If you add up the totals of both Cazayoux and Jackson, that means that the majority of the voters in LA-06 voted for a pro-union candidate. A majority voted against Mr. Cassidy.
There were two things at play here - the belief that a Democrat needs to emphasize their conservative credentials in order to win, which I discussed here; and the fact that Michael Jackson was bought and paid for by L. Lane Grigsby, the owner of Cajun Contractors, an anti-union construction corporation. I wonder what Mr. Jackson gains being paid off by Mr. Grigsby to spoil the election. Some have suggested that the Federal Election Commission needs to delve into the full extent of their financial relationship, since Mr. Grigsby has already made illegal donations to Mr. Cassidy, and the fact that there is no disclaimer on ANY of Mr. Jackson's election paraphernalia:
This is the image plastered on billboards all over North Baton Rouge:
And this is the image on the few lawn signs they had printed up:
Do any of y'all see the union label on these signs? I don't. Do any of y'all see the disclaimer required by federal election law that states it must detail who paid for the signs? I don't.
Mr. Jackson is a lawyer. I'm sure as a candidate, he took the time to read federal election law as to what was required of him as a candidate. The fact that he didn't put a disclaimer up there leads me to believe that there is a pattern of disregarding the law on his part. Mr. Grigsby broke the law by donating more than is legally allowed to Mr. Cassidy. And we know that Mr. Grigsby has donated nearly half of the money raised by Mr. Jackson in this campaign. Were there more donations that we don't know about?
All of that aside, I am saddened by the decisions made by Michael Jackson in this election. While I understand his frustration about losing the special election primary run-off in April, as someone who is progressive, how he runs a campaign fueled in large part by money from a wealthy, anti-union, Republican donor who is diametrically opposed to most of what he stands for is beyond me.
I don't buy the idea floated by other progressives that this election was the best opportunity for a progressive candidate to win election to Congress. I also don't buy the idea floated by some black commentators that this was the best opportunity for a black politician to win election to Congress from this district.
The conventional "wisdom" propping up this belief were the ideas that the white "conservative" Democrat and the white Republican would split the white vote down the middle, and so long as the "independent" black candidate took 90% of the black vote in a general election plus the liberal white vote, the black candidate would win.
Such thinking assumes that black voters are sheep, and will only vote for the black candidate. Black voters are Democrats, y'all. The vast majority of them vote for the Democrat in a general election, not the black candidate. This election should prove that, as Don pulled a majority of the black vote from majority African-American precincts in EBR Parish:
Candidate
African American Votes
% of African American Vote
Bill Cassidy (R)
1,503
4.91%
Don Cazayoux (D)
19,955
65.20%
Michael Jackson (Lane Grigsby)
9,147
29.89%
I've actually had a few discussions with folks via email and in person that voted for Michael Jackson, and they all say that it wasn't unreasonable to assume that Michael Jackson could win he took 90% of the black vote like he did in April. The problem with that analysis is that it conveniently forgets that Mr. Jackson got 90% of the black vote in a Democratic Party primary. Either way, black folks would win ... they would get their concerns listened to by whomever got out of the Democratic primary. In a general election, when black voters make up far less that 50% of the vote, getting 90% of the black vote simply ain't enough to win in a 3 way race. If Mr. Jackson were the Democrat, perhaps, but he wasn't. He ran as an Independent who was paid off by L. Lane Grigsby to tilt the race to Bill Cassidy.
There is one more thing these folks forgot ... when there is a Republican candidate in the race, to assume that a majority of black Democrats will vote for the Independent black candidate is
fallacy, especially when the white Democratic candidate is almost certain to get the endorsement of the party's first black Presidential nominee. Why these folks thought that there was a snowball's chance in hell that a majority of black folks were going to disregard the endorsement of Barack Obama is also beyond me. Further, please tell me the last time an Independent candidate won in a 3 way election in this state.
Another person I have discussed this with brought up the salient point that it makes no sense to keep pushing DINO's like Mary Landrieu and Don Cazayoux when I am for progressive policies, and they are not.
