Now the national political media has picked up on Secretary of State Jay Dardenne's floating of a potential primary challenge to the Sinning Senator:
"I've had a lot of people suggest that I do that. I'd have to raise some money. I may do that."
While I believe that such a challenge is the nightmare that keeps the Sinning Senator continually running to North Louisiana to project the image that he's hard at work up in Washington to take folks minds' off the fact that he wasn't on the straight and narrow back in the day, it's getting awfully late ... and if Dardenne is gonna run, he better start raising money quick. The longer he waits to get in, the less seriously I think his campaign will be taken.
Not only does he not rule it out, he pledges to keep listening to folks. Well, I've been hearing that he's been in northern Louisiana quite frequently over the past few months, and taking the time to meet with Republican elected officials. Rumors are flying that Mr. Dardenne is speaking with those elected officials about putting a campaign team together.
Moreover, the Sinning Senator's strategy appears to be to appeal to the hard-core right wing, or as noted pollster and political strategist Stanley Greenberg calls them in his book, The Two Americas: Our Current Political Deadlock and How to Break It, the F-You Boys and F-You Old Men, which is totally unnecessary unless the Sinning Senator anticipates a primary challenge, and is attempting to ward one off.
One such example of the Sinning Senator catering to the F-You Boys (& Old Men) is his ludicrous assertion that an obscure provision in the Cap & Trade Bill would give President Obama new powers of a dictator; an assertion that even right-wing bloggers @ Michele Malkin's Hot Air took issue with: (emphasis added)
That's not to say that this bill isn't dangerous, but it simply doesn't do what Vitter claims. Nowhere in either bill does the term "climate emergency" appear, which Vitter claims is the lever through which the President will claim dictatorial powers. We need to focus on the real problems of the bill, chief among them that it will kill jobs to solve a problem that doesn't exist, rather than generate false hysteria to answer false hysteria.
Now, Democratic operatives tell me that the Sinning Senator's polling has remained remarkably consistent all year despite a climate that has been absolutely vicious for Democrats in Louisiana. That same polling shows that Vitter's Republican support is weak, and it is weakest up in overwhelmingly Baptist North Louisiana.
What does this mean? It means that if Jay Dardenne were to throw his hat in the ring for the Republican nomination, it'd be a battle royale. And those same Democratic operatives are scared of running against Dardenne - he's a stable, well-regarded elected official with a slim record to run against.
Will Mr. Dardenne run? That's the nightmare that keeps the Sinning Senator running to North Louisiana every chance he gets.
While many other well-known Republicans in Louisiana have passed on challenging the SINator, Secretary of State Jay Dardenne continues to feed the rumor mill:
"I'm continuing to get a lot of encouragement from a lot of people," Dardenne said Tuesday. "I have not decided to run, nor have I ruled out the possibility that I may run."
I don't think Dardenne will challenge the SINator ... but I do think he's a media whore, which is why he continues to encourage speculation that he may run.
This past Saturday, the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee held a meeting in Shreveport. One of the issues on the agenda was whether or not to open up the party primary to Independent and third party members. It was voted down by a vote of 114-5. They even made it one of the bylaws of the Louisiana Republican Party, making it even tougher to change it, as such a change would require a 2/3 vote to open the GOP primaries.
What does this mean? It means that the Louisiana GOP just made it much, much tougher for a challenger to defeat David Vitter in a GOP primary, especially since John Cooksey, and Tony Perkins have decided NOT to challenge the mercurial SINator.
The only potential challenger left standing amongst GOP elected officials is Secretary of State Jay Dardenne. While he has pointedly kept his name circulating in GOP circles by not issuing a Shermanesque statement closing the door on a potential challenge, I cannot see him challenging the SINator, as I believe he wants to keep his powder dry until 2015, when Governor PBJ will be term-limited, providing, of course, that he wins re-election.
All of this leaves Stormy Daniels as the only candidate still seriously considering a challenge to the SINator.
The poll that I linked to earlier on the 2010 Senate race has some really useful information for politicians considering running against Vitter, but also tells about how Louisianans feel about a few of their elected officials:
Candidate
Very Favorable
Favorable
Unfavorable
Very Unfavorable
No Opinion
Net (Fav - Unfav)
President Obama
14%
33%
31%
13%
9%
3
Sinator Vitter
12%
37%
21%
21%
9%
7
Governor PBJ
21%
33%
23%
16%
7%
15
Sec State Dardenne
15%
33%
12%
10%
30%
26
Governor PBJ has a net favorable/unfavorable rating of 15. Only 54% of Louisianans now have a favorable opinion of him, and that's after it was in the 60's for most of last year. Why folks are surprised that PBJ's numbers aren't that hot is beyond me, really. He's had a rough year and a third as Governor thus far:
He is misperceiving the public mood out there ... folks actually want the government to step in and fix the problem. They are realizing that the robber barons of Wall Street caused this problem, not the government. And they also realize that the only entity with any power to rein in said robber barons is ... well ... the government. And his speech last Tuesday night made that crystal clear to Louisianans.
