Jindal’s activity in hitting the campaign trail for Republican candidates outside Louisiana coupled with his current book tour have generated a narrative among many in the state’s chattering classes that he’s too busy burnishing national credentials to care about the state. Fair or not, that narrative is beginning to take its toll.

Pinsonat’s numbers indicate a significant drop in Jindal’s support, as his approval rating has plummeted from 68 percent in April 2009 to 55 percent at present. His negatives have risen from 30 percent to 43 percent in that time frame.

Worse, Jindal has experienced a six-point drop – from 61-37 in April of this year to 55-43 at present – in the last six months. That indicates slippage of the sort which could well make the governor ripe for a major Democrat challege if it isn’t addressed.
 
Jindal, in fact, has now fallen to fourth place among Louisiana’s statewide officials in approval. Treasurer John Kennedy, who has been touring the state touting a plan to cut $1.6 billion from Louisiana’s budget while Jindal has been promoting his book, is now viewed favorably by 61 percent of the public. Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, a Democrat, sits at 60 percent – indicating that if you can stay completely out of the headlines people will consider that a sign of competence. And recently re-elected Sen. David Vitter is now at 56 percent approval – which would indicate that it may have been a mistake for Jindal to have neglected to endorse Vitter’s re-election.

Jindal remains more popular than Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu (54 percent) and new Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne (51 percent), but only slightly. In comparison to Landrieu, SMOR finds the Governor’s election prospects are quite similar:

When respondents were asked if they would vote for Landrieu:
·     36 percent said they would definitely vote to re-elect her.
·     22 percent said they would consider someone else.
·     40 percent said they would definitely vote for someone else
·     2 percent said they didn’t know or would or wouldn’t respond
 
When asked if they would vote for Jindal:
·     39 percent said they would definitely vote to re-elect him.
·     23 percent said they would consider someone else.
·     35 percent said they would definitely vote for someone else
·     3 percent said they didn’t know or would or wouldn’t respond

It’s widely thought that Landrieu is extremely vulnerable to a Republican challenge when her term expires in 2014. There is speculation, in fact, that Jindal might be the challenger. Pinsonat’s numbers indicate he has quite a bit of work to do before mounting a campaign to dislodge another statewide incumbent.

More items from SMOR’s release indicate that Jindal might be able to turn his slide around by taking a harder line on government spending – and making a major show of it in the process as Kennedy has done…

Almost half – 46 percent – of all respondents disapproved of Jindal’s travel to other states. Among Republicans, 28 percent disapproved of the travel while 28 percent also said they would consider voting for someone other than Jindal.
 
As the governor touts his accomplishments on a national stage, survey results indicate many Louisiana residents are unhappy with the conditions of roads, elementary and secondary education, higher education, management of state government, lack of job opportunities and public health care.
 
A significant number of respondents – 39 percent – said conditions in Louisiana were getting worse, while 19 percent said conditions were getting better. Jindal’s out-of-state traveling is affecting his popularity back home, especially when so many respondents have a negative outlook toward the most vital functions of state government.
 
State Treasurer Kennedy has a solid job performance rating of 61 percent and a relatively low negative rating at 19 percent. His advocacy for reducing the number of state employees was popular among respondents. Nineteen percent of respondents said they didn’t know enough about him to rate his job performance.
 
Meanwhile, a mere 8 percent of respondents said they believe an unclassified political appointee or state executive making more than $175,000 per year is justified. Twenty-four percent said such compensation is unjustified, while 64 percent said a salary of more than $175,000 for such employees was outrageous. The results portend what could be a contentious issue in the 2011 legislative session.
 
Seventy-two percent of respondents said they did not believe their tax dollars are being spent wisely. This indicates difficulty for advocates of higher taxes to avoid deep cuts to programs. Sixty-two percent of respondents said they think the state’s financial crisis is caused by too much spending, while 32 percent said they believe the state does not have enough revenue.
 
Respondents also do not favor balancing the state budget by raising income or sales taxes, or by increasing taxes on businesses. About two thirds said they favor raising taxes on cigarettes.
 
Sixty percent of respondents, particularly Republicans, opposed raising gasoline taxes to fund new highway construction. According to the results, many believe Louisiana highways are bad and that the state is wasting the taxes they already pay. Also, 68 percent consider suspending tax exemptions a tax increase.
 
A state senator’s recent proposal to offset higher-education budget deficits by raising state income taxes for middle- and upper- income households was unpopular with respondents with 64 percent opposed.
 
When asked which sector – health care or higher education – respondents preferred to protect from budget cuts, 55 percent favored protecting health care while 28 percent favored higher education.
 
Democrats want health care protected more than higher education three to one, and Republicans are evenly split.
 
Fifty-eight percent of respondents agreed with Treasurer Kennedy that Louisiana has too many state employees.
 
