Why Obama Can Win Louisiana

Despite what my friends on the right may think, Louisiana will be competitive in the 2008 Presidential General Election. I offer the following observations:

– According to the latest (2006) statewide Census population estimate, Louisiana’s population has decreased by 4.1% since the year 2000. There are circumstantial reasons to believe that our State’s population has increased by as much as 2% during the past two years, including numerous reports regarding the population of the New Orleans Metropolitan Statistical Area.

– As I stated in a previous post, some on the right have created this myth of a massive diaspora of Democratically-leaning African-Americans. Regardless, Louisiana, as of 2006, had a population of 1,359,223 African-Americans, or 31.7% of the entire population. These are post-storm estimates; Louisiana still has the second-highest per capita population of African-Americans in the United States. All told, Louisiana lost only eight tenths of a percent of its African-American population after the storm. And that’s based on 2006 numbers.

– Louisiana Republicans did not support John McCain during the Republican Presidential primary. They supported Mike Huckabee. The vote broke down like this:

McCain’s victories are in dark red; Huckabee’s are in magenta.

– As this map illustrates, McCain’s victories were in the New Orleans area, Baton Rouge, and parts of Cajun Country. He failed to pick up a single parish in Northern Louisiana and only two in Central Louisiana. Huckabee carried Shreveport, Monroe, Alexandria, and Lake Charles.

– It’s worth noting: Alexandria has a Democratic mayor, Jacques Roy, who was elected with 76% of the vote. Monroe has an African-American Democratic mayor, Jamie Mayo. Shreveport has an African-American Democratic mayor, Cedric Glover. Lake Charles has a popular Democratic mayor, Randy Roach. (By the way, even though McCain carried Baton Rouge and New Orleans, it’s also worth noting: both have African-American Democratic mayors, Kip Holden and Ray Nagin).

– Republican turn-out paled in comparison to Democratic turn-out.

Democrats: 384,348

versus

Republicans: 161,319

– Compare that to a map of Obama’s and Clinton’s victories:

Hillary Clinton’s victories are in blue; Barack Obama’s are in cyan.

– This map obviously works in Obama’s favor, which is why he carried Louisiana. Obama won New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Alexandria, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Shreveport, and Monroe– every major metropolitan area in the State in every corner of the State.

– Every one of these cities, with the exception of Lafayette, has a Democratic mayor. Stated another way: every one of these cities, with the exception of Lafayette, has recently elected a Democrat to its highest office.

– Every one of these cities has a high population of African-Americans.

– Obama won fifteen of the eighteen parishes carried by McCain, with the exception of Avoyelles, St. Tammany, and St. Bernard. He was also able to win an additional twenty-nine parishes carried by Huckabee.

– All told, Obama won 44 parishes compared to Clinton’s 20. And Clinton still carried more parishes than McCain did.

– As Mike Stagg points out, there are more than 2.8 million registered voters in the State of Louisiana, more than half of whom (1.5 million) are Democrats. Borrowing Mike’s tables:

– Mike says it better than I can:

Obama’s victory in the nomination process has been built on a broad multi-ethnic coalition that has inspired African Americans and whites to reach out to each other again in an effort to try to get this nation to deliver on the promise of equality and fairness that it has offered but never fully delivered. That broad coalition, combined with a powerful yearning for change among large segments of the populace, helped produce the record turnout in primary elections across the country during this cycle.

– According to the most recent numbers from the Louisiana Secretary of State, there are approximately 720,287 registered Republicans, less than half of the number of registered Democrats (1,512,083).

– Proportionally, more Democrats turned out to vote in the primaries than did Republicans.

– Obviously, the swing vote will be what matters, and if the electoral primary map is any indication, John McCain has some serious problems, particularly if he is going to build his general election campaign around a theme of change from George Bush, an attempt to fashion himself as outside of the Republican base. Huckabee won the Republican base in Louisiana, and in the parallel Democratic primary, Obama won many of the same parishes as Huckabee. All told, Huckabee won only 17 parishes that were not won by Obama, the vast majority of which are rural.

– Higher voter-turnout due to the historic nature of this election (as well as the empirical trend of higher turn-out during Presidential elections) can only help Obama.

– We can change. We must change. And we will change.

– Kudos to WeCouldBeFamous for posting this video and for the subsequent analysis:

Ultimately, there were three Katrina investigations, one each by the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Presidency. That which was produced by the House was boycotted by Democrats. That which was produced was the President was intended to be toilet paper. The Senate investigation was what the Democrats were left with after the independent commission was rejected in a vote down party lines.

This Senate investigation was launched on September 15th, 2005.

Thus, it was not “fully underway” when John McCain voted against the independent investigation on September 14th, 2005.

Levees.org is still demanding a real investigation of federal levee failures today.

Has McCain now flip-flopped to support an independent commission? Or is he just confused about where his “maverick” image ends and his vote to protect the Bush administration from being held accountable for the Katrina response begins?

Somebody should ask him.

Does Stephanie Grace of the Times-Picayune still think Katrina is “risk-free” for John McCain?

– On a related note, in this morning’s edition of The Town Talk, local Republican activist Wayne Ryan claims that Barack Obama has not authored or co-sponsored any bills since arriving at the United States Senate. I am not sure why the paper allowed this to go to print, considering it is a blatant lie and misrepresentation of the facts.

Wayne Ryan, president of the Rapides Parish Republican Executive Committee, said of Obama’s selection, “In the presidential race, I think it greatly increases our chances because they’ve chosen a candidate with almost no experience in government.”

To emphasize his point, Ryan said, “He’s in his first term in the Senate, and he’s spent the last 18 months running for president.”

He said Obama has authored no legislation nor co-sponsored any bills since coming to the U.S. Senate.

And the changes in foreign policy Obama talks about would return the country to the 1960s era when the Cold War was at its height, he said.

“I don’t think we need that,” Ryan said.

Mr. Ryan and the newspaper need only perform a routine Internet search in order to locate the bills Mr. Obama has both authored and co-sponsored.

Mr. Ryan and The Town Talk would find that during his first two years in the United States Senate, Mr. Obama authored 152 different bills on a wide range of issues. Senator Clinton, on the other hand, had only authored 20 bills in 6 years. Mr. Obama has co-sponsored even more.

– One more thing: Does anyone else find it ironic that John McCain used a completely staged “town hall meeting” to announce the sudden need for similar meetings with Mr. Obama? (H/t to David Brignac, who actually attended McCain’s Baton Rouge “town hall” meeting for giving us the full details. This is certainly a must-read).