Dems Capture Long-Held GOP House Seat In Louisiana
In a further indication that the Democrats are well-positioned to expand their House majority this November, Democrat Don Cazayoux has won a special election tonight for a Louisiana seat that has been in Republican hands for over 30 years.
With 99% of precincts reporting, Cazayoux leads with 49,371 votes, or 49% of the vote, followed by Republican Woody Jenkins at 46,554 votes, or 46%. In a district that voted 59% for President Bush in 2004, that is simply a stunning result.
This is on top of another big Democratic pick-up two months ago, when Bill Foster (D-IL) won the suburban Illinois seat of former GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert.
In short, this year isn't going very well so far for the NRCC.















YES YES
SUCK IT YOU CORPORATE FASCIST FUCKS
SUCK IT
May 3, 2008 11:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat!
LOL!
May 3, 2008 11:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Republicans ran attacks ads against Obama in this district thinking it would help their candidate. IT FAILED MISERABLY!!!!
May 3, 2008 11:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep - this is major. This is proof of his effect on downballot races in the south.
I am just loving this - I love it -
come on supers! - throw it all in tomorrow. Get drunk tonight, and just stumble out tomorrow after you've slept in your clothes and say: "This is insane - it's Obama already!"
You'll be so happy you did.
May 3, 2008 11:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think we'll see slight uptick in supers going to Obama next week. This past week was good, I think next will be even better. Just a gut feeling. The inevitability of the situation is beginning to become obvious to everyone. Time to put some wind in the obvious nominee's sails and help him finish strong.
May 4, 2008 12:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, all depends on this morning's interview with Tim Russert. If Obama has a slip-up, this will play on MSNBC all week. AND, I think Stephanopoulos is no match for Russert in follow-up questions. I doubt he will stick it to Hillary!
May 4, 2008 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
If he wins both states, they'll come running. Oops - WHEN he wins both states...
May 4, 2008 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
If it cannot work in the deep south now, when it's fresh, it's a red herring. This is the stuff lanslides are made of.
May 4, 2008 2:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well Don Taxayoux beat Woody Jenkins in LA6. Big win for the dems helped no doubt by a huge demo vote in New Roads - the Ole HomeTown - described in the Pointe Coupee Parish website as a "progressive community" of 5000 souls
Yeah right...a real San Francisco on the Mississippi
May 4, 2008 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bad news for both Hillary and the GOP!
The Obama brand IS a winner and very electable!
May 4, 2008 9:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Plus it drains Republican National Committee coffers (already low) of over $1 million for dedication to the Fall!
Ya gotta love it!!!!
May 3, 2008 11:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
God is good.
May 3, 2008 11:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eric
And yet you didn't care to credit Obama for these wins. Surely, Hastert seat was due to a major role played by Obama and his team.
And yet, I remember you gleefully wondering a few posts back whether Obama was "hurting" Cazayoux.
At least, I should be happy that you didn't report that Cazayoux won despite Obama "hurting" him.
What a pathetic bias !
May 3, 2008 11:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting point made by Al Giordano at The Field. He mentioned that putting Obama in the attack ads used against Cazayoux was stupid because all it did was drive the African American voter to vote in the election.
A very astute point, methinks.
May 4, 2008 2:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
C'mon, Rep. Cole -- fire up some more of those swell NRCC ads. Make my day!
LOL!
Maybe he's now rethinking that BS "I'd rather run against Obama, he's easier to beat" line from earlier this week...
May 3, 2008 11:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, whats the over/under for anyone out there for how many seats the republican party loses this fall in the house? I think maybe 23 or 24 maybe.
May 3, 2008 11:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
What do the Dems need for a filibuster-proof majority? That's what I want.
May 4, 2008 12:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Filibusterproofing would require 9 senate seat pickups and that is if you are counting on Joe Lieberman's rock solid loyalty.
May 4, 2008 12:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
If President Obama works his Senate friends, and stays true to himself, the Senate will have an opportunity to govern without the fillubuster.
May 4, 2008 2:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama deserves some credit for this.
We just showed a chink in the southern strategy we haven't seen in 30 goddam years, Eric.
May 3, 2008 11:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm out -
- it's such a good night!
