The Louisiana House and the Senate are both majority Democrat. As I said previously, most of Louisiana’s largest cities have recently-elected Democratic mayors.

Republican turn-out in the primaries was abysmal, and John McCain was not a total lock before the Louisiana primary, which Huckabee WON. By the way, Republican primary turn-out was terrible from the very beginning. The far-right can’t stand McCain, and many may be tempted to sit this one out– or cast their vote in protest for someone lke Bob Barr.

And do you really think McCain– a man who has voted AGAINST several major recovery bills– cares MORE about Louisiana than Obama? Compare their records. (Which I will also do in a subsequent post). Staged town hall meetings and $2300 a plate fundraisers in Louisiana do, technically, require McCain to be in Louisiana, but I’m not sure how his mere presence indicates committment.

Even if you believe that the poll data is accurate this far out from the election, Obama appears to be closing the gap. A week before he secured the nomination, he was within single digits.

And one more thing: Obama admitted that his words came out poorly, but he was attempting to express a profound truth about a large swath of Americans. Many people are disenchanted, upset, and embittered by the way this country is being run. Politics is a blood sport. The Bush Administration led this country into war with Iraq on a series of deceptions and blatant lies, exchanging the goodwill of the American people for the ability to pre-emptively strike and subsequently occupy and control an entire nation of people thousands of miles away. Instead of being engaged in the process, many people are put off by it. In troubling economic times, many people will seek guidance and support from their religion. In our culture- due, in part, to the specter of terrorism and the immediate threat of random violence, some will even become overly-worried about their personal security.

There is no judgment in this observation. I don’t think it indends harm or insult to anyone; it’s just a reflection on the way many believe in today’s America.

Sure, his word choice was terrible. But give his quote some context:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

I don’t know where you’re living, Jeremiah, but I encounter people who explain their frustrations through issues like immigration or trade (both of which are absoloutely legitimate issues that Americans SHOULD be frustrated about, as, by the way, is the price of gasoline). Personally, I think the observation is hurt by the word “clings.” This is what Mr. Obama said:

“So I said, well, you know when you’re bitter, you turn to what you can count on,” he added. “So people, they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community.”

From the New York Times:

J. Richard Gray, the mayor of Lancaster and an Obama supporter, said this was not what Mr. Obama meant. Mr. Obama was trying to say, Mr. Gray argued, that Republicans take emotional issues like guns and religion and try to use them to divide people.

“I don’t think he’s demeaning religion or guns,” Mr. Gray said. “He’s saying the use of those issues as wedge issues plays on the bitterness that people have and diverts attention from the real economic issues, like the disparity between the wage earner and the rich.”

Mr. Gray also said Mr. Obama was right that voters were bitter, although he said he would have used the word angry. He pointed to a recent poll that found 81 percent of voters believed the country was on the wrong track. He said Mrs. Clinton sounded like “a Pollyanna” in saying that workers were optimistic.

Heck, there are many people here- both on the right and the left- who agree that some voters are bitter (again, 81% of people believe the country is on the wrong track) and vote on wedge issues. And Republicans HAVE been pushing wedge issues (and idiotic stuff like questioning the “patriotism” of the Democratic nominee for the Presidency) in small-town America as a way of “diverting attention” and getting many people to vote against their own economic best interests (i.e. a tax plan that primarily benefits multi-millionairies). For an in-depth explanation of this, I highly and enthusiastically recommend the book What’s the Matter With Kansas?

Update: In researching Obama’s record on Louisiana, I came across this post from Think on These Things (a site I have linked to in the past). Click on this link to view the entire post, which is well-sourced and documented.

It is nice that everyone is giving speeches and putting out ten-point plans to commemorate Hurricane Katrina. However, I’m more interested in knowing what people have been doing when the cameras were off. What is your record on this issue?

Here is Barack Obama’s record on rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina.