Events like this aren't gonna help, especially when the Governor is committing what they call political suicide in Texas by leaving millions in federal money on the table.
Sinator David Vitter held a "Mardi Gras in December" fundraiser in Washington last week at which Governor Jindal stood alongside the adulterous Sinator in photos for those that paid $4,600 to have their photos taken with the men.
What is more interesting, however, is the list of hosts:
Senator J. Bennett Johnston
Congressman Jim McCrery
Congressman Rodney Alexander
Congressman Charles Boustany
Congressman Steve Scalise
Congressman Bob Livingston
Congressman Billy Tauzin
Congressman Jimmy Hayes
Congressman John Cooksey
Congressman Henson Moore
Congressman Clyde Holloway
Congressman?Elect Bill Cassidy
Lamar expressed profound disappointment with the fact that a former Democratic Senator, J. Bennett Johnston, has essentially endorsed Vitter by co-hosting this fundraiser for him.
Senate Guru made hay out of the fact that Secretary of State Jay Dardenne didn't co-host, which I don't think was that big of thing, since Governor Jindal was also not a co-host. But it is interesting that Mr. Dardenne also didn't show up, whereas Governor PBJ did.
And Mr. Dardenne certainly didn't do much to quell the rumors that he is considering running for the Republican nomination against Vitter in 2010:
Dardenne, who did not attend Vitter's "Mardi Gras in December" event in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday night, said the encouragement he's received has come from friends and supporters in Louisiana rather than from individuals in Washington.
But, for now at least, Dardenne said he's happy with his role as secretary of state and he doesn't have any timeframe in mind for making a decision about the Senate seat.
"I haven't done anything to advance a candidacy for the U.S. Senate except listen to people who have encouraged me to run," he said.
But what I take from this is that Congressman Rodney Alexander sees the writing on the wall, and is likely not going to challenge Vitter for the GOP nomination.
As y'all are aware, Gustav made landfall last week, causing most towns in south Louisiana and central Louisiana to lose electricity. What y'all may not have been so aware of is that there were elections that were to be held last Saturday.
This will create a weird election season for us all ... as there will likely be a necessary run-off in LA-02 on the Democratic side and LA-04 on the Republican side, which means the run-offs will be held on Tuesday, November 4th, thus pushing the general election in those contests back to December.
The rest of the state will have general elections on Tuesday, November 4th, including the knife-fights developing in LA-06 and LA-07.
(Edited for quick hit to Louisiana portion ... full piece unedited after the jump! This is why registering voters is SO IMPORTANT. It's not just to ensure that folks register for the first time, but also to ensure that the Registrar of Voters has the RIGHT ADDRESS on file. - promoted by ryan)
In 2000, Florida's disastrous effort to purge former felons from voter rolls resulted in the disenfranchisement of hundreds if not thousands of legitimate voters and clearly influenced the outcome of the presidential contest in that state. History may repeat itself this November with states taking potentially reckless and unlawful measures to clean voter rolls before Election Day.
Project Vote has recently expressed concern to Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne over the state's method of removing voters from rolls, as reported in the Times on Tuesday. Project Vote has learned that Louisiana compares voter lists with other jurisdictions, purging voters solely upon apparent database matches of first name, last name and birth date. With millions of people living in a multi-state region, it is not uncommon to find more than one John Smith born on the same day. Additionally, the possibility of human and typographical error that occur in all large databases creates a greater risk of unjustified disenfranchisement.
"A spokesman for Louisiana's secretary of state said that all voters found to have duplicate registrations were sent at least one warning letter and sometimes two, but that the last such actions were done some 13 months ago," the Times reported.
Here's the choice quote from Dardenne's office:
"We're specifically not doing it right in front of an election," said Dardenne's spokesman.
[Comments from Ryan]Thirteen months ago? Hmmm ... that WAS right before the gubernatorial and legislative elections last fall, Mr. Spokesman. Matter of fact, last June ... a mere 4 months prior to those elections. That sounds like right in front of an election, don't ya think?