Sixty percent of respondents favor keeping the so-called Bush tax cuts in place, while 31 percent want those cuts to expire for people making more than $250,000 per year. This is not surprising in light of how 60 percent of all respondents want the state budget cut without raising taxes.

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John Couvillon is a political consultant. His company is JMC Enterprises of Louisiana, Inc. with expertise in the data analysis aspects of political campaigns, such as poll sample development/analysis, development of targeted voter files for phone canvassing or mail outs, campaign strategy, and demographic consulting. See his site at WinWithJMC.com for more information.

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But Dardenne isn’t really recognized for that contribution, and one reason why is the way he went about it. Not only was his action understated and professional, he could quickly offer up any number of perfectly honorable and practical reasons why silently going about eliminating dead people, fictional characters and folks who were living and voting elsewhere was a good thing to do regardless of whom it might help on Election Day. The controversy about doing so, then, never did materialize – and it was never a big news story.

And we’re now seeing another example of Dardenne making a tactical move that damages Louisiana Democrats with ample honest, non-partisan and practical justification. Specifically, he’s freezing out the possibility of the Democrats getting hold of his old job through a special election few would care about by delaying his inauguration as Lt. Governor until Nov. 22.

Bear in mind that while Dardenne’s good work in cleaning the voter rolls as Secretary of State has been an underappreciated accomplishment for Louisiana, a left-wing hack politician in that job has caused absolute havoc elsewhere in the country. In Minnesota, a George Soros-backed sleazeball Secretary of State had a hand in helping Al Franken steal a Senate seat from Norm Coleman in 2008 by letting, among other things, convicted felons vote by the thousands. Just this week a Soros-backed hack Secretary of State called the Connecticut gubernatorial election for the Democrat in an effort to get the Republican, who is now apparently actually ahead in the counting, to concede. That comes after Nevada’s Secretary of State Ross Miller, whom Soros also backed, has spent a week guffawing at the idea that there were voting irregularities in machines where Harry Reid’s name appeared to be the default vote in the Senate race there.

The long and short of it is you really don’t want a Democrat as your Secretary of State if you’d like to have some integrity in your voter rolls and vote-counting. In fact, next to your governor the Secretary of State is the most important position in state government.

But few people grasp that fact. So a special election, in which the turnout could be expected to be extremely low, gives a great opportunity for a Democrat desperate for statewide office, willing to put out whatever money is necessary to win and with zero scruples in casting himself or herself as something he/she is not in order to squeak into office (sound like anybody we know?) to do just that. While it’s not assured that would happen, it’s a risk.

But it’s a risk you can do away with if you just delay your resignation as Secretary of State until after Nov. 19, the deadline for which state law establishes the necessity for a special election. If Dardenne had chosen to assume his new office before that date, we’d be gearing up for a race early next year between interim job-holder Tom Schedler a Republican former state senator, and whomever might happen along.

Sure, you’d expect Schedler to have an advantage of sorts as an incumbent – but he doesn’t have much name recognition at this point and he hasn’t raised any money yet. Someone who could attract the amorous attention of a Soros, or perhaps various other monied communities within the traditional Democrat coalition, could easily best him in fundraising and then follow the Louisiana Democrat Party’s traditional methods of getting out the vote to sneak out a close race. And once in office, we might be treated to a “massive voter registration drive” centering around inner cities and college campuses which would put tens of thousands of people who never bothered to register before, for various reasons (like nonexistence, or because they were busy pushing up daisies). And then who knows what could happen.

But the effect of Dardenne’s choice to delay taking the new job until Nov. 22, the day he’s chosen to assume the oath of office, is to remove the possibility of this happening. It’s a nice political call. So you’d expect there to be a cacophony of howling about it from the Left, and given this only happened yesterday you can be sure it’s coming in the next round of op-eds and blog posts from the usual suspects.

But as we’ve come to expect from Dardenne, he’s got an answer for all the objections, which he put forth at his press conference yesterday…

“Consistent with my long-standing belief that we need to minimize special elections in Louisiana, I’m going to certainly be consistent with that notion and make certain that we don’t cost the state $6 million because of my election,” Dardenne said, announcing transition plans.

Now who can argue with saving the state $6 million? There’s a budget crisis on, don’t you know!

In fact, says Dardenne, he’s not really helping Schedler at all…

…Dardenne says it can be argued that Schedler could be better off with an April election because challengers would have a narrow window in which to raise money and get their names out.

Not really buying that argument, for reasons explained above. But he did a nice job putting it out there.

It’s a well-done move. It doesn’t insulate Schedler from a well-financed electoral challenge, but it does set him up as the only announced candidate for Secretary of State in the 2011 cycle. And that gives Schedler a chance to get a leg up on the competition in terms of building name recognition and raising money.

