Last night, my desi-Yankee parents and I discussed our upcoming vote. When Louisiana came up, there was talk of Mary Landrieu and, no, John Neely Kennedy is not related to the Chappaquiddick Kennedys (Oxford, Mississippi ≠Oxford, Massachusetts and all that). Then arrived the topic of dread and despair, Representative William Jefferson. With a huge sigh, I said, “D finally convinced me that abstaining from voting for congressional representative is not the responsible thing to do, while registering our dissatisfaction with Jefferson is, even if the contender is Metairie Barbie.”
“How could your district put people that useless up for election?” (Uh, Liddy Dole, anyone?) So, I gave the folks a long-winded explanation of why Jefferson can run until he’s proven guilty, how our non-Jefferson and non-Moreno votes were diluted among three decent candidates, for which we should have arranged some sort of informal pre-primary to pick one who would have flushed the two current picks out of the pool, and how Moreno has done nothing to reach out to the majority of her Orleans Parish constituents, which is why Jefferson will end up winning. Plus, he has the support of God.
My dad said, “You should turn your explanation into a post,” but Schroeder beat me to it, along with those ever-important things called numbers, maps and graphs:
… The answer we need to give people is that we didn“t, in fact, demonstrate a desire to re-elect Jefferson. In fact, 51,701 of us voted for someone else in the Democratic primary. Three out of every four voters in the primary voted for someone besides Jefferson. Unfortunately, there were so many other African-American candidates in the primary who split the vote, that Jefferson made the run-off against Helena Moreno with a slim plurality of the vote.
Second of all, one always feels obliged to mention that an analysis of the 2nd Congressional District based upon race dynamics is an unfortunate reality of the way the district operates historically. That reality will play out again this season since Helena Moreno doesn’t appear to have made much effort to make inroads and build trust in the African-American community. She talks the talk like a television reporter, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she“s done her homework.
Like I said, Schroeder’s got spreadsheets and maps, so go read his post in full. My mother, who never misses an opportunity to conflate South Indian (specifically, those of the state of Tamil Nadu) and Louisiana politics, foresees that, once he is re-elected, William Jefferson will not be convicted. Either way, the federal pen is not enough for the likes of Jefferson and Stevens.
Don’t be silly. None of those other candidates in the primary was “decent”. If you’re dissatisfied with Dollar Bill, fine. But you can be reasonably certain that he will vote in a not-too-unacceptable manner most of the time. You cannot say this about “Metaire Barbie”.
Plus… I have said so many times before but will say so once more. I don’t think Jefferson is going to prison.
I can say that Moreno will probably not steal public funds and set up a dynasty of public pilferers and bring such disgrace on the state of LA. One problem I do have with the choice is political clout in Washington – neither have any. Not unless Dollar Bill is sharing his $90K plus some.
So should all these corrupt bastards be allowed to run for re-election and voted for because they “vote in a not-too-unacceptable manner most of the time” by someone’s standards?
So should all these corrupt bastards be allowed to run for re-election and voted for because they “vote in a not-too-unacceptable manner most of the time†by someone’s standards?
Yes, abso-freaking-lutley! The truths is you actually don’t know how corrupt a Moreno could possibly end up being. The track record for ethical rectitude is not good around here all accross the political spectrum. As a voter, your only real choice is to pick the candidate who will best support the policy agenda you want to see pushed. Dollar Bill (while nowhere near perfect in that regard) is a good deal better then Moreno from that perspective.
If I think Moreno might vote against… say… the Employee Free Choice Act, or a repeal of the PATRIOT act, or national health insurance, you can bet I’ll vote against her even if I don’t think she’ll ever steal one dime.
As David Foster Wallace once pointed out, a non-vote from you simply makes a vote from the ones who HAVE voted count doubly. Just letting you know…
8-)
when moreno was drug tested after the WDSU debate, she tried to bill the charges to wdsu, months after she quit her job there, and after she publicly attacked them in the newspaper. when she got a flat tire in her mercedes, she called the city and made them pay for it.
if anyone thinks she is any more ethical than jefferson, they’re wrong.
I can’t beleive you nut-jobs are even considering voting for bill jefferson. You’re INSANE!!! Haven’t you ever heard of a “new”, “fresh” face?
It’s ok, just keep doing what your doing. (as this city, and country go into the toilet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dear HLO,
I allowed your comment to appear here because, somewhere in the noise, you have a valid question. If you wish to continue the discussion here, please do not enter it calling everyone nutjobs and insane and generally being a nuisance. In other words, NOLA.com-esque commenters are not welcome at this blog.
I’m sorry – that face is not so fresh when it isn’t qualified. Maitri, thank you for keeping peace – this is a great blog you got here.
Nice to know free speech exists on this blog as it does on NOLA (…note sarcasm).
Enjoy your freedom to ban anything you find distasteful. I’m sure your readership will grow by leaps and bounds. Nothing like a carefully controlled discussion to misinform the masses.
Kandy: Thanks! I am not going to vote for Jefferson for obvious reasons, but have no faith in Moreno’s capabilities whatsoever. I’m starting to change my mind on the “Anyone But So-And-So” way of election-time reasoning.
James: Free speech is all well and good, but I also have the freedom to state that commenters take their Anger First, Comment Second words elsewhere. Having said that, I have not deleted a single comment here, except for Spam and ones that made racist or lascivious remarks towards me, my readers or the topic of my post. There is a difference between civilized discussion and yelling at people and name-calling to make a point. NOLA.com is the online version of an actual newspaper and ought to foster discussion with integrity, respect and all that jazz, while this here is just a private blog by some chick. What’s their excuse for not monitoring the useless trolls and flamers? Also, I don’t need a growing quantity of readers, when the quality of my existing readers and commenters is more than sufficient.