In a general election, when the choice is between a Republican, a Democrat, and an Independent candidate (who can't win), the most progressive candidate will ALWAYS be the Democrat. I don't care how smart Bill Cassidy is. He votes the way the fundamentalist wing of the Republican Party tells him. Otherwise, he wouldn't have a 100% rating from the Louisiana Family Forum. And in the United State Congress, where the Republican Party exercises a vise-like grip on their Members' votes, Mr. Cassidy will not be free to exercise his "reasonableness." He will be forced to vote the way the Republican leadership wants him to, just so he can get their support for re-election. And he has done just that in the Legislature, with respect to his votes for the Louisiana Family Forum.
Mr. Jackson's egomaniacal candidacy sent Mr. Cassidy to Washington. His shameless selling out of the working families in this district is absolutely despicable. The losers in this are not Don Cazayoux, who will be fine; nor Mr. Jackson, who will also be fine; but the black voters of Baton Rouge. They have done without adequate representation for all but 6 months of the last 15 years.
They can thank Mr. Jackson for the lack of representation for the next two.
A couple of observations ... LA-01 needs to be redrawn before we can consider it being competitive.
LA-07 ... Cravins did a great job for a first time candidate that started LATE. If he decides to run in 2010, he's got to start in January with the fundraising, and make sure he has $1 million to drop, if not more.
LA-06 ... Congratulations, Mr. Cassidy. You can thank Michael Jackson and L. Lane Grigsby for your victory. If you add Jackson and Cazayoux's total, you get 11,623 votes more than Cassidy, and I'm sure that 90% of Jackson's total would have gone to Cazayoux.
I've been wondering where Jackson was going to raise the necessary money to run a real campaign. The Politico's Scorecard gives us some answers:
Through his own 527 organization, Grigsby has bankrolled much of Jackson's campaign, helping him get his message out to black voters in the district.
Over half of Jackson's $58,450 in fundraising to date has come from Grigsby, his family or his associates at his construction company.
Grigsby has spent money on anti-Cazayoux mailers endorsing Jackson's campaign. The mailer features a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. on the front and attacks Cazayoux for his connections to labor groups. At first glance, the piece looks like it's from Jackson's campaign.
He also has been paying to produce yard signs for Jackson, according to a Democratic source in the district.
We've noted the numerous donations to the Jackson campaign from the Grigsby family. We have the MLK mailer, which we'll scan and put up in the morning.
Cazayoux finally broke down the amounts raised and spent for this election on its own, which is why the numbers are so different from the last fundraising report I put up. He's still raised more than Cassidy, although Cassidy has a cash on hand advantage.
I'm not sure that's gonna matter, because Cazayoux spent all that money early on re-introducing himself to the district before the Republican smear machine got going. It's paid off so far, with Cazayoux leading by 16% or 17% depending on which poll you believe. If the Cassidy people think it's closer, then I dare them to release their polling.
Michael Jackson has no coin. At least not enough to win. So you know he's going for the spoiler role here. What I wanna know is who is paying for all those billboards in the area. Since they DO NOT contain the "Paid for by" disclaimer required by FEDERAL LAW, we don't know.
At a forum held yesterday at the Baton Rouge Press Club, No Party candidate Michael Jackson stated:
"I wish we still had the open/jungle primary system."
Perhaps Mr. Jackson ought to take a look at his own voting record on the issue, as back in 2006, the State Legislature voted on SB 18, which was introduced by then-State Senator Cleo Fields. The purpose of SB 18 was to end the open/jungle primary system for federal elections, and replace them with a closed party primary system. Pray tell, how did Mr. Jackson vote? Take a look at the highlighted name in the image on the left!
Yep, that's right! It's Mr. Jackson himself, and he has now flipped on that vote. What else has he flipped on?
The DCCC released a poll today, which was conducted by Bennett, Petts & Normington on October 8th and 9th of 400 registered voters with a 4.9% margin of error:
Candidate
Poll % (September/July #'s)
Bill Cassidy (R)
29% (32%/36%)
Don Cazayoux (D)
46% (48%/43%)
Michael Jackson (I)
9% (9%/13%)
With two polls showing a double digit lead for Rep. Don Cazayoux, it's looking good. Add to the news that Cassidy admits to socialism for the wealthy, it's looking better.
But, anything can happen in three weeks. I don't think any of us wanna wake up on November 5th thinking we should have done more. Leave it all on the field ... donate or volunteer!
Note that Mr. Jackson's numbers are based on what he reported back in August. His campaign still has not complied with the FEC ruling to push the financial reporting dates back a month for the entire state, due to Hurricane Gustav forcing the primaries in LA-01, LA-02, LA-04, and LA-05 back one month.