One love
May 3, 2008 11:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another notch in the belt for Big Brown. Anyone still think he's less electable now? They tried to tar this guy with Obama associations and failed miserably.
And now Cazayoux is a superdelegate. What is he thinking tonight?
May 3, 2008 11:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quick! Dems! Don't coalesce around the obvious nominee. Battle it out for the next five months!
After all, political atmospheres like this are extremely common. Take some time and money and spend it on beating up Obama and Clinton!
You'll be glad you did...er...McCain will!
May 4, 2008 12:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
ARGH!
BRING BACK THE CORPORATE RAIDERS!
RUIN BUSINESS!
FOREIGN INVADERS!
MIGHTY CAPITAL IS ALL THAT IT TAKES...
AND A CLINTON BOUGHT WHITE HOUSE
THOSE ARE THE STAKES!
ACQUIRE! MERGE! MARAUD! DILUTE! DILUTE!
ARGH!
May 4, 2008 12:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Eric's not a heavy lifter lately. The writing's on the wall, and this site like Hill's campaign is turning into a broken record.
May 4, 2008 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
So much for the "Obama is a liability" BS.
This was a 59% Bush district.
May 4, 2008 12:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Though I don't want to be a downer and as I've said in another comment, I'm glad the Democrat won and that he was able to withstand the "attacks" of tying him to Obama and Pelosi; The AP was reporting only a 24% turnout and Katrina has happened since Bush's 59%. I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the area for a while, but there were lots of folks who relocated from New Orleans to places like Baton Rouge, so I'm sure the electoral makeup has most likely changed since the '04 election.
May 4, 2008 6:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Katrina happened before the 2006 elections, and the Democrats didn't even field a candidate in LA-06 that year. That's how red this district is.
May 4, 2008 7:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Right, as I said; Hurricane Katrina has occurred since Bush won in '04 and the electoral makeup of the district has most likely changed since that event. Not only were there a lot of relocations from an area with lots of Democrats, but there's probably even some distance between the local Republicans and the national party due to their response.
The original post says that Pres. Bush won the district with 59% in '04 and though that's not really the widest of margins to start, the changes since that time has also had some effect.
May 4, 2008 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, in presidential elections, 59% represents a landslide. A district that gives that much of its vote to one candidate is one that is not seriously contested by the other party. In most years. Also, 24% turnout for a special election for a U.S. House seat strikes me as astonishingly high, not low. All those signs — plus the fact that we're seeing the exact same dynamic in other special elections across the country — point to a structural realignment coming out of the fall elections. The Republicans know what's coming. Most of them haven't publicly let on yet.
May 5, 2008 1:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
C'mon. I love Obama as much as anybody but to say that Obama "helped" this guy is insane. He just didn't hurt him like Republicans had hoped.
Now, we'll have to see what happens to Childers in MS who is running for a special election on 5/13. They're trying to use Obama to sink him. I made a donation to the guy but then he tried to run away from Obama so I asked for it back!
May 4, 2008 12:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
LMAO
May 4, 2008 12:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ho hem, didn't black votes put him over the top literally in the last minute ?
May 4, 2008 12:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't sell him short.
the Repubs made this special election a referendum on Obama...and LOST!
May 4, 2008 12:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama sure didn't hurt him. They spent $1 million trying to make the election a referendum on Obama, and for their trouble they lost a seat which has never been held by anyone but a Republican or a pre-civil-rights Democrat.
If "Obama is the boogeyman!" doesn't even work in the Deep South, please tell me, where is it going to work?
May 4, 2008 7:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Not this time" Senator Barack Hussein Obama
May 4, 2008 12:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
If Childers loses, no biggie. The man would be a Blue Dog anyway, not a real Democrat. I'm not optimistic about Childers. He comes from a district full of racist dixie-douchepiles.
May 4, 2008 12:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
A Democrat is almost always better than a Republican.
May 4, 2008 12:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, wonderful news this! We need all the house votes we can get. My congratulations to the good democrats of LA-6 whose hard work paid off. Pity about LA-1, but given that these had both been republican seats before, I am at least glad that one of them went democratic.
May 4, 2008 12:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am so depressed about 01, you just don't even know. Scalise is such a sleaze. Of course, when you consider that the media coverage of 01 was basically a footnote to every 06 article that said "Scalise is expected to win," it's not really a shock.
May 4, 2008 8:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama's gorgeous coat tails!