Of course, this is not a suggestion that Dardenne thinks of ways to stick it to Democrats. He’ll tell you he’s doing what makes sense for the people of Louisiana, and he’s absolutely correct on that score. But it just so happens it’s also a tactical stroke of high quality, and it will serve to insure the Left can’t raise a stealth candidate in an obscure special election to reel in one of the most important elected positions in the state.

WINNERS

1. David Vitter. Three years ago this guy was political dead meat. Tonight, he’s one of the strongest Republicans in the Senate. Vitter’s 57-38 blowout of Charlie Melancon tells us three things. First, his DC Madam scandal is over. Done. Melancon’s camp never did get the message that the people of Louisiana heard about it, processed it and decided it was none of their business. You can say we’re permissive of scandal here, and maybe you’re right. But at the end of the day, what the electorate decided was that they’re more interested in what Vitter can do to represent them than what he does in his personal life – or did 10 years ago.

Vitter will also return to a Senate that, while it didn’t flip to the GOP, will be far more heavily populated with ideological cohorts than the one he left for the campaign last month. The Rand Pauls, Pat Toomeys, Mike Lees, Marco Rubios and Ron Johnsons of the world will be much more likely to stand with Vitter than with Lindsey Graham, and as a result Vitter will find himself with more allies come January.

2. Jay Dardenne. Dardenne’s campaign was low-key, despite being blamed for “attacks” on Caroline Fayard. That was a ridiculous charge, as the Republican merely pointed out a few facts about Fayard’s history and background that were not of a personal nature. She’s a lefty, despite what she attempted to cast herself as. Dardenne also did a nice job of generally limiting his campaign to things the Lt. Governor actually does. It’s clear the voters responded positively. Dardenne won a 57-43 race which was several points higher than his people expected.

3. Jeff Landry. For a first-time Congressional candidate, Landry’s 64-36 blowout of Ravi Sangisetty in the 3rd District race was definitely impressive. Landry annihilated Sangisetty in the debates and he outworked the Democrat on the campaign trail, as the parish-by-parish numbers attest:

• Ascension: Landry, 61-39
• Assumption: Landry, 58-42
• Iberia: Landry, 71-29
• Jefferson: Landry, 75-25
• Lafourche: Landry, 68-32
• Plaquemines: Landry, 69-31
• St. Bernard: Landry, 67-33
• St. Charles: Landry, 64-36
• St. James: Sangisetty, 55-45
• St. John: Sangisetty, 56-44
• St. Martin: Landry, 72-28
• St. Mary: Landry, 65-35
• Terrebonne: Landry, 63-37

Sangisetty is from Terrebonne, which should give an indication of how big a win this was. And despite the nastiness of the race, there was an impressive 41 percent turnout in LA-3. The narrative we were sold was that Landry was toxic and a wider electorate would reject him. That narrative was a lie; Landry won huge majorities in 11 of the 13 parishes in the district. He’s got a big future in Louisiana politics, though it’s pretty clear he’s going to have to wade through nasty campaigns every time he gets a race.

4. Cedric Richmond. Richmond’s 65-33 destruction of Joseph Cao was the biggest surprise of the state’s races, though given the size of the margin one wonders if it didn’t reflect an implosion on the part of the Republican incumbent. But Richmond did what he did without getting help from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which thought about making a buy for him and ultimately opted not to. He clearly benefited from street money Caroline Fayard’s campaign spent in New Orleans.

Richmond’s race also indicated something not dissimilar to Vitter’s victory; namely, that voters in tonight’s Louisiana elections are more interested in how they’ll be represented in terms of policy than in the personal histories and/or failings of their politicians. Vitter survived the DC madam scandal because a large majority of Louisiana’s voters approve of his conservative Senate record, and in like manner Richmond won despite a rather frightening ethical record because at the end of the day the majority of the voters in New Orleans want a typical Congressional Black Caucus member, and he’s certainly that.

5. Charles Boustany. Boustany might be the biggest beneficiary of the GOP House takeover, as he’s set to take over a subcommittee in Appropriations. That, of course, could be good for Louisiana as a whole – though it’s unlikely anybody is getting much pork in the next Congress given the public mandate for fiscal discipline shown tonight. But Boustany isn’t alone; Steve Scalise is expected to get a key spot on the Steering Committee and Rodney Alexander is expected to get a subcommittee chair in Ways and Means. John Fleming is also in line to pick up a spot on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which would increase his profile and also give the folks involved in the Haynesville Shale play a larger voice in fighting federal efforts to strangle natural gas production through regulatory enslavement.

LOSERS

1. The Fayards. To have spent the kind of money the Fayard campaign spent on a special-election Lieutenant Governor’s race, when the job comes up for re-election next year, is enough to put her at the top of this list. But to have gone through that much money and lost, and to be left with the questions about how the campaign was financed which remain in its wake, make tonight a very, very bad night for Louisiana’s premier Democrat campaign funding family.