Also, the candidate's debts are all to themselves or family members, so I'm not sure they are that concerned about being paid back all that quickly, or at all. And Don's fund-raising goes back to the beginning of the year, when he was campaigning in the special election required by former Rep. Baker's sudden resignation to cash in on his career with the Mutual Fund Association.
Earlier this year, 90 percent of African Americans and nearly 20 percent of white Democrats in the 6th District supported my candidacy, giving me 43 percent of the overall votes in the Democratic primary. Recognizing these percentages and the unprecedented turnout that is expected in support of Sen. Barack Obama's bid for the presidency, and the fact that the winner only needs a plurality, not a majority, it's clear that we can win.
I find it amazing that Mr. Jackson actually thinks he can win this race based on election results derived from a Democratic primary in April. I think Mr. Jackson might be forgetting some pertinent information ...
Like that fact that Don Cazayoux, the current Democratic congressman, pulled 90 percent of African American voters during the general election in which he bested Republican Woody Jenkins.
I think it's time for Mr. Jackson to awaken from his Lane Grigsby-induced dreams, (and there are 2 more $2300 donations dated 03/20/08 and 02/07/08) and face the fact that he is in the race for one reason only - to tilt this election to his Republican opponent, Bill Cassidy, a man that is diametrically opposed to everything that Mr. Jackson professes to be for.
I don't know about y'all, but I get the feeling that Republican hopeful Bill Cassidy is phoning the campaign in. It's either that, or he hired incompetent finance staff who didn't realize what every single other candidate for Congress in the state of Louisiana realized ... we need to file a pre-primary financial report. And if he hired incompetent people, then that does not bode well for his ability to deliver for LA-06 should he somehow eek out a victory.
Now when you go to the link below for Cassidy, you'll notice a pre-primary report listed. Problem is, that was the pre-primary report for the original date of the primaries - September 6th. But Hurricane Gustav forced the Secretary of State to push the primaries back to this Saturday, October 4th.
Then the FEC delivered a ruling that the ENTIRE state of Louisiana now needs to follow the reporting period of the updated primary schedule, which means that if you already filed one already, ya gotta file another one!
Again, this is because there are primaries for Congress this Saturday - in LA-01, LA-02, LA-04 and LA-05.
But you'll find two pre-primary reports filed for Don Cazayoux's campaign here. Now, lest y'all think Don's people screwed up and filed two pre-primary reports, I've linked to Cravins', Boustany's and Melancon's FEC reports pages below.
The Cazayoux campaign released a poll they commissioned from Anzalone Liszt Research, which surveyed 500 voters, was conducted between September 17-21 and has a margin of error of 4.4%:
Candidate
Poll % (July #'s)
Bill Cassidy (R)
32% (36%)
Don Cazayoux (D)
48% (43%)
Michael Jackson (I)
9% (13%)
The crosstabs are even better ... as Cazayoux reaches parity among white voters in this district, and leads among African-American voters by a 2 to 1 margin!
Candidate
White Voters %
African-American Voters %
Bill Cassidy (R)
45%
3%
Don Cazayoux (D)
43%
59%
Michael Jackson (I)
1%
26%
This poll is very encouraging, especially since it is a 3-way race for the general. That means that whomever gets a plurality of the vote on Election Day in this district - November 4th - wins.
And I wonder if Mr. Jackson will continue to harbor the illusion that he can win ... especially as he continues to bleed support.
In the Democratic run-off for Congress in April, Michael Jackson received 90% of the African-American votes and between 10%-20% of support from white voters. If we maintain these percentages it will be more than enough to win this election. 40% WINS IT! Therefore, every vote counts.
The logic above is so flawed. It forgets that Don Cazayoux pulled a similar, if not higher, percentage of African-American voters during the May General Election against Woody Jenkins. It forgets that that there are Independent voters, who make up 21.6% of the LA-06 electorate. On top of that, it overstates the percentage of black voters in LA-06 by 3.7%. And it doesn't even take into account that some of those black voters will NOT be voting for a Democrat, nor an independent candidate like Mr. Jackson, as they are Republicans! (All data in this paragraph was found at http://69.2.40.145/voter_stats/).
