here to be a champion of the oil industry” on the basis of the plan. As it is, the organization of petroleum producers the American Petroleum Institute weeks ago released a blistering critique of the proposal that shows that if anything they consider Landrieu and her supportive colleagues are opponents of them on the issue. That she tries while engaged in a difficult reelection battle to pander to voters back in the state (a fair number in the energy industry) in this fashion defines chutzpah.

Finally, a minor case of muddled thinking infected Rep. Charlie Melancon, who offered his musings on why Obama looks like he will be pummeled by the Louisiana electorate. They included the official liberal Democrat narrative being circulated to explain an eventual Obama defeat (“racism”) and the inexperience issue, but he only obliquely stumbled onto the sole real reason, the Louisiana electorate being more conservative.

Let’s make it a little more basic and simple for Melancon since he seems to need the help. Obama was the most liberal senator in 2007 according to National Journal ratings. His new running mate Sen. Joe Biden was the third most liberal. This means there are profound policy disagreements between the majority of Louisianans and this ticket and it therefore has absolutely no chance of winning the state. Issue preferences do matter.

The convention is only halfway over, providing more opportunities for Louisiana Democrats to top these examples of absolute vapidity.

Local govts make last desperate effort to milk consumers

One reliable way to find out political motives – especially when somebody is claiming they are doing something for reasons other than this – is to follow the money. And when money is involved, you can be sure the citizenry is getting the short end of a deal.

This basic principle explains why the Louisiana Municipal Association and the Police Jury Association of Louisiana are suing to try to prevent changes in how cable provision is achieved in the state. The new law allows any operator to acquire a statewide cable franchise valid anywhere in the state, while apportioning out monies received from the franchisee to continue to go to the local area at the same 5 percent maximum rate of the deal.

What’s to object about this: local governments still can get the same maximum of the revenue? And current providers, almost all cable companies, don’t have any real objection to the deal. What’s got the local governments upset is that they no longer will be able to restrict entry into their marketplaces and use that leverage to pass through stealth fees to consumers.

The past law did not mandate local governments in awarding a franchise to accept offers as good or even better than what an existing franchisee had. Further, by deliberately limiting competition, it could set things up so the sole franchiser could claim certain costs that then could be levied on behalf of the government and shoot these right into its coffers, shaped around market-interfering requirements imposed. Now these governments have no leverage to force these things out of a single franchisee and consumers and cannot block competition that will cause sweetheart revenue pass-throughs courtesy of a monopoly provider to disappear.

It’s not about contractual fidelity as these organizations claim. It’s really all about an obscured means for local governments to milk money out of its citizenry that uses these services. Hopefully the judiciary will see through this and/or decide, since the state ultimately controls all actions of local governments, that shifting contracts to the state level is consistent with the jurisprudence defining state and local government relations. For which consumers in Louisiana would be grateful.

Jefferson almost certainly upcoming primary loser

Quite a salient question is whether Rep. Bill Jefferson on Sep. 6 will make the Democrat primary runoff for his current position. Things would get quite interesting if he did, but chances are that he won’t despite his opinion to the contrary.

Certainly a poll commissioned by opponent Troy Carter’s campaign, on top of a previous poll that showed Jefferson battling with other at the 12 percent mark, casts doubt on Jefferson’s ability to continue into another term. In it, Jefferson’s not even cruising near the top; it says he languishes in the single digits of support. At the same time, it bears recalling that Jefferson was considered embattled in his last election as rumored indictments swirled around him yet pulled out the win.

But conditions have changed in two years. Rumor has turned into fact, along with accompanying indictments of other politically-connected Jefferson family members. His caused the stripping of any positions of influence from him within Congress. As important although not generally recognized as such, the change from the blanket primary to closed primaries also will not work to his advantage.

Before Hurricane Katrina, with the winner of the district by the numbers almost certainly having to be a black Democrat, Orleans parish political organizations in the black community were the main jousters in this competition. Leading the Progressive Democrats, Jefferson could at worst compete with anybody easily for this office and other organizations knew it and did not seriously compete for it.

But the storm weakened all of these organizations and Jefferson’s suffered an additional blow with his legal troubles. However, with the advent of the closed primary, other organizations for this office were able to re-coup (yes, bad pun for those of you who know something about New Orleans black democrat politics) some of their strength because their powers became more concentrated. That is, relative now to a primary where Republicans cannot compete, these organizations no longer have to account for the vagaries of GOP voters in an election, and also a fair chunk of the white vote has disappeared as well, leading to the same favorable outcome for these groups.

