The Louisiana Democratic Party is a mess right now, so much so that Governor Bobby Jindal could probably moonwalk into office without running a major ad on radio or television.
With about two months to go before the election, the LDP has all but checked out of a race, it never really entered. To this day, there's no mention of the October primary on their website, and they haven’t even bothered to put out a candidate. (It's hard to imagine them showing any less enthusiasm about taking back the governor's mansion.) On top of that, they’ve stood by and watched as the number of registered democrats in Louisiana dropped below 50% for the first time since 1957.
The only Democrat by name that’s even on the ballot is Tara Hollis, a schoolteacher who voted for Jindal in 2007 – and she’s getting zero help from the party financially. According to her latest financial disclosure, she’s managed to raise $3,566 on her own, but Jindal has gotten almost 3 times that from just one donor, Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay and runner-up in the race for California’s governor.
But with as sad a state as the LDP is in today, the Democrat's downfall isn’t totally the current regime’s fault. The party’s decline has become a trend ever since Hurricane Katrina. Back in 2005, Democrats slowly began switching parties once Kathleen Blanco established herself as a disaster, and they haven’t stopped since President Obama took office. His election and his policies have actually caused them to switch sides faster.
Mainly because Louisianans rejected Obama’s health care bill all across the state and gave the same treatment to his BP response and oil-drilling moratorium. (Ironically, barely anyone, Democrat politicians included, applauded his stimulus package which helped Jindal balance his last two budgets and keep education and healthcare somewhat affordable).
What seemed more important to some voters, and politicians, was jumping on the anti-Obama bandwagon (for votes probably). Lieutenant Governor Scott Angelle, Rep. Walker Hines, Sen. John Alario, and Attorney General Buddy Caldwell are just a few Democrats who've abandoned their party and turned Republican. Angelle flat out blamed his defection on the oil-drilling moratorium while Caldwell joined 26 other attorney generals and filed suit against the federal government over the Democrat’s health care bill.
David Vitter was also able to ride the anti-Obama wave straight into re-election, shaking off the D.C. madam scandal and Rep. Charlie Melancon’s challenge by going around the state guaranteeing he’d oppose every and anything Obama.
Because of all the defections, Sen. Mary Landrieu is the only statewide elected Democrat left in office, while Republicans now control the governor’s mansion, the State House of Representatives, and the Senate.
There’s talk that State Senator Rob Marionneaux might enter the governor’s race on behalf of the Democrat party, but there’s not much a state senator who half the population has probably never heard of will be able to do in a two-month window, except lose in a landslide election.
Ron Ceasar, an Independent, has also jumped in the race. But this is a man whose own wife refused to take part in his campaign to recall Jindal (he got a stunning 55 signatures), and like Hollis, he’s someone who has no money.
So, unless something miraculous happens, the state can get ready for four more years of the Jindal agenda, which means another four-year assault on common sense, health care, and education, and another four years worth of speeches about Louisiana being “business friendly.”
If Jindal would cater to the state’s students the same way he does to potential businesses, Louisiana might become “educational” as well as “business friendly.”
Instead, companies like Nucor receive nice, alluring packages designed to make them feel comfortable while students and their parents receive educational obstacles, like the LA GRAD ACT for example, a bill that raises tuition, and admission standards all in the name of making Louisiana’s graduation rate look better on paper, all the while making it harder and more expensive for the average student to get an education.
But that’s life under Jindal, and with no resistance from the Democrats or any other party, that’ll be life for Louisiana, at least until the next election.
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