The pay raise fiasco, which would have given legislators a 200% pay raise, and would have taken effect IMMEDIATELY, was properly booed by editorial boards and voters alike this spring. Thankfully, Governor Jindal buckled under the pressure of the bright lights of state-wide opinion, and increasing national opinion to veto the pay raise.
Michael Jackson doesn't care about the plight of the working class folks of LA-06 ... he only cares about making more money for himself. Not only did he vote to give himself an immediate 200% pay increase in the Legislature, but he now wants the voters of LA-06 to reward him with a Congressional seat, one that pays some $169,000 per year.
Behold, Representative Michael Jackson's strategy for victory, even though these numbers didn't hold up in the primaries:
Our opponents are suggesting that we are the spoiler in the race; however, we would like to share the facts. The November 4th election provides the only opportunity to cast your vote for Congress in the 6th Congressional District. Winning the race requires a plurality of the votes cast. A plurality requires that the winner only receive 1 more vote than his opponents. This is different from most other elections which require a majority of the vote (50% + 1) in order to win.
Here are the 6th Congressional Districts Demographics: African Americans = 34.9% Republicans = 33% White Democrats = 32%
In the Democratic run-off for Congress in April, Michael Jackson received 90% of the African-American votes and between 10%-20% of support from white voters. If we maintain these percentages it will be more than enough to win this election. 40% WINS IT! Therefore, every vote counts.
Michael Jackson is not the spoiler, he is the only candidate who has a real chance of beating the Republican in November.
Jackson is calculating that he will win the votes of the vast majority of African-Americans in the Baton Rouge-area district — a highly unlikely proposition, given that Cazayoux is the Democratic incumbent. The more likely prospect is that he will take away enough African-American votes from Cazayoux to tip the race to Republican Bill Cassidy.
And if he was serious about winning the race, Jackson would be amping up his fundraising efforts. He only raised $15,200 in the last filing period (from July 1-Aug.17) — and his campaign coffers are virtually empty. By contrast, Cassidy has over $300,000 in campaign cash, while Cazayoux has banked $212,000.
There seems to be a lot of strong feelings surrounding this election, and based on the numbers, those feelings seem justified.
To me, the strategy doesn't seem hopeful or inspiring; it appears to be cynical and divisive. The real question, as Politico points out, is given Jackon's abysmal fundraising efforts, is Jackson serious about securing a victory?
Beside the attempt to pick apart this election by reducing voters based on their demographic, what, exactly, is the strategy?
I understand there are ideological differences between Cazayoux and Jackson, but I haven't really heard much about them. Based on Jackson's numbers, I doubt we will hear much at all.
Mr. Thompson is the candidate that has been endorsed by the outgoing Congressman McCrery, which makes him a strong candidate, despite trailing in the money race thus far. All three men's debts are largely due to their personal wealth, with the exception of Gorman, who owes some $4,826.38 to various vendors.
Artis "Doc" Cash has not filed an FEC report at this time. The two Democrats with debts owe them to themselves ... as they donated personal funds to their campaigns. The frontrunner, Paul Carmouche, raised more money than any of the Republican candidates in the last quarter, AND he understands the virtues of fiscal responsibility ... he has no debts. Mr. Carmouche must be considered to be the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. It remains to be seen if he will win the seat in Congress ... that will be up to us ... to make sure that we register every single eligible voter to put Mr. Carmouche over the top.
LA-05
No need to publicize RepTraitor Alexander's fundraising #'s as he does not have a Democratic opponent. There is a real conservative running against him in the primary, but who knows if he'll get any support from the folks he needs in a race like this - Club for Growth. Stay tuned.
LA-06
The field is set ... it's going to be a fight until November. Here are the fundraising reports:
Well, Jackson's got himself in a hole. Don't be surprised if he raises less than $50,000 for the entire campaign. He can't win this one, no matter who he can convince otherwise. His campaign is being encouraged by former Rep. Richard Baker, in an attempt to take black voters away from Don Cazayoux. It's the only way Cassidy can win this thing ... limit the number of black voters voting for Cazayoux, especially in East Baton Rouge parish, and attempt to run up the score in Ascension and Livingston parishes enough to overcome Don's advantage in Pointe Coupee, West Feliciana, East Feliciana, St Helana, Iberville and West Baton Rouge parishes.
It remains to be seen if this tactic will be effective. Stay tuned.