Oyster over at YRHT caught it, and calls on Dardenne to cut it out.
Y'all must be wondering just what the hell I'm talking about, right? Well, this is a response to Secretary of State Jay Dardenne's use of the word Democrat primary to describe the Democratic primary. I'm sick and tired of Republics using Democrat as an adverb. Until they stop using this bullshit frame, I will call their primary the Republic primary.
Or should I call them Repuglicans? Girly-men? Suggest some things below if you wish.
As y'all know, we had a pretty big election this past Saturday - the entire state government was up for election. I bring this up because there were several malfunctions with the Secretary of State's website on Saturday night ... from not being able to log in, to logging in and being directed to results for (insert Parish name here) Parish when one was looking for the Statewide results, and so on.
Today, The Advocate, in an article that is on their front page, but apparently not online, quotes Secretary of State Jay Dardenne saying:
"We were just overwhelmed."
Oh, really, Mr. Secretary? Isn't your job to be prepared for something that EVERYONE saw coming? I mean, the article expresses wonder at the fact that the Election results page drew some international attention! For the love of God, we have the son of immigrants from India running for Governor, and you're unaware that maybe, just maybe, the website is going to get a ton of traffic?
I understand that you're used to only 50k visits over a two day period at the Secretary of State website, but come on, Mr. Secretary, you should have been prepared for the onslaught of website visitors, even if some 6.2 million hits were recorded according to that Advocate article, especially when you have what outsiders consider a novelty occurring: an Indian-American being elected Governor in a Southern state.
What really gets me is that there were only 27,000 unique visitors at the site when all the problems were occurring, leading me to believe that your servers are in dire need of an overhaul ... especially since the portion of the site that folks were accessing was essentially text. Beef up the servers, Mr. Secretary. It's your job.
The Baton Rouge Advocate and the Times-Picayune, in addition to others, are reporting that Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne was injured in a car accident this morning at 8:22 a.m. on Interstate 12 east bound just past the I-10/12 split.
We here at Daily Kingfish pray for the speedy and full recovery of Mr. Dardenne.
While the 2007 Louisiana Gubernatorial race and 2008 Presidential speculation are probably gaining the bulk of the attention, the 2008 Senate race in Louisiana should be interesting. Mary Landrieu is regarded as the most vulnerable Democrat of the cycle across the country. So, what is the current state of the NRSC and LA-GOP finding an opponent for her?
It's like the LA-GOP and NRSC are standing at a microphone mumbling, "Is this thing on?" While there is still almost 18 months until Election Day 2008, Republican options are slimming awful quickly.
Thanks to the Bayou Buzz, I had an opportunity to read the statement of Louisiana's GOP Chairman, Roger Villere, regarding HB 619, and its alternative bill, HB 575.
He writes regarding HB 619 and satellite voting centers: "But with hundreds of local and statewide elections, the already understaffed poll centers will be thrown into chaos."
He also writes, regarding HB 575, and absentee ballots to all registered voters: "Louisiana has just invested $30 million in new voter machines. With Governor Kathleen Blanco admitting we lack the funds to support our own rebuilding process, this is hardly the time to begin inserting expensive voting measures that are unnecessary. This bill has been strongly opposed by Secretary of State Jay Dardenne on the grounds that it is too quick and too costly," as it would require the mailing of 2.8 million pieces of mail to voters, according to Secretary of State Jay Dardenne.
Ummm ... excuse me? I thought for a second that I was in the Soviet Union. But then I looked over at the LSU Parade Grounds, and saw the American flag flapping in the breeze.
Secretary of State Jay Dardenne, (R-Baton Rouge) in testimony to the House Government Affairs Committee on 2 May 2007 used a racist code word in support of his position to deny Louisianans displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita the right to vote in Louisiana elections.
He was invited to give his opinion on Jalila Jefferson-Bullock's HB 619, which would extend the right of displaced persons to vote in Louisiana elections for the upcoming gubernatorial election this fall.
The code word used by Secretary Dardenne? Chaos.
UPDATE: Don't believe this? Then click here
and go to 2 May 2007, and click on House Gov Affairs. It'll launch Real Player, and in the interest of saving you 3 hours, skip to 2:40, and watch from there.
As y'all know, we had a pretty big election this past Saturday - the entire state government was up for election. I bring this up because there were several malfunctions with the Secretary of State's website on Saturday night ... from not being able to log in, to logging in and being directed to results for (insert Parish name here) Parish when one was looking for the Statewide results, and so on. 