Caroline Fayard did create some name recognition for herself in this race, which it was clear she was trying to do. But getting trounced 57-43 after a poll earlier this week showed her just eight points down indicates she perhaps underperformed.

And at the end of the day, accusations of money-laundering from her father through the Louisiana Democrat Party to her campaign are likely to haunt Fayard and perhaps hamper her future political prospects. She’s likely to be back, but it’s clear voters were not comfortable with what they saw from the Fayard family. And a 14-point spread says it’s not just that she was a Democrat running in a Republican year.

2. The Louisiana Democrat Party. The Fayard campaign-finance issues are likely to land the state’s Democrats in a pickle with the state Board of Ethics, which raised lots of questions particularly when the party failed to file 48-hour reports in the two weeks prior to the election after the money-laundering issue was raised. That amounts to a cherry on top of the otherwise devastating results for the Democrats – who, it appears, don’t seem to be competitive almost anywhere. They failed to even run candidates in the 1st and 7th Districts, and outside of Richmond no Democrat congressional candidate did better than Ravi Sangisetty’s 36 percent.

We’ll have to do a full count tomorrow, but the number we’ll be looking for is how many parishes were won by Democrat candidates tonight compared to Republicans. From the looks of it, that’s going to be a very lopsided number. And that indicates the Democrats aren’t competitive on a statewide level anymore. What this portends for next year will be interesting; they’ll have a tough time mounting challenges to any statewide races save for Attorney General, which Buddy Caldwell will be a favorite to hold.

3. Charlie Melancon. We didn’t see his concession speech live, but we’re told it was an exercise in bitterness, bile and classlessness. If that’s true, then it’s of a piece with the shameful way Melancon conducted himself in the last debate, in which he acted like he was trying to start a brawl rather than offer leadership to Louisiana through the Senate seat he was running for.

Melancon’s campaign was a joke, frankly. He sent Anzalone Liszt out to push-poll the people of Louisiana and lie to the voters (and prospective donors) about the state of the race, he failed completely to offer a vision for the state he’d present as our senator, he couldn’t offer us anything more than hookers and troubled Vitter staffers and he told a lot of provable lies throughout the campaign. For him not to own up, after it was over and the result was a surprise to no one, to the fact that the voters soundly rejected what he had to offer indicates that despite what he repeated time and time again about Vitter’s ethics the reality is that there might be more questions about the former sugar-cane lobbyist and Edwin Edwards crony from a character standpoint than about his intended victim.

Melancon’s next stop is likely Washington, where he’ll probably land some cush gig as the Undersecretary of Bass Fishing in the Department of Nothing. One would hope so. After his performance in Congress over the past year and the way he embarrassed himself in this campaign it’s unlikely he’ll be able to pull a Billy Tauzin or John Breaux and cash in as a lobbyist. And as for ever getting elected to office again, he can flat-out forget it.

4. Bobby Jindal. Jindal spent a great deal of time and effort outside of Louisiana working for gubernatorial and senatorial candidates, and as best we can tell he actually managed to pick a decent number of winners with his endorsements. But if Jindal’s goal in all that galivanting was to boost his national stature, outside of making himself the subject of a FOIA request from Democrat National Committee opposition researchers to the Pentagon it doesn’t appear he put himself on the map as a presidential or vice-presidential candidate.

Meanwhile, a lot of hay was made about Jindal’s lack of endorsements for Vitter, Dardenne and the state’s GOP congressional candidates. As it turned out, none of them needed the governor to pitch in, other than perhaps Joseph Cao (who was probably helpless anyway). Jindal could argue that he didn’t hurt anybody by not endorsing, and that’s probably true. But he didn’t help anybody, either, and a governor is supposed to help to build his state’s party. Jindal clearly didn’t do that, and there will be a lot of ruffled feathers for him to smooth over – and he’ll have to set about doing it immediately.

Because Jindal is going to have a massive budget fight on his hands. And in state treasurer John Kennedy, who is the most ambitious politician in Louisiana, he now has an adversary with designs on his job and a nose for media attention. The more contentious that budget fight gets, the more Jindal might think he would have liked to have gathered and/or strengthened allies among the state’s politicians and their supporters.

5. Joseph Cao. Re-election was always going to be a heavy lift for Cao, and when Fayard made the runoff and spread street money all over New Orleans it got a lot tougher. So the fact that he lost tonight isn’t necessarily all that terrible a disgrace.

But when you get beat 65-33, you can’t sugar-coat it. That’s a mudhole being stomped in your butt. It’s hard to even analyze such a poor performance. Maybe at the end of the day, you just can’t pull black vote in LA-2 unless you’re black. It sure doesn’t look like Cao could despite his effort at doing so.