Interesting ... for an incumbent to burning through nearly $400k - $398,546 to be exact - in 6 fundraising quarters is not a good thing. Perhaps Boustany got a tad overconfident about being re-elected by acclamation like Melancon did over in LA-03.
What many national prognosticators don't realize about LA-07 is that it is a DEMOCRATIC district. If you take a look at the last time a Presidential election was held in Louisiana was 4 years ago, with President Bush driving turnout throughout the state. The 3 Democrats running in LA-07 that year - Cravins, Sr., Carriere, and Mount - received 141,645 votes to the 132,107 votes of the two GOPers running in the jungle primary - Boustany and Thibodeaux. Further, in the Senate race, then-Congressman Chris John actually won the 7th over Vitter - 126,016 to 125,597.
There will be no gay marriage bashing on the ballot to help drive turnout for the GOP. Nor will President Bush be driving turnout. Instead, the Democrats have to ensure that having Senator Obama and State Senator Cravins, Jr. on the ballot in the 7th turns out black voters like never before ... but it will take an efficient, kick-ass field operation in the 7th. Whether it will be done remains to be seen.
I broke the story late Friday night that there were robocalls being made to voters in East Baton Rouge Parish designed to depress voter turnout. The text of the calls was:
"I'm very upset that the National Democratic Party favored Don Cazayoux from New Roads over Michael Jackson. The Democratic Party raised $850,000 for Don Cazayoux which is the only reason Michael Jackson lost in the Democratic runoff. The National and State Democratic Parties always seem to back the white democrat over the black democrat and that's wrong. Alot of us who are supporting Michael Jackson feel the National Democratic Party need to be taught a lesson. We're not voting for Don Cazayoux because we believe Woody Jenkins will be a lot easier to beat in November when Senator Barack Obama is on the ballot. You haven't heard many black elected officials supporting Don Cazayoux. On Saturday we're going to stay home and see how the National Democratic Party do without us."
"Paid for by Friends of Michael Jackson."
On Saturday night, I spoke with various folks within the Louisiana Democratic Party, and they all told me that Michael Jackson denies anything to do with the robocalls. I was also told that he signed an affidavit to that effect.
Earlier today, I received an email from a list-serv email group which stated:
Yesterday morning before I had a chance to vote, I received a robocall from a representative of the Michael Jackson campaign. The call originated from Magnolia Computers of Baton Rouge.
The voice on the phone explained that the State and National Democratic Party had given large amounts of money to the Cazayoux campaign and had left the Jackson campaign to fend for itself. For
that reason, they asked that all Democrats refrain from voting and allow Woody Jenkins to win the seat. Why? Because, the voice continued, Michael intends to run for the seat in November and they
feel they could then beat Woody at a time when Barack Obama is on the ballot.
My caller id showed the number as Magnolia Computer (225-766-7886).
And guess who owns Magnolia Computers LLC? That would be Darrell W. Glasper of Baton Rouge, who was a very controversial BREC chairman.
And guess who the only donation Mr. Glasper has made on the federal level within the last 4 years went to? The National Republican Congressional Committee, back in 2005.
Here's where it gets really interesting. If you were to reverse phone look-up that phone number, it is registered to a Raymond Wright of East Baton Rouge. Did Magnolia Computers use a phone number not registered to them to make the phone calls in an attempt to cover it up? Or is Raymond Wright complicit in this sordid mess? Or are the phone records not current? The phone records ARE NOT CURRENT. Only time will tell.
UPDATE: Paul over at TPM Muckraker interviewed Darrell Glasper! He is apparently unapologetic about making the calls. I quote:
"This is America, you can say what you want."
UPDATE II: According to the TPM article I mentioned before, it says that (emphasis added):
"Glasper, an African-American, said that he was an acquaintance and supporter of Jackson's, but that he'd made the calls without Jackson's knowledge and had stopped the calls at Jackson's request. He'd made 10,000 or so by that time, he said."
Pray tell, if he made the calls without Jackson's knowledge, how did Jackson know to ask Mr. Glasper to stop?