But the Progressive Democrats will have a much harder time controlling parts of the electorate because of the blows to Jefferson’s reputation. That much was clear when, gunning for the state Senate, his daughter former state Rep. Jalila Jefferson-Bullock got trounced by one of her less-prominent colleagues, now state Sen. Cheryl Gray.

The impact of the closed primary also has an effect separate from interaction with changes in relative power of political groups as it increases the non-black proportion of the electorate. Under the blanket primary system, blacks would have had about 62 percent of the electorate; under the closed primary system they have 55.7 percent of it.

This consideration redounds to the advantage of former reporter Helena Moreno, who is the only non-black candidate in the contest, and thereby to the disadvantage of Jefferson. Even if she picked up only half of this vote, it puts her in an excellent position for the runoff.

The primary form actually helps Jefferson in that the Jefferson Parish proportion of the population drops about five percent to just over a quarter, reducing the advantage of any Jefferson-based candidate. But there is one in the contest, Jefferson Parish councilor Byron Lee, backed by perhaps the leading parish figure Sheriff Newell Normand, creating another threat to muscle Jefferson out of a runoff.

Other candidates could pose a threat. State Rep. Cedric Richmond has picked up key endorsements from politicians and the area’s Alliance for Good Government. New Orleans City Councilman James Carter recently got elected and has a fresh electoral base on which to draw. Former councilor Troy Carter ran in 2006 and appears by polling to have the broadest appeal. (Former New Orleans official Kenya Smith appears to have no real chance to make the runoff.)

But these others also have their warts, which is why Jefferson has reason for optimism. Richmond’s political base remains decimated from the storm and he faces censure over professional conduct. James Carter may suffer backlash seeking higher office less than two years after winning his current one. Troy Carter appears to be the most popular second choice but whether he can do better than third in first-choice ballots remains unanswered. Even Lee seems by polling to be underperforming in Jefferson, and Moreno must demonstrate she can make the transition from media star to political glad-hander to solidify a majority of the white vote.

So if sufficient fractures remain in the electorate, Jefferson could sneak into a runoff. The real key is how the roughly three-eighths undecided vote fragments. At this point in a contest with an incumbent running such a high number shows considerable dissatisfaction with the incumbent. However, it’s one thing for Jefferson not to be competitive with these voters; it’s another thing they’ll vote for another candidate in that its takes an additional step to get them, or enough of them, into another candidate’s column.

Simply, one or more of the challengers have to prove they can be an adequate replacement for Jefferson. If this does not happen, many either will roll off entirely on the contest, or they’ll vote for Jefferson anticipating a “do-over” when he is convicted and almost certainly removed from office with a (hopefully) fresh slate of candidates. The proper way to conceive the undecided non-Republicans at this point is not that they can’t make up their minds about which challenger to choose, it’s whether any of them are worth choosing.

If at least one can make a semi-compelling case for their candidacies, Jefferson is finished, and chances seem good that will happen. But if not, Jefferson has a non-trivial chance of gaining a runoff, and then the dynamics of the race could get unpredictable depending upon who his opponent would be.

Jindal orders create better government, culture shift

It took the media almost three weeks to catch on, but Gov. Bobby Jindal has dropped the other shoe regarding funding of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Months ago, and with some criticism later in the process, Jindal added much more transparency in what requests for state money would be legitimate in his eyes. Now, he will force recipients to be much more accountable in their expenditures of the funds.

Believe it or not, until Jindal became governor, tens of millions of dollars every year of state taxpayer money was being sent to organizations that had to reveal nothing about themselves and who could spend the money practically for any reason. Former Gov. Kathleen Blanco at the very end of her term did request a little information about the recipients, but exercised virtually no enforcement on the quality of the requests.

First, Jindal informed the Legislature that he would veto projects that failed to meet certain criteria, implicitly daring it to reverse any offending items coming his way, and enforced those criteria in a fairly even-handed way. Now, he has strengthened the process by making more formal the distribution process in a way that forces more accountability in the use of state dollars.

Not only did he specify, in one executive order, stringent standards in reporting the nature of the expenditures, but he required that in most cases the state issue the money only as reimbursement after such reporting and proof of expenditure for that purpose. Further, in another executive order he mandated the releasing of funds would occur as part of a contractual agreement that requires repayment to the state if the organization does not use the money for the purposes intended in a process to be monitored by the Division of Administration prior to any agency responsible for disbursing funds actually doing so.