The poll was conducted by Clarus Research, a Democrat-oriented polling firm run by Ron Faucheux, a former chief of staff and campaign manager for Mary Landrieu.

“Fayard has run a remarkably good campaign,” said pollster Dr. Ron Faucheux of Clarus Research Group, which conducted the poll.

“She has gone from nowhere, to being in contention to get elected statewide to lieutenant governor in a very short time and she’s now within striking distance of being able to make up the gap,” he said.

According to the poll, Dardenne is ahead with men and white people while Fayard leads slightly among females and sizably among African Americans…

Dardenne leads among men and white voters (54 percent to 34 percent for Fayard), while Fayard leads among women and black voters. She scores 43 percent of the female vote to Dardenne’s 41 percent. She earned 73 percent of the black vote in the poll, compared to Dardenne’s 12 percent.

Faucheux points out that women and black voters have the highest undecided numbers (17 percent undecided for women and 16 percent undecided for black voters in this survey).

“So that gives Fayard an opportunity to move up some,” Faucheux said.

On name recognition or familiarity, Dardenne is slightly ahead, with 67 percent, to 65 percent for Fayard. His favorable rating is two points higher.

But in both cases, his lead falls within poll’s margin of error of error of +/- 3.7 percent, meaning they are statistically tied on those questions.

In view of those similarities, Faucheux said it appears party affiliation could be giving Dardenne an edge because he’s a Republican and Fayard is a Democrat.

“It would tend to work for Jay Dardenne at this point because we have seen there are some anti-Democratic feelings in the state right now, as there across the country, that have to do with democratic control of Congress, President Obama’s policies which aren’t extremely popular in this state,” Faucheux said.

The poll is the first “independent” survey released on the race since Dardenne and Fayard emerged from the primary. It was conducted over the weekend with a 700-person sample.

Internal polls by the Dardenne campaign have his lead well into double figures.

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The state party declared that the money would indeed go toward ads for Fayard, and that those would be positive ads.

That was a week ago, and no new TV spots for the Fayard campaign or the state Democrat party have reached the air that we’ve seen. The same spots Fayard has been running for the last few weeks are still airing, though, and perhaps in larger volume.

In the meantime, though, Hayride sources indicate that the $210,000 is suspicious in and of itself.

Why? Namely because it looks like it came from Fayard’s father, big-money trial lawyer and Democrat campaign financier Calvin Fayard, Jr. It seems that the elder Fayard is using the Louisiana Democrat Party as a laundry to finance his daughter’s campaign.

Turns out reports filed by both Fayard and the Democrat Party’s Louisiana DEMOPAC  release the mountain-fresh essence of laundry detergent. Specifically, on October 13, 2010, Louisiana DEMOPAC is reporting contributions from Calvin Fayard for $10,000; Cynthia Fayard for $10,000; GaleForce, LLC for $95,000 and Ski Forever, LLC for $95,000 for a total of $210,000.

What’s GaleForce, LLC? Well, turns out it’s registered in Wyoming at an office belonging to Calvin Fayard. Calvin Fayard also used to own a Louisiana LLC under the same name.

Ski Forever, LLC is not on the Louisiana Secretary of State website as a registered entity, but its address as reported on the DEMOPAC report matches the address of Moonrise Inc.

And Moonrise Inc. lists Calvin Fayard as agent and President. It is also interesting that Ski Forever’s address matches the address for Regional Properties LLC, which lists Calvin Fayard as agent and sole member.

Caroline Fayard’s campaign filed a 48 hour report on October 14, 2010 showing a contribution from the Louisiana DEMOPAC for $209,936; one day after Calvin and Cynthia Fayard and their entities contributed $210,000 to DEMOPAC.

That’s just a coincidence, surely. Because earmarking donations made to a state party for specific campaigns is illegal. Certainly an attorney who makes campaign donations in bulk every election cycle would know this.

It’s probably also a coincidence that the state Democrat Party made a “media buy” to run the exact same spots the Fayard campaign was already running. Usually when the party supports a candidate, they’ll cut an attack ad against the opponent. But since the Fayard campaign is staying positive, there’s really no reason to be suspicious.

The Dardenne campaign is suspicious, though.

“We are calling on Ms. Fayard to rise above the politics she has spent hundreds of thousands to denounce and return the money to Louisiana DEMOPAC,” said Amy Jones, Dardenne’s Communications Director. ”This act would send a strong message as to her character and would validate her declarations of wanting to run a transparent campaign.”

Whether Fayard gives the money back or not, it’s worth asking the question of her campaign and the state Democrat Party whether they did their due diligence in insuring no laws were broken in transferring that $210,000 into her coffers – and more importantly to see if they have an explanation why voters shouldn’t believe that Calvin Fayard is trying to buy his daughter a statewide office.