* Sept. 2, 2005: Obama holds press conference urging Illinoisans to contribute to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.
* Sept. 5, 2005: Obama goes to Houston to visit evacuees with Presidents Clinton and Bush.
* Sept. 7, 2005: Obama introduces bill to create a national emergency family locator system
* Sept. 8, 2005: Obama introduces bill to create a National Emergency Volunteers Corps.
* Sept. 8, 2005: Obama co-sponsors the Katrina Emergency Relief Act of 2005 introduced by Senator Harry Reid
* Sept. 8, 2005: Obama co-sponsors the Hurricane Katrina Bankruptcy Relief and Community Protection Act of 2005 introduced by Senator Russ Feingold
* Sept. 12, 2005: Obama introduces legislation requiring states to create an emergency evacuation plan for society’s most vulnerable
* Sept. 15, 2005: Obama issues public response to President Bush’s speech about Gulf Coast rebuilding.
* Sept. 21, 2005: Obama co-sponsors bill to establish a Katrina commission to investigate response to the disaster introduced by Hillary Clinton
* Sept. 21, 2005: Obama appears on NPR to discuss the role of poverty in Hurricane Katrina.
* Sept. 22, 2005: Obama and Coburn’s Hurricane Katrina financial oversight bill unanimously passes Senate committee.
* Sept. 22, 2005: Obama’s amendment requiring evacuation plans unanimously passes Senate committee.
* Sept. 28, 2005: Obama and Coburn issue statement about the need for a Chief Financial Officer to oversee the financial mismanagement and suspicious contracts occurring in the reconstruction process
* Sept. 29, 2005: Obama and Coburn investigate possible FEMA refusal of free cruise ship offer
* Oct. 6, 2005: Obama and Coburn issue statement on FEMA Decision to re-bid Katrina contracts
* Oct. 6, 2005: Obama co-sponsors Gulf Coast Infrastructure Redevelopment and Recovery Act of 2005.
* Oct. 21, 2005: Obama releases statement decrying the extension of FEMA director, Michael “Brownie” Brown’s contract. Obama calls Brown’s contract extension, “unconscionable.”
* Nov. 17, 2005: Obama and Coburn introduce legislation asking FEMA to immediately re-bid all Katrina reconstruction contracts.
* Feb. 1, 2006: Obama gives Senate floor speech on his legislation to help children affected by Hurricane Katrina
* Feb. 2, 2006: Obama introduces legislation to help low-income children affected by Hurricane Katrina
* Feb. 23, 2006: Obama issues statement responding to a White House report on Hurricane Katrina. Obama noted that the top two recommendations that the report had for the federal government were initiatives he had been working on since immediately after the storm hit. Obama called the administration’s response “delinquent.”
* May 2, 2006: Obama gives speech about no-bid contracts in Hurricane Katrina reconstruction
* May 4, 2006: Obama’s legislation to end no-bid contracts for Hurricane Katrina reconstruction passed the Senate.
* June 15, 2006: Obama and Coburn announce legislation to require amendment to create competitive bidding for Hurricane Katrina reconstruction for federal contracts over $500,000. Although it passed previously, the language was stripped in conference.
* June 15, 2006: Obama releases podcast about his pending Katrina reconstruction legislation in the Senate.
* June 16, 2006: Obama and Coburn get no-bid Hurricane Katrina reconstruction amendment into Department of Defense authorization bill.
* July 14, 2006: Obama and Coburn’s legislation to end abuse of no-bid contracts passes senate as amendment to Department of Defense authorization bill.
* August 11, 2006: Obama visits Xavier University in New Orleans to give Commencement address
* August 14, 2006: Obama and Coburn ask FEMA to address ballooning no-bid contracts for Gulf Coast reconstruction
* Sept. 29, 2006: Obama and Coburn legislation to prevent abuse of no-bid contracts in the wake of disaster passes Senate to be sent to President’s desk to become law.
* Feb. 2007-Present: As Obama begins his Presidential campaign he references Katrina as a part of his stump speech as he travels around the country in his familiar line, “That we are not a country which preaches compassion and justice to others while we allow bodies to float down the streets of a major American city. That is not who we are.”
* June 20, 2007: Obama co-sponsors Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act of 2007 introduced by Senator Chris Dodd.
* July 27, 2007: Obama and colleagues get a measure in the Homeland Security bill that will investigate FEMA trailers that may contain the toxic chemical, formaldehyde.
* Aug. 26, 2007: Obama outlines a detailed Hurricane Katrina recovery plan.
* December 18, 2007: Obama calls on President Bush to protect affordable housing in New Orleans
* February 16, 2008: Obama releases statement on toxic Gulf Coast trailers

PS: To my friend at the New Orleans News Ladder, thanks EditallaMon.

McCain has spent far more time in Louisiana than Obama has, and Obama had to come here during the primaries to campaign, whereas McCain already had his primary wrapped up by the time Louisiana voted. That seems to suggest that McCain came here on his own free will, whereas Obama has been prancing around the country making proud declarations about how people who live in places like Louisiana are “bitter” and “cling to their guns and religion.”

There’s not been one poll released by ANYONE that shows Obama leading this state or really anywhere close. So until there’s any evidence to the contrary, what case needs to be made for McCain? That would be like me asking you to explain how in the hell do you think Obama is going to win Vermont…it really doesn’t merit much of a reaction.