This has brought howls of protest from legislators used to stuffing a pet concern into the budget with no real oversight of it. This is because the combination of these orders likely will reduce dramatically the numbers of NGOs seeking such funds. Many will opt out of forwarding requests to legislators because they are unwilling to provide the information required by the order, or do not want to be put at risk for paying back funds not used exactly for the purpose outlined, or both. Without such largesse to slice out of the taxpayer to send back to their districts built-in constituencies, the recipients, to perpetuate a legislator’s stay in office will evaporate which in the final analysis will force lawmakers to be more attentive to policy concerns of voters.

So rattled by this was state Sen. Mike Michot that he apparently forgot what the Louisiana Constitution and the Revised Statutes had to say on the roles of the Legislature and executive branch in dealing with appropriations. “I don't think the executive branch has authority to say how and when funding is distributed,” he yammered, forgetting that Art. VII Sec. 10(D)(1) states “money shall be drawn from the state treasury only pursuant to an appropriation made in accordance with law,” and R.S. 39:57.1 which states the Commissioner of Administration, part of the governor’s office in the executive branch, “may review and approve the initial allocation of expenditures for each appropriation for a fiscal year.” However, if he wishes to make the matter perfectly clear, Michot is free to sponsor a bill that explicitly prohibits approval of the Commissioner before disbursing funds; I’ll bet that would be popular with his constituents, good government groups, etc.

Jindal’s new standards (which will exist until rescinded by a governor or overruled by legislation) not only improve government performance and accountability, but also fundamentally alter the nature of the Louisiana political environment as politics becomes less determined by the personalities of officeholders and more shaped by people’s issue preferences. The benefits of these to the body politic cannot be overstated.

Carmouche avoids Obama, but sounds like him

Fourth District of Louisiana Democrat frontrunner Paul Carmouche had just one mission to perform in mopping up resistance to his nomination during the forum for that party’s candidates – say nothing specific without sounding like an empty suit – and to the casual Democrat voter probably pulled it off. Whether thinking voters bought the act is another matter entirely.

The former Caddo Parish district attorney of long standing apparently has thoroughly studied the Democrat playbook for the South – on the very few issues where he can be in agreement with the district, play those up, and on the majority where he cannot be without risking the ire of the liberal party to which he has pledged his loyalty, talk about only in the broadest platitudes without giving away the specifics that either would reveal his liberal credentials.

Other candidates in the race, even if both black candidates more enthusiastically support the national Democrats, get the cold shoulder from the party in its quest to prop up a figure to fool enough voters in a conservative district. In fact, if you wanted a Democrat who sounded much better versed on the issues – and as a result sounded more liberal – local lawyer John Milkovich took that prize. But because he is too much a social conservative even if simplistically liberal on most other preferences, despite previous runs for this office the national party would never dare support him.

On several occasions Carmouche proved he had been well-coached to say just enough to obfuscate without inviting closer scrutiny for the casual voter. He talked about making health care more affordable and available by creating “larger pools” of the insured. Translation: government involvement leading to mandates on individuals and employers ultimately creating universal health care that would provide a lower standard of care than present. He spoke of making prescription drugs more affordable and available by having government negotiate prices. Translation: the clout of government buying power for its programs would destroy the free market in drug provision and create dictates that would dry up supply and drive up prices

Outside health issues, he would revise school accountability standards, which he called failures even as improvement continues, to put power of determining the meeting of goals into the hands of local school boards. Translation: reform away from changes that would cut out gamesmanship by districts that were not serious about educating students in favor of pursuing other trendy goals (like enabling teachers to put forth less effort for higher wages as his teacher unions backers prefer) such as Orleans Parish had been for many years could undermine improving education in America. He also wants to “renegotiate” to restrict free trade agreements’ impacts on changing the American economy. Translation: unions losing members because their absurd demands help price that activity out of the world marketplace would be protected, driving up prices for Americans and creating a less efficient economy that would lead to a declining standard of living – but which would keep unions fat and happy.

The only area where he really got into trouble – even if neither the moderators nor his opponents had the wit to probe him on it – was being perhaps too specific in dealing with government finances. Carmouche first said he was for “no new taxes” then pledged “tax breaks” for those not in the highest brackets of marginal tax rates, echoing Democrat presidential presumptive nominee Sen. Barack Obama’s refundable tax credit plan that would take money out of the federal treasury and transfer it to those who pay little or no income taxes. This sounds like a recipe for a massive increase in the federal deficit as these recipients would do little to invest their bounty in ways to cause economic growth for all.