Louisiana interim Lt. Governor Scott Angelle, appointed by Gov. Bobby Jindal to replace Mitch Landrieu when the latter won election as the mayor of New Orleans, has switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. Angelle announced the change today at the Republican Leadership Summit in Baton Rouge.

Angelle’s appointment by Jindal this spring was an interesting development, and it fueled speculation that the Breaux Bridge native would eventually become a Republican. Angelle agreed not to become a candidate in the special election for the position he currently holds, which is being fought over by Secretary of State Jay Dardenne, a Republican, and Democrat lawyer Caroline Fayard.

That speculation was fueled to a new level when Angelle gave a stem-winding, decidedly un-Democrat speech at the Rally For Economic Survival in Lafayette in July of this year, protesting President Obama’s moratorium on offshore deepwater drilling.

Angelle is scheduled to return to his former post heading Louisiana’s Department of Natural Resources, but he’s now likely to be the subject of speculation about a candidacy for statewide office next year. Should Dardenne win the Lt. Governor job in a week, his Secretary of State position will be open, though former state senator Tom Schedler, a Republican from Slidell, has expressed interest in running in a special election to be held in the spring. Should Fayard win, Angelle would be a natural Republican opponent in next year’s statewide elections.

At the time of the appointment as interim lieutenant governor, Angelle was secretary of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, a capacity in which he served since 2004, having been initially appointed by Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco and reappointed by Governor Jindal. Angelle had served as the first parish president of Saint Martin Parish from 2000 to 2004 and as Vice President of Huval Companies in Lafayette, Louisiana, from 1998 to 2000. Prior to 1998 he was a member of the Saint Martin Parish Police Jury. Earlier, he worked as a petroleum land manager in Lafayette. He holds a Bachelor of Science in petroleum land management from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

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Debate moderators also asked who they thought was the most effective member of the Louisiana Congressional Delegation. Fayard’s response? Congressman Charlie Melancon.  When asked of the candidates if they support President Obama’s Healthcare Plan – Fayard said that it would be a “net positive for the state of Louisiana.”

This news comes on the heels of her emphatic proclamation in Lafayette last week where she said “I may be a young Democrat, but I’m not a new Democrat” and Fayard embraced Obama’s reckless liberal agenda saying “I believe we are in the infancy of a cycle of change.  Our work is not done.”

Liberal trial lawyers from around the country are lining up to fund Caroline Fayard’s campaign for Lt. Governor, and we need your help!

As we head into the final days of early voting, it’s important that Republicans and fellow conservatives mobilize across Louisiana to put a stop to the liberal Democrat machine. Now more than ever, it’s critical that we rally behind Republican Secretary of State Jay Dardenne and our Republican Congressional Candidates.

You can vote early all day today and tomorrow at your Parish Registrar of Voters Office. For more information visit www.geauxvote.com.

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First, Sen. David Vitter is now touting a raft of endorsements from Democrat politicians across the state. A campaign release today includes a statement from more than 30 Democrat officeholders in support of the Republican incumbent…

“As Louisiana Democrats, we strongly endorse David Vitter for reelection to the U.S. Senate for two reasons.  First, David represents our mainstream Louisiana views on such critical issues as jobs and the federal debt.  Second, David is a very effective partner working with us to meet key Louisiana needs including law enforcement, highways, and hurricane and flood protection.  Please join us in voting for David Vitter on November 2nd.”

The officials who signed the statement:

Parish Presidents

Parish President Riley “Pee-Wee” Berthelot (D), Parish President of West Baton Rouge Parish
Parish President Gordon Burgess (D), Parish President of Tangipahoa Parish
Parish President Don Menard (D), Parish President of St. Landry Parish
Parish President Richard Thomas (D), Parish President of Washington Parish

Sheriffs

Sheriff Larry Cox (D), Sheriff of Madison Parish
Sheriff Willie Graves (D), Sheriff of Livingston Parish
Sheriff Steve May (D), Sheriff of Caldwell Parish
Sheriff Charles McDonald (D), Sheriff of Richland Parish
Sheriff Wayne Melancon (D), Sheriff of Acadia Parish
Sheriff Mike Tubbs (D), Sheriff of Morehouse Parish
Sheriff Jeffrey Wiley (D), Sheriff of Ascension Parish

State Senators

State Senator Elbert Guillory (D), State Senator for District 24

Mayors

Mayor Dale Barnett (D), Mayor of Plain Dealing
Mayor Stein Baughman (D), Mayor of Farmerville
Mayor Carroll Breaux (D), Mayor of Springhill
Mayor Danny Cupit (D), Mayor of Westlake
Mayor Terry Duhon (D), Mayor of Jennings
Mayor Dan Hollingsworth (D), Mayor of Ruston
Mayor Estes LeDoux (D), Mayor of Kinder
Mayor Thomas Nelson (D), Mayor of St. Martinsville
Mayor Jimbo Petitjean (D), Mayor of Acadia
Mayor Reggie Skains (D), Mayor of Downsville
Mayor Kenny Stinson (D), Mayor of Vinton