(Interesting news, especially considering that I just put up a post calling for State Senator Don Cravins, Jr. to run as a Democrat in the 7th .... - promoted by ryan)
Not sure if you caught this over at the Rolfe McCollister's Daily Report, but:
The state Democratic Party's hopes of winning long-held GOP congressional seats could be undermined by plans discussed by three black legislators to run as independents this fall in the 4th, 6th and 7th congressional districts. Sen. Lydia Jackson of Shreveport, Rep. Michael Jackson of Baton Rouge and Sen. Don Cravins Jr. of Opelousas say there are seriously considering bypassing the Democratic primary to file as independents on the November general election ballot. In that way, they could take advantage of the Obama-driven minority turnout without having to first survive a Democratic primary or two
against better-funded white candidates. Other Democrats worry that the legislators' strategy would split party voters and enable Republicans
to hold the seats.
Here are the results of the Democratic Primary with 512 of 512 precincts reporting:
Candidate
Votes
% of Vote
Don Cazayoux
19,803
56.80%
Michael Jackson
15,063
43.20%
It's over. Don Cazayoux is the Democratic nominee. I look forward to Cazayoux v. Jenkins.
And the Repewblican primary:
Candidate
# of Votes
% of Votes
Laurinda Calongne
9,327
38.06%
"Woody" Jenkins
15,177
61.94%
Oh, goody, Republicans choose Woody!
Here's what impresses me about the Democratic turnout ... Mr. Jackson, with a mere 42% of the Democratic vote, nearly beat Woody ...
Here are the total numbers of voters for both parties:
The title of the article in Roll Call, (subscription required) is New Louisiana Poll Worries Republicans. As arubyan noted, the poll shows Woody Jenkins losing by three points to Don Cazayoux, which Roll Call notes:
[Is] not great math to begin with in a district that gave President Bush a 19-point margin of victory in the 2004 presidential campaign and repeatedly sent former Rep. Richard Baker (R) to Congress by large margins.
It gets better for Don when you get into the cross-tabs, but I'd love to know what the margin of error is, so take this with a grain of salt:
Men 55 and older preferred Cazayoux 51 percent to 38 percent, voters who turned out in the special March primary would vote for Cazayoux 53 percent to 39 percent and those voters who said they are definitely going to vote in the special preferred Cazayoux by nine points.
Now, polls are obviously a snapshot in time, and anything can happen between now and the general election, which is being held on May 3rd, so this thing is still fluid. You might see the country club Republicans say, well, we gave it a shot, now we have to make sure we send a GOPer to Congress, so we'll hold our noses and put Woody in there. And the African-American vote may not come out for Don if he wins the runoff. That reminds me, Don still has to win the run-off against his friend Michael Jackson on Saturday.
I expect to see a repeat of what happened in the primary in terms of where the candidates got their votes:
Cazayoux will likely run up the score in the outlying parishes and try to keep it close enough in Baton Rouge that he wins.
Jackson, obviously, will be attempting to run up the score here in Baton Rouge, while garnering enough votes in the outlying parishes to put him over the top.
The runoff is anyone's game ... with the GOTV operation of the campaigns holding the chances of victory for both candidates. I know that both campaigns are busy calling voters, as this GOTV (Get Out The Vote) time, with the voting starting in less than 48 hours.
Today's Advocate published an article with all of the candidates for the run-off talking about how they would vote on bills related to stimulating our economy if elected to Congress. The Advocate set it all up with this:
The Federal Reserve recently bailed out the nation's fifth-biggest investment firm. Housing foreclosures have skyrocketed, and the number of jobless in America is at a five-year high. Gas prices have soared past the $3-per-gallon mark.
We'll start off with the Democratic candidates, going alphabetically:
Don Cazayoux
Cazayoux told the Advocate he had "concerns" about the recent bailout of Bear Stearns, but also said that it may have been necessary. He also expressed support for looking into helping folks who are at risk of losing their homes:
We've reached crisis levels, so we do need to look at the process of intervening," Cazayoux
said.
I have those same concerns - why the hell should the government bail out the money managers who made some incredibly stupid bets and not the folks affected by the banks attempting to cover their incredibly stupid bets?
That's what playing the stock market is ... betting. And with sub-prime mortgages, the riskiest types of mortgage out there, the banks attempted to leverage their risk by selling groups of the mortgages on the stock market. When the banks couldn't cover the When the mortgages weren't being paid, due to the rising cost of the mortgages ... the banks couldn't cover their bets. Hence the bailout of Bear Stearns.