But then talking out of the other side of his mouth, Carmouche turned himself into a deficit hawk, declaring that government had a “spending problem,” had to balance the budget, and could do so by eliminating “wasteful spending” and earmarks. Nobody called him on where he would find a few hundred billion in wasteful spending or that earmarks don’t come close to this level, where he would cut spending to balance the budget, and that unless he cut all marginal rates, economic growth would not be stimulated as it was under GOP Pres. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush with their comprehensive cuts. Nor did anyone ask whether “no new taxes” meant the same as “no tax increase” (old taxes can be raised) nor how he would deal with the gaping hole his idea would create in the budget, impossibly squaring the circle.

These kinds of questions will have to wait until a Republican captures his party’s nomination, conservatives will have to hope. “Change for the better” proclaimed Carmouche in his closing statement, echoing Obama who he explicitly refused to endorse upon request during the forum. But shave 20 years off of him, darken his skin color, make his ears a little bigger, and make more flowery his vague, obscurant rhetoric, and the informed observer will note that despite the dissociation Carmouche and Obama are one and the same, one just as empty as the other.

Subtle differences emerge among GOP 4th candidates

As expected, the forum for the three Republican candidates for the Fourth District congressional seat revealed that little philosophical difference existed among then, only a few issue preferences really separated them, and that the main distinction they tried to create among themselves thereby comes the image they are able to convey to voters.

Minden physician John Fleming, Shreveport trucking executive Chris Gorman, and Bossier City attorney Jeff Thompson all made clear their conservative worldviews. Probably the most polished in terms of conveying a broad message was Gorman – which in fact was too broad in that he seemed most comfortable in falling back on platitudes rather than provide substance. Ironically, as he cautioned against politicians and their use of sound bites, he emitted them throughout.

By contrast, Fleming provided the most policy details, and in doing so generated the most controversy by preferences considered somewhat less orthodox. He broadly sketched a guest worker program for legal aliens that brought cautionary remarks from the other two. He voiced support for a balanced budget amendment and another providing the president with a line-item veto to control spending while the other two did not discuss anything really specific in that area. On a couple of occasions, Thompson actually drew a policy difference with him, while it was hard to tell with Gorman’s generalities his thoughts of these issues.

Fleming said state and local government should back off on funding the Cyber Innovation Center in Bossier Parish until there was more certainty whether the Air Force’s Cyber Command would locate at Barksdale AFB, while Thompson indicated they should go full speed ahead confident enough Cyber Command components would come there. However, the issue of taxation really seemed to exemplify candidate distinctions at the forum. Fleming stated support for a national sales tax, to replace individual income taxes, while Gorman said it needed more study to determine whether taxes might not go up for some, and Thompson opposed it saying to be effective it would have to be almost twice the level Fleming advocated of 23 percent.

Actually, all three candidates whiffed on this one to some extent. A tax with exemptions for lower-income families could be realistic at 23 percent or close to it, as it has been well-studied, obviating both Gorman’s and Thompson’s concerns. However, its major problem is something only Thompson mentioned and just in passing, with enforcement. It likely would be easier to evade through barter or noncompliance and any significant leakage would either create a shortfall in revenue or cause the rate to be raised.

The most disappointing remarks came concerning health care reform to keep a great system but to make it more cost-effective, including prescription drug prices. Fleming seemed to have little specific to offer despite his being a doctor, Thompson contradicted himself in suggesting government coordinate efforts to pool efforts yet at other intervals said government should involved as little as possible, and the best Gorman could do, as he did on more than one interval when a question involved money, was to say savings could be realized by cutting out waste and fraud without offering anything more innovative or substantive.

Gorman came off the worst when questions (obliquely referenced by both Fleming and Thompson in their opening remarks) delved into their political pasts. The questions made it impossible for Gorman to hide that he had only in the past few years returned to the area after several years absence during which he had not been registered as a Republican if registered at all to vote. Gorman’s excuse – that he had been dissatisfied with the party – rung hollow when compared to events of the past 15 years where it only has been recently that GOP national leaders had moved away from conservatism, since Gorman kept bringing up the conservative label to describe himself.

The casual observer would not have found much to differentiate the candidates. But those with more interest and knowledge would have found it a helpful exercise – and these are precisely the kinds of Republican voters that will hit the closed primary on Sep. 6 to decide (almost certainly) which two of these will head to a runoff.

Attitudes, not federal spending, hold back N.O. recovery

As we approach the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina striking New Orleans, it’s increasingly clear that it is not insufficient government assistance that slows recovery, it’s attitudes of too much dependence on government.