District Attorneys

District Attorney Leon Cannizarro, Jr. (D), District Attorney for Orleans Parish
District Attorney Paul Connick, Jr. (D), District Attorney for Jefferson Parish

Councilmen and Councilwomen, Police Jurors

Councilwoman Raylyn Beevers (D), Councilwoman for City of Gretna
Councilman Joey Cehan (D), Councilman for Terrebonne Parish
Councilman Larry Cochran (D), Councilman for St. Charles Parish
Councilwoman Marla Cooper (D), Councilwoman for Plaquemines Parish
Councilman Shelly Tastet (D), Councilman for St. Charles Parish
Councilman Trae Welch (D), Councilman for East Baton Rouge Parish

Not to be completely outdone, Vitter’s opponent in the upcoming election Charlie Melancon, who it appears no longer has the funds to run TV ads, picked up an endorsement from a more prominent Democrat official – New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu. Landrieu’s endorsement statement is somewhat peculiar…

“It’s always about putting Louisiana first,” Mayor Landrieu said. “It’s not about political party. … The people of New Orleans will be better if we have Charlie Melancon as our second United States senator.”

Perhaps Landrieu meant to say “better off,” but the statement as quoted by the New Orleans Times-Picayune might be interpreted as a prediction about the manners and comportment of the Big Easy’s denizens. His sister, Sen. Mary Landrieu, also endorsed Melancon in terms which make it sound like she’s either a lot more partisan than Mitch is or makes endorsements out of personal pique…

“Sen. Vitter is the kind of senator who fights for headlines,” Sen. Landrieu said. “I need a partner who fights for Louisiana every day.”

The Lieutenant Governor’s race also saw some endorsements of interest. Republican Jay Dardenne, the current Secretary of State, picked up endorsements from a pair of media entities – the Baton Rouge Business Report and the Monroe News-Star.

The Business Report’s publisher Rolfe McCollister said in his statement endorsing Dardenne that Democrat Caroline Fayard is unconvincing when she says partisan politics aren’t important to her candidacy.

In the event something should ever happen to the governor, the lieutenant governor must step in. And it is clear that Dardenne, a Republican, has the experience and conservative credentials that Louisiana needs. He will also do a good job in running the office of the lieutenant governor and promoting tourism.

Caroline Fayard has an impressive résumé and made a strong showing for someone in her first race by making the runoff. But while she seems to want to keep people from learning she’s a Democrat and says “parties or labels” don’t matter, her record of support for one party—Democratic—is also pretty impressive. Fayard worked for Hillary Clinton in President Bill Clinton’s White House. Photos of Fayard with President Clinton and President Barack Obama are featured on her website. So, when I read on her website that she wants to “attack wasteful spending” and “will advocate for better government—not more government,” I have to say it rings a bit hollow. Sounds like something a political consultant wrote to fool conservatives and Republicans. I have rarely met a Democrat who doesn’t think more government or more spending will somehow solve our problems. And that is certainly true of Clinton and Obama. Seems like Fayard has a lot of respect for the kind of “career politicians” she criticizes.

The News-Star, meanwhile, touted Dardenne’s record of competence in his current job and credited his vision for promoting the state’s tourism industry.

Jay Dardenne,  currently the Louisiana secretary  of state, has served the state with integrity and a public spirit that  warrants his election as lieutenant governor.

Dardenne, a  Republican, bears sufficient character and stature to lead the state should  the governor not finish his term. He also has the savvy and marketing skills  to sell the state’s myriad tourism features.

As secretary of state,  Dardenne has overseen the growth and development of numerous state museums  under his office’s direction, including several in northeastern  Louisiana. He has  worked hard to foster expansion of facilities at the Chennault Aviation and  Military  Museum in  Monroe and the  State  Cotton  Museum in  Lake  Providence, and  worked hard to help effect creation of the Eddie  G.  Robinson  Museum in  Grambling. His initiatives with the Heroes and Heritage Trails have created  new excitement about the 16 museums under Dardenne’s  direction.

His efforts concerning  the museums show Dardenne has the stuff to be the state’s chief tourism  official. As lieutenant governor, Dardenne’s primary duties would focus on  promoting culture, recreation and tourism in the state. Few public leaders  have schooled themselves as well as Dardenne about the state’s cultural  treasures, a fascinating public speaker and effective salesman for what is  great about Louisiana — all of it, including the northeastern  corner.

Dardenne has earned  the chance to step up to new opportunities.

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“They will promote her,” Leach said of the advertising. “Caroline is the candidate that’s fresh. She’s not getting into that negativism.”

ORIGINAL: Normally, poring over campaign finance statements is pretty tedious work. The information one can glean from those records is fairly substantial, but it’s usually dry as a bone.

