Last week, The Cook Political Report , the independent, non-partisan newsletter that analyzes campaigns, changed the ranking of the Congressional Race in Louisiana 's Sixth District from “Toss Up” to “Lean Democratic”, a reflection of the trouble that Republican Woody Jenkins has had in attracting moderate voters in the Greater Baton Rouge area and the relative successes that Democrat Don Cazayoux has experienced with this same electorate.
The Cook Report noted that the ranking change was based on Don Cazayoux's centrist politics was “a better fit for the district,” but it also stressed that much of the New Roads Democratic State Representative.’s chances of election to the U.S. Congress came thanks to Republican-turned-Independent Ashley Casey.
The political consultant and former aide to gubernatorial candidate John Georges presented a danger, according to the Report’s reasoning, of drawing away disaffected Republicans who supported Paul Sawyer and Laurinda Calongne in the GOP primaries as well as disaffected Independents who voted consistently for the former Republican incumbent Richard Baker.
Jenkins does have one advantage in a crowded field.He does not have to win a majority on May 3rd.For the first time in living memory, Louisiana will decide a closely fought Federal General election by plurality.Whichever candidate gains the most votes is the victor.Currently, polling data reveals that the former Baton Rouge State Representative’s committed supporters are the most committed, and Jenkins has the challenge of motivating his voters to come to the polls when turnout according to some estimates provided by the Secretary of State’s office could fall to as low as 12%.
Conversely, Don Cazayoux’s challenge is to motivate his slightly less committed, but more numerous, moderate base to come to the polls in two weeks while at the same time convincing African-American voters and East Baton Rouge liberals--who backed his Democratic primary opponent Rep. Michael Jackson--that he is an authentic Democrat and worthy of their votes and their attendance at the polls, despite his centrism.
Finally, Casey has to prove she is not just a spoiler.Her appeal to disaffected Republicans and Independents is predicated on the idea that in a low turnout race, a small group of voters can not only swing an election, but actually elect a non-traditional candidate.
People like to vote for a candidate who they believe has a chance of winning.The challenge for Casey is to convince disaffected Democrats, Republicans, and Independents that hers is not just a protest candidacy, but one of historic potential.
In a divided field with a highly divided electorate confused about the very nature of this election, where it takes only one more vote than your various opponents to claim victory, anything is possible.
In a November General Election with its higher turnout, Casey would not have a chance, Jenkins would have McCain’s coattails on which to ride, and Cazayoux could count on a large pro-Democratic African-American turnout thanks to Barack Obama, minority voters that pose the real danger of staying home in May.
If most Louisiana voters actually understood the three level nature of the Sixth Congressional District election (much less the more predictable First Congressional Race), expected turnout might be higher on May 3rd.However, these special U.S. House elections are the first to be run under former State Rep. Charlie Lancaster’s modified closed primary system which mandates closed Democratic and Republican primaries with runoffs should no candidate earn the 50% margin and then a general election including Independents where no one need earn a majority, just a plurality.
The system was designed to eliminate December runoffs in normal autumn Federal elections, and Lancaster expected that the first real test of new three tier election would be in the fall.Turnout for a Presidential race would be high, he reasoned, despite any confusion about voting three times from voters in general.
Instead, Bobby Jindal won the Governorship (as many expected) and Congressman Richard Baker resigned to take a million dollar a year job as a lobbyist on a couple of months notice (which nobody predicted), and the month which usually is devoted to exam prep for students and summer vacation planning for parents became a highly fought election season.
Most polls continued to reveal that the majority of voters are barely even aware that an election is taking place May 3rd, and that is the root of the challenge of each of the three major candidates in the Sixth Congressional District election.
For those that are aware, Cazayoux’s and Jenkins’ strategy has each focused on motivating their respective bases while demotivating any swing voters from the other.Casey meanwhile has sought to inform, encourage, and turnout non-traditional electorates as well as chronic Independent voters to come to the polls.
As Casey noted to Bayoubuzz.com with a bit of humor, with such a low expected turnout of May 3rd, the twelve hundred “friends” that are listed on her myspace page could constitute a majority in the Sixth District General Election.If she can turnout these non-traditional voters, she could prove a major factor in the race rather than a spoiler or historical footnote.
Jenkins has targeted Cazayoux’s primary weakness in recent days.While the Sixth District is moderate, it remains highly libertarian in tax matters, and supporters of the former North BR State Rep. launched a major ad campaign targeting tax increases for which the New Roads Democrat voted.(Ironically, most of them occurred during the administration of Republican Mike Foster.)