His girls were out campaigning with him today. Cute.
May 4, 2008 1:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Any pics ?
May 4, 2008 1:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
No. I'll look though. I saw them on CNN. It was at a picnic that the Obama campaign held on a piece of land that his mom used to own. Lots of people, Obama and his two girls. Very sweet view.
May 4, 2008 2:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've seen pics, but they were heavily watermarked to disencourage their dissemination. I sort of agree with that. They're little kids, they don't need the nation leering at them, no matter what good intentions we might have.
May 4, 2008 3:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree.
I will settle for the official pics of them ransacking the WH.
May 4, 2008 4:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
If I may challenge conventional wisdom, it's long been assumed that low turnout elections like special elections are an advantage to Republicans, since they turn out more than Democrats. However, I have observed since 2004 a trend I suspect started earlier, wherein Democrats are winning low turnout elections. This one I noticed had a 24% turnout.
I'm not sure what this tells us, other than anyone suggesting low turnout elections aren't worth contesting is a fool. Maybe Democrats even benefit now, though I can't say why. It might suggest to Republicans that they don't benefit from suppressing votes as much as they think. That's assuming they don't find some excuse to blow off this loss, like they did every sign in 2006. Sorry Mr. Rove, but that's "the math".
May 4, 2008 1:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cazayoux was losing until they counted the Baton Rouge votes which were heavily AA.
Whether or not Obama had coattails or would have coattails in southern elections is debatable but several things are clear this year-
1) Race issues didn't scare a significant number of white voters away even in the deep south.
2) AA voters are energized this election and it isn't wise to piss them off.
3) Bush (as polls are showing) is a much bigger liability than anything else even scary black people.
4) This country is FED UP.
May 4, 2008 1:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
NC by 15
IN by 4
McLaughlin called for an IN upset by Obama.
May 4, 2008 1:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Cazayoux was losing until they counted the Baton Rouge votes which were heavily AA."
Well, it's a little more complicated than that. Baton Rouge has the bulk of the people in the area. The near outlying areas tend to be "white flight" suburbs, which tend to be Republican. Baton Rouge is a huge college town and Obama has lots of support at the college level. Plus folks in Baton Rouge tend to be better educated and more liberal than folks in the surrounding areas.
Which isn't to say race isn't a factor, but the city vs. country, city vs. suburb, college town dynamics are all in play in Baton Rouge, as well.
All that said, I recall running into strong Obama support from the old white guy set in rural Louisiana waaay back last year when Obama couldn't get endorsements from black politicians because they didn't take him seriously and the meme of the moment was "not black enough". Reverend Wright cleared that one up, eh?
May 4, 2008 3:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Race issues didn't scare a significant number of white voters away even in the deep south."
is just crazy talk, btw. If you think the middle-class white people are going to the same polling places as the poor, angry black people I have some real estate in New Orleans to sell you.
Besides which, they might be angry, but they know full well if they get too excited in a public place some white cops are going to shoot them. That's not an exaggeration; that's the truth. So. White people in the deep south fear angry black people alone at night, after certain college sports events, and otherwise not so much.
May 4, 2008 3:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was referring to the ads that are trying to tie him to Obama and Obama to Wright. The GOP tried to use race and liberalism as a wedge and it didn't work.
I wasn't referring to the black voters but clearly you were.
Don't you have a cross burning to go to?
May 4, 2008 4:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is a much larger trend here:
These days Wall Street is backing the Dems (Hillary is notoriously tight with Wall Street and corporate America but Obama has seen his share from hedge funds as well).
As a result, there is a dangerous bait-and-switch that will be played. The fact is, Hillary is really an elite, and the other Dems are not far behind. This is not your great-grandfathers' FDR coalition. This is far more like the GOP from the 50's. So they will run like populists but expect to stand in line behind the suspenders and pinstripes during the great bailout of 2010.
Or said another way: the Dems have a real chance to become the "corporate fascist fucks" mentioned above.
Those Dem coffers are full. Careful what you wish for.
May 4, 2008 3:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
this one goes out to all those repuglitards and trolls who think their repuglitarded party has a chance in November
you're like George Washington, you're HISTORY
May 4, 2008 3:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's good news for all dems, not just Obama's supporters. Let's try to share this victory around instead of crowing about the role our candidate played in ads used against Cazayoux.