Every once in a while, though, you run across a candidate whose finance reports are actually interesting. And once in a blue moon, you find one whose disclosures are a real page-turner. Democrat Caroline Fayard, running for Lieutenant Governor against current Republican Secretary of State Jay Dardenne is such a candidate.

Take, for example, a pair of disclosure forms filed on Thursday, October 15. Those two disclosure forms are nearly identical. In each, you’ll find three cash donations from individuals – and an in-kind donation for a “media buy” from the Louisiana Democrat Party.

But there you’ll find a difference; in one form, you’ll see that the media buy the LDP made on Fayard’s behalf was for $209,936.

But on the other form, you’ll see a valuation of zilch.

Now, it’s difficult to discern from the reports which is the original and which has been amended. It could be that Fayard’s campaign knew the state party was making a media buy and didn’t know how much it was going to be for, so they filed a report with a zero in the valuation and then amended it when they got the total. Or it could be the party gave them a figure and then canceled the buy.

Or maybe the LDP really is putting out a $210,000 media buy. But since it’s only two weeks before election day and we haven’t seen an ad by the Louisiana Democrat Party in Fayard’s support (maybe it’s a final-days blitz), Fayard’s campaign decided not to show any value yet.

Or it could be something else.

We’re told that squishy filings like this very often indicate the presence of “street money,” an old-time political tool predominantly used by Democrats to turn out the vote in certain communities where homogenous straight-ticket voting is commonplace.

We know that Fayard spent some $30,000 on election-day canvassers during the primary. We know this from campaign filings her campaign has already posted. So the idea that the campaign would be using street money to turn out the vote isn’t particularly novel or surprising.

Of course, $210,000 is a LOT of street money. Particularly for the Lieutenant Governor’s race. That’s Buddy Leach/John Georges-style street money. Naturally, those two guys wasted the cash they spent trying to turn out bloc voters in their 2003 and 2007 gubernatorial campaigns, respectively. Leach is now the head of the state Democrat Party, moreover, and if he was willing to spend $44 of his own money per vote in 2003 in a failed campaign for governor it’s not hard to imagine he’d sanction the use of much smaller sums of someone else’s money to help Fayard.

Wait – this is all crazy talk. After all, Fayard has said she’s something new and different…

Fayard is trying to paint herself as an outsider and a fresh-faced alternative with new ideas to the “old political ways” that she says Dardenne represents. “I am an alternative,” not a career politician responsible for the state’s problems over the years, Fayard said.

…so it’s impossible for her to be involved in doing the exact same sleazy things that Louisiana Democrats have been doing for decades in an effort to win elections. She’s something new, y’know, and she’s not ideological at all.

“I certainly think I’m a new face and I’m a registered Democrat, but I’m not running on my party affiliation. I don’t think it’s conducive to the office I’m running for,” said Fayard, a 32-year-old New Orleans lawyer with deep family roots in Democratic politics.

Maybe that’s true. The Fayard family will tell you they’ve given to candidates of both parties. They’ll probably tell you they’ve given to both parties themselves, and they’d be telling the truth.

For example, after six members of the Fayard family “maxed out” in donations to Hillary Clinton in March of 2008 – all six made $4,600 donations and had to be reimbursed half that figure when Clinton lost the Democrat nomination to Barack Obama – there were no donations to Obama’s campaign from the Fayard family or any employees of Calvin Fayard’s law firm. In fact, Cynthia Fayard, Caroline’s mother, donated a whopping $28,500 to the Republican National Committee in October of 2008.

Which passes for bipartisanship and “centrism,” we suppose. That donation was the only one by a member of the Fayard family – or an employee of the Fayard firm, which as our research indicates is functionally the same thing (more on that in a future update) – to a Republican candidate or organization in the 2008 election cycle.

It’s interesting stuff. The Fayards are dumping money on the street in an effort to turn out votes, primarily in the black community, from people who are overwhelmingly supportive of President Obama. But when it was time for Democrats to elect Obama president in 2008, the Fayards shifted gears in a very abrupt manner and dumped a staggering amount of money into an effort to defeat Obama.

How many of the recipients of this street money spent in the primary and potentially headed to the pavement on Nov. 2 are aware that the political machine being run out of the Fayard Law Firm dropped a major chunk of change on the Republican Party a week before the 2008 election? How many of those recipients would even be interested to know such information?

As for the rest of us, we’re expected to just shrug this information off as proving Caroline Fayard’s story she’s actually a centrist and not a limousine liberal Democrat as her opponent claims she is. We’re not supposed to draw any inferences from the fact that the Fayards – and their employees – make lock-step donations to politicians in the thousands of dollars in each election cycle, almost all of them being Democrats.

Because after all, she’s something new. We’re reading it in the newspapers; it must be true.