I would be very concerned if Cazayoux said that we can bail out the banks, which is unprecedented in American history, but not the people affected by the rising mortgage costs. My understanding of the mortgage crisis is that folks are being hit with rising monthly payments, and would rather lose the house than stop eating or paying for medical prescriptions and the like.
I LOVE this idea:
Cazayoux would encourage alternative fuel use by offering tax incentives to companies and people who use alternative energy sources.
He authored a bill in the state Legislature that would have provided tax incentives to homeowners who bought energy-efficient appliances. The measure didn't pass.
The tax breaks for alternative-fuel developers could be paid for by rolling back tax breaks for the top 1 percent of the nation's income earners, Cazayoux said.
"We're an innovative country, and we need to encourage alternative energy," he said.
I think we can find other ways to pay for this ... like bringing the troops home? Eliminating or reducing the tax breaks we give to oil companies, as they are making record profits?
Michael Jackson
Mr. Jackson also expressed concern about the recent federal government bailout of Bear Stearns:
"I feel very uncomfortable with the government stepping in because that's not the way business should be conducted. But it's probably the only way to stem the tide."
Mr. Jackson goes further than Mr. Cazayoux in saying that he would support the Democratic proposals in the House and the Senate (I believe in the Senate it's a bill written by Senator Dodd of CT) that would provide help to those with home mortgages that are in danger of foreclosure:
"Home ownership is the foundation of the economy. It's the least we can do to provide a backstop for owners to retain their homes."
Mr. Jackson also supports providing incentives to those who would help wean our economy off of foreign oil:
"You have to offer some incentives. It would be rational of us to ask companies that a portion of their profits go to developing alternative fuels."
Now for the Republicans ... Lord, they just don't get it. They still believe in voodoosupply-side tax cut-o-nomics. This is the mistaken belief that tax cuts to the wealthy, which is essentially what the Bush Tax Cuts both in 2001 and 2003 were, help stimulate the economy because those people provide the jobs. More often than not, those people just stick the money in their savings account, or go buy a foreign-made goods, so the American worker never sees the benefit of their spending. We've had 20 years to see how their tax cut-o-nomics works - 8 years under Reagan, 4 years under Bush, and 8 more years under Bush II - and at the end of the first 12 years (as Bush I followed Reagan), we needed a Democratic President to come in and clean up the mess left by the Republicans. Now, after 8 more years of tax-cut-o-nomics, we need a Democratic President to come in and clean up the mess yet again. Can we please stop voting for Republicans to occupy the White House?
The issue with tax-cut-o-nomics is that all Republicans everywhere believe in tax cuts for economic stimulus. This is evident when you see a country-club Republican like Laurinda Calongne and a Bible-thumper like Woody Jenkins agree on the need for tax cuts.
Let's start with Laurinda Calongne:
Ms. Calongne sees the stock market's bounce in the wake of the Bear Stearns bailout as proof that the bailout was necessary:
"It encourages people to invest."
However, she agrees with Republican nominee John McCain that there should not be any help whatsoever for ordinary Americans caught in the housing mortgage crisis:
"A mortgage, by definition, is backed by the value of your home. Everyone involved in the housing situation needs to take responsibility."
I see that compassionate conservatism is back with a vengeance these days. But I digress. Here comes the tax cuts plan:
Calongne, who owns a consulting firm, said making the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts permanent would be particularly helpful to small businesses like hers. Small businesses, she noted, provide most of the nation's jobs.
Calongne said the tax cuts can be paid for by reducing wasteful government spending. She said she recently saw a report by the federal Office of Management and Budget that listed 100 wasteful federal programs.
Does that report by the OMB list all the wasteful spending to the private security groups like Blackwater???
Woody Jenkins
Ahh, we have a free marketer here ... in discussing the bailout of Bear Stearns, he states:
"It's unprecedented, and we may be going down a slippery slope. Ultimately the free market has to be allowed to work."
He's also a compassionate conservative ... as he does not believe in helping those hit by the mortgage crisis. But he is for making the Bush Tax Cuts permanent:
"Making the Bush tax cuts permanent would be most helpful. That's going to do more to stimulate the economy than anything."
So, can the two Republicans running explain to me just what happened after President Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy 1% all the way back in 1993? Was it a disastrous thing to do, as claimed by every single Republican in the Congress back then, who all voted against the Clinton plan? Or did it lead the biggest peacetime expansion of the economy this nation has ever seen? You tell me.