May 4, 2008 3:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
You know, I agree here... if they didn't have Obama to trash, and their delusion thatall southerners are bigots, the Republicans would be posing Bill and the blue dress, instead of Rev. Wright, in these ads.
May 4, 2008 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you like a little spin with your Sunday morning routine, you'll love this priceless press release from the NRCC following the democrats picking up a seat held by a republican for 33 years:
You can read the whole wonderful thing here:
http://thepage.time.com/nrcc-release/
The fear is absolutely palpable. This statement alone demonstrates all this talk about how the republican's would actually prefer to run against Obama is sheer bull puckey.
Can you smell victory in November? I can. Obama 08.
May 4, 2008 8:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
.
LOL - I love the smell of fried Republicans in the morning - it smells like victory.
LOLOLOLOL!!!!!
May 4, 2008 8:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
This was also a good test of the bigot factor, and how Obama will influenc this whole election cycle, they ran anti-Obama ads to try to keep this Democrat from taking LA, as if it was Wright running for office.
I think most bigots actually delude themselves into imagining everyone else is prejudiced, and IU would wager now they are all crying foul and working even harder for constitutionally illegal Voter ID requirements, because "Those Dems must have cheated." They just can't imagine a world without prejudice.
This is definitely a bigger victory than it looks like on the surface, if we can win seats in the south like this, this may actually become Rush's feared "50-state landslide."
I have alwasy anticipated a Democratic victory at many levels in this election, but this is evidence it is bigger than anything even the most optimistic among us have hoped for.
May 4, 2008 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
"a seat held by a republican for 33 years:"
There's the money line...
May 4, 2008 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
stop and think how silly we sound,,, if Obama is President, why do we need a veto-proof majority?
But it would be great to have both a Democratic President and a veto-proof majority.
Remember the "nuclear option" the R's were posing back in their Delay days?
HYPOCRITES!!!
...they are now suffering even in their bastions for their shameful historic hubris.
May 4, 2008 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Dems Capture Long-Held GOP House Seat In Louisiana"
This isn't about Obama. This is about a man that won an election in a very red district. Give this man the credit please. His win is most important in the whole scheme of things no matter who wins the Presidential election.
Dems have got to look more at the big picture. This win makes that big picture sweeter!
May 4, 2008 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just as it did in 1932, its going to take a Democratic electoral landslide to undo the multiple disasters inflicted on the country by the Republicans. I think that the Cazayoux election and the Foster election are signs that the public may be coming to this realization.
Its too bad the country has to go through so much pain, but unfortunately its probably necessary.
May 4, 2008 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I live in Baton Rouge in a very red voting district that split evenly dem/rep in the election. This is a district that would vote for Bush Chaney again.
The TV adds, especially towards the end, were links to Clinton and Pelosi not Oboma Pelosi. Republicans here would probably turn out to vote against Clinton while Oboma would draw a large democratic base.
I need to correct fuzz, we don't go shooting the local populace. Our police chief is black, appointed by a white mayor, and our mayor is black, elected pre-Katrina.
Finally, there are no McCain signs or bumper stickers here, which says a lot.
May 4, 2008 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is races like this and the on for Hassert's old seat that makes you think that the polling this year is nuts. Gallup, for instance, is today showing that McCain would beat either Clinton or Obama. Whenever the Democrat is finally selected I would look for a big bounce and one that will hold for the most part.
May 4, 2008 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Super-delegates are no dummies -- they see that Obama brings passion and excitement to all sorts of Dem voters down-ballot. The Obama movement is real, powerful, growing -- who would throw all of that away for the sake of handing Hillary a tainted nomination? Especially when her true vetting -- Hsu, Foundation donors, Marc Rich, Bill's happy zipper in his post-Presidency--has yet to begin.
It's over folks and Obama has won.
May 4, 2008 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
to think you still have 46% of the voters in that state after all that they have gone through and yet to go through would still vote republican says a lot about their lack of intellegence. it it is somewhat scary to know we still have these type of people voting as we try to gain back our democracy.
May 4, 2008 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe, this is a harbinger of things to come for the GOP?
May 4, 2008 10:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
The rules of the House of Representatives do not permit filibusters. That's only in the Senate.
May 5, 2008 12:53 AM | Reply | Permalink