[Vision2020] Demos Take Conservative GOP in Louisiana

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

May 4, 2008, NT Times
Louisiana Democrat Takes House Seat
By ADAM NOSSITER

NEW ORLEANS — A Democrat took an open Congressional seat long held by Republicans in the conservative district around Baton Rouge in a special election Saturday, giving the party an early boost in its quest for an increased majority in the House of Representatives.

Don Cazayoux, a state representative, defeated Woody Jenkins, a small-newspaper publisher and former legislator long associated with religious-right causes in Louisiana, by 49 percent to 46 percent, in a tight race for a seat left open by the retirement of Richard Baker, a Republican.

Mr. Cazayoux portrayed himself as little different from Mr. Jenkins on social issues, overcoming the Republicans’ depiction of him as a “liberal” in lock step with figures like the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Barack Obama, who shared billing with him in a barrage of Republican attack advertisements.

The two parties saw the Louisiana race as an important test for the fall, given how safe the district has been for Republicans for more than three decades. Democrats viewed a potential victory as a measure of Republican vulnerability; Republicans saw it as an indication of how difficult it might be to defend more than two dozen open seats in play in November.

Mr. Cazayoux, a low-key member of the State House and a former prosecutor, fit the conservative model Democrats deployed successfully in the 2006 elections when they took seats from Republicans. He was close to Mr. Jenkins on social issues like abortion and guns; he spoke approvingly of Senator John McCain; he rarely if ever mentioned the Democratic presidential candidates; and he suggested he would buck his party if the district’s interests seemed to call for it.

Mr. Jenkins and the Republicans, on the other hand, sought to tie Mr. Cazayoux to his party’s national standard-bearers at every opportunity, especially Ms. Pelosi. Television advertisements paired Mr. Cazayoux with Mr. Obama, and called him a “liberal” — a description that fit uneasily with Mr. Cazayoux’s voting record in the State House of Representatives. He raised nearly twice as much money as his Republican rival, his fund-raising bolstered by Congressional Democrats eager to take the seat.

For two decades, Mr. Jenkins has been one of the state’s best-known — and most polarizing — political figures. He led an effort in the Louisiana Legislature 18 years ago to enact the nation’s toughest anti-abortion laws, which tore the state’s politics apart. He was the Legislature’s most outspoken across-the-board opponent of taxes and government spending.