Cazayoux’s operatives have attacked Jenkins as April 15th came and went on past unpaid tax levies.In the days just prior to his 1996 U.S. Senate race, a half dozen unpaid tax liens were publicized by the media, and arguably played a factor in his loss to Mary Landrieu.
They certainly depressed turnout in Jenkins’ native Baton Rouge, where he beat Landrieu by just over 2,000 votes.Republican candidates usually earn multiples of that margin in East Baton Rouge parish.
It did not matter that most of the liens were for less than two hundred dollars, accounting errors amidst the hundreds of thousands of dollars that his Great Oaks Broadcasting Corp. television stations had paid in taxes.The damage was done.
Now, even with the liens long paid, Cazayoux supporters appeared in front of Jenkins’ offices to “remind” him that taxes were due April 15th.The image, the Democratic operatives hope, will harm Jenkins’ already shaky relationship with moderate swing voters.
It is critical for Don Cazayoux because unlike Jenkins he does not hail from East Baton Rouge Parish.All things being equal, Baton Rouge voters tend to vote for native sons, and the New Roads Democrat, with a slight rural twang, does not fall into that demographic.
Turnout returns from the primary reveal that Jenkins is strong in the ex-burbs and rural areas in which Cazayoux should dominate.To equal that advantage, particularly amongst socially conservative rural whites, Cazayoux needs a strong turnout in the Capitol Parish.Here, he may be stymied by whites searching for a native, but more likely, Cazayoux’s disadvantage could be amongst Blacks.
It is not that they will vote for Jenkins.GOP primary opponent Paul Sawyer’s charges that Jenkins knowingly purchased a mail list from David Duke put at an end to that; regardless how many times the former State Rep. claimed that he had no knowledge that the company from which he purchased the list had links to Duke.
African-Americans likely would not have voted for a Republican anyway.They might stay home, though.
Sources in the Sixth District reveal that a whisper campaign against Don Cazayoux in the Black community has centered on his house.Cazayoux lives, quite literally, in a plantation, and the rumors have circulated that a white guy with a twang who lives in an actual plantation in New Roads might not relate well to Blacks while in Washington.
No one quite knows where the telephone calls to Black voters have come from, but there is a logical possibility.It is common knowledge that the Democrat Cazayoux defeated in the primary, State Rep. Michael Jackson, wants another chance at the office in the fall when Black voters are motivated because of Barack Obama.A Cazayoux victory does not behoove Jackson long term.
Of course, it is a strategy that was tried in the Third Congressional District by Republican Craig Romero.He depressed GOP turnout for the primary victor, Billy Tauzin III, son of the departing incumbent, thinking that Democrat Charlie Melancon would be easy to defeat a year and a half later in a regular election.Romero then went on to lose to incumbent Congressman Melancon by a wide margin.
Still, without African-American voters, a Cazayoux victory is more problematic, and for a Democrat who has moved to the center so aptly, earning endorsements from the National Rife Association (like Jenkins), there are few political options available to him to motivate Black voters who otherwise might wait until the autumn.
Meanwhile, Jenkins must answer Cazayoux rising popularity with the Baton Rouge Business community.The socially conservative Republican’s populism has never endeared him to the EBR business elite and the moderate voters to which they speak. In the 1996, they backed Jenkins’ GOP rival Chuck McMains and in the runoff a percentage of these voters stayed home while their leaders were slow to financially support Jenkins.
Now, according to some sources, some EBR Republicans are contributing to Cazayoux and opening considering direct support, if not outright endorsement.The logic is that Cazayoux will be more able to defeat in the Fall as McCain heads the ticket, and a moderate Republican can be found to oppose him.Even if they cannot, Cazayoux’s centrism, they reason, fits their world view more aptly than Jenkins’ conservatism, and with a Democratic House of Representatives, an ally in the ruling camp may not prove so uncomfortable.
Through attacks on the tax increases that Cazayoux supported, the Jenkins camp has actively sought to bring these voters, and their leaders, home to the GOP candidate, arguing that the New Roads Rep. is not a “John Breaux Democrat”.
Meanwhile, Casey, who’s television ads hit the airwaves this coming week, is trying to make her case to this same Republicans, attract African-American women to support an Independent of their gender, and argue to not only Independents but East Baton Rouge Democrats that she is a better moderate fit than a candidate from the country.
It is a far harder sell than either Jenkins or Cazayoux must make, but in a race where two weeks out, no one has any idea who the victor will be, where a candidate’s ability to turnout even a miniscule vote can provide victory, anything is possible.