The federal government already has committed $126 billion – or in per capita terms using New Orleans’ population prior to the disaster, $278,146 per resident – to build back up the area. And no doubt hundreds of billions more will be spent to do things like rebuild and strengthen levees. It will be by far the most money the federal government ever has spent in a single metropolitan area, in history. To ask anything more of it not only is beyond reason, but smacks of greed and contempt for hard-working Americans who have paid to date about $415 per capita extra on behalf of New Orleans.

Yet some keep complaining enough hasn’t been done, in large part mostly by people who pay little if anything in taxes to the federal government to finance the operation. No doubt these whiners were socialized into the New Orleans that fostered a culture of dependency, where government programs not only were widely utilized, but demanded as some kind of right to finance lifestyles devoid of effort to contribute to society at least marginally.

Not all severely inconvenienced by the disaster responded this way. While some emitted cries of woe and waited for others to do things for them, others like the Vietnamese community in New Orleans East took matters into their own hands and didn’t wait on government to put things back together. Many families at an individual level have done the same.

The reason why New Orleans still shows considerable lack of recovery is not because of a lack of resources provided by the federal government, it is because of New Orleans and too many of its citizens’ actions and behaviors – from putting in to office a whimsical mayor to carping rather than doing. One wondered whether the great displacement that occurred would wash away the dependency syndrome entrenched in the minds of too many Orleanians and politicians. That has proven not to be the case.

Improper analysis misses significant displacement effect

If you’re going to analyze prospects for a particular electoral contest, you need to use the right data. Unfortunately, an otherwise well-done piece on the contest featuring incumbent Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu and challenger Republican state Treasurer John Kennedy was marred by reliance on poorly-conceptualized analysis.

An erroneous remark came from a New Orleans-area demographer who asserted “Senator Landrieu will not be losing African American votes as a result of Katrina.” Facts simply do not back up this claim. The comparison made was between the 328,443 blacks who voted on Nov. 5, 2002 and the 310,428 who voted on Oct. 20, 2007 – which is not the correct comparison and uses the incorrect metric.

Of some concern is that the first date was the runoff involving Landrieu’s last Senate race while the second was the primary for statewide elections. A comparison of more similar things would have been looking at data for either the primary date for each election, or the runoff date for each, a minor problem. But a huge conceptual error was made because the nature of turnout for each differs because different offices were up for grabs. This causes not only different levels of turnout, but different levels of registration.

If one cares to study election cycles in Louisiana, there is a hierarchy to turnout and registrations, roughly mirroring each other. The highest turnout elections are those with presidential candidates on the ballot, followed by congressional contests, with state contests dragging the rear. Tracking monthly statistics, for example one can see about six months before a presidential election a building large increase in registrations which pays off on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November with the largest turnout of any kind of election requiring statewide voting. Afterwards, registrations begin to tail off dramatically until the next similar kind of election (congressional) looms.

In other words, comparing number registrants in 2002, a higher-stimulus election, to those in 2007, of lower stimulus, is like comparing apples and oranges. Further, focusing on the raw numbers of a single group, rather than numbers of all groups and their turnout rates, distorts the picture even more.

A better comparison is between the figures of Nov. 5, 2004, the last presidential election, and the latest registrant statistics which will be close to the ones applicable to the presidential election this fall, and applying to them the turnout rate differential between the 2003 and 2007 state elections. This keeps the comparisons between elections of the same kind, and allows us to convert, since actual turnout is what we are interested in but we don’t have that yet for 2008, registrations to turnout.

For the 2004 election, there were 1,934,953 whites, 870,103 blacks, and 116,658 other races on the Louisiana books. For Aug. 3, 2008, there were 1,884,947 whites, 874,896 blacks, and 121,315 others. However, raw registrants turn into voters at different rates. In 2007, as I have noted elsewhere, the 4 percent decline in turnout was attributable almost entirely to sharply lower participation rates among blacks in the state that were largely a product of displacement in three parishes from Hurricane Katrina – that is, while some had their names on the books, much more than in the past they were not present to vote nor wished to vote absentee.

A year will have passed and people continue to trickle back into New Orleans but the fact is 365,015 blacks voted in 2003, a gap of almost 55,000 to 2007, and registrations respectively for those races for blacks were 812,905 and 843,674. (An academic paper I presented earlier this year predicts the effect for 2008 to be a net loss of 48,000 Democrat votes, of which most were blacks.) To say the effects of Katrina will not have a substantial negative impact on votes for a Landrieu candidacy simply ignores reality.