It’s A Southern Thing
Via Facing South I found this wonderful article, Louisiana kicks off 2007 gov races, at State Line.
Louisiana has an open primary, i.e. party identification doesn’t matter, everyone gets to vote, and the top two finishers go on to the general election if the top vote getter receives less than 50% of the vote. If the number 1 candidate gets more than 50%, they are automatically elected.
They are holding the primary tomorrow and Rep. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) would seem to be on track to win the whole thing, except there’s an LSU-Auburn University football game tomorrow and it’s the first day of deer season for several areas in the state.
To win outright, Jindal needs the good ol’ boys to put off shooting Bambi for a while, and to get to the polls before kick-off. He’s asking a lot of Louisiana voters.
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Poor Louisiana. My mother has had personal run-ins with Bobby Jindal starting with his first year in Louisiana state government as DHS secretary under Gov. Buddy Roemer (she was a nurse in the state hospital system at the time). Jindal’s first action was to fuck with their paychecks to push a paycheck over the edge of the fiscal year in order to avoid having to borrow money to pay their salaries. Well, he fucked with their paychecks alright, but of course her rent couldn’t get pushed into the next fiscal year, her car payment could not be pushed into the next fiscal year, all he did was balance the budget on the backs of the already-underpaid state employees (the *only* reason she stayed working for the state was because of the retirement program — private hospitals had eliminated their pension programs). And from there he just kept fucking with things, to the point where he was the main reason why Gov. Buddy Roemer lost his bid for re-election.
The only reason he’s the #1 candidate for governor this year is because he’s the only “name” in the race. Everybody else who is a “name” was too close to Gov. Blanco and is not running because they’re waiting for the stain over Blanco’s name to fade with time and for folks to forget that they were associated with Blanco. Unfortunately, he also has learned how to cater to the bubbas by spouting Reagan/Bush nonsense, like he’s promising to eliminate the state charity hospital system (which he has no power to do, since it is written into the state constitution that all Louisianians have a right to health care via said system, to be provided on a sliding-scale basis according to income). Nevermind that the bubbas rely on the state charity hospital system too, the fact that darkies can use it free of charge just irritates their little pin brains. Jindal learned from his last election that if he was going to win, he’d have to out-nigger-bash the nigger bashers, and has run a race that might as well be right out of the KKK rulebook, to the point where the bubbas have pretty much forgotten that Jindal himself is, uhm, suspiciously dusky.
In short, he’s going to be a disaster to Louisiana. But then, Louisiana’s government has been nothing but a disaster for decades, so I’m not sure how different that is, sigh…
I just can’t believe they didn’t adjust for the football schedule or deer season.
I was affected by a similar accounting trick when I was teaching and out of the blue they put off payday for a week. Since most people had direct deposit there were checks bouncing all over the area, as people wrote them in anticipation of the money showing up before the checks arrived at their destinations. Then there was the strike of public workers that magically ended when the county covered its shortfall with the fines against those on strike.
And people wonder why I hate Republican politicians.
Well, seems like Jindal won. Looking at who he was running against, it’s no wonder. Foster Campbell was probably the best of the Democratic bunch (though he came in pretty far down the list), but Louisiana isn’t electing anybody from North Louisiana anymore, the center of gravity has shifted southward. Now comes the hard part — actually governing Louisiana. It doesn’t hurt Republican chances that Republican ethnic cleansing sent 10% of the Democratic vote to other states either (talking about the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans, that is, which has gone from a majority-black city to a majority-white city thanks to this ethnic cleansing). I guess Dear Leader really does need to stick a “Mission Accomplished” sign on the statue in the middle of Jackson Square and hold another rally, Republican victory mission accomplished, and all it took was destroying a major port city! Woot!
“Cleaning” New Orleans was part of the plan from the beginning, and they are busy scrubbing the Gulf Coast of Mississippi with the targeting of rebuilding funds.
Everything is politics with the Republicans.
If Jindal is expecting help from FEMA or the Corps he is going to have to wait a year, because it isn’t going to happen under the Shrubbery.