Sep 25
Bryan Wooley is currently running as a Republican for Mayor of Shreveport. And his supporters hatched a brilliant way to get out the vote: By offering free chicken wings and a limo ride to the poll!
Needless to say, Mr. Wooley has been criticized for the gimmick, as he should be. To some, this appears like a completely tone deaf way of courting African-American voters.
Sep 23
Question: Who owns this dilapidated home on historic Albert Street?
The answer may surprise you.
If you live in Alexandria, you should drive by the place; it is directly across the street from the City’s Public Safety Complex, and, unfortunately, it looks much worse in person than on Google Maps.
Sep 23
Bizarrely, local blogger and attorney Greg Aymond is now endorsing Von Jennings’s candidacy for Mayor of Alexandria.
Mr. Aymond, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, has remained outspoken about his views on race. In March, Mr. Aymond wrote that “ethics among Blacks is usually a lacking character trait,” suggesting that African-Americans were, by and large, not well-equipped to serve on the State Ethics Board. (Though, to be fair, he did suggest that there were probably some qualified African-Americans). He’s called the majority African-American City Council a “pack of monkeys.” In December of 2008, Mr. Aymond called several local African-American officials “n**** street thugs.”
During the Jena Six protests, a Grant Parish teenager paraded through a crowd of protestors in Downtown Alexandria with a noose affixed to the back of his pick-up truck. After the guy was arrested, Mr. Aymond declared that the noose was actually a symbol of “freedom of expression.” Ever since, visitors to Mr. Aymond’s website have been greeted with an image of a noose with the caption “Freedom of Expression.”
Ms. Jennings may point to Mr. Aymond’s support as an example of her campaign’s ability to forge coalitions and bring people together. After Mr. Aymond attended a “meet and greet” with Ms. Jennings at the home of their mutual friend, Patrick Lacour, Ms. Jennings posted a photograph of her, Mr. Aymond, Police Juror Steve Coco, Patrick Lacour, and Joe Fuller on her campaign Facebook account, writing:
We are bringing together residents from all parts of Alexandria to unite with a common goal…ONE ALEXANDRIA…who knew this group would ever stand together but it shows that God is still working miracles!
While Ms. Jennings may believe Greg Aymond’s support is a “miracle” from God, Mr. Aymond’s made it abundantly clear that his support for Jennings has much more to do with his own personal dislike of the incumbent Mayor. Indeed, after attending the meet and greet, Mr. Aymond wrote that the event was primarily about organizing against the incumbent, instead of being in support of Ms. Jennings.
And I hate to break it to Ms. Jennings, but I seriously doubt Mr. Aymond actually supports her campaign platform. He’s been very critical of workforce development and diversity initiatives, both of which are central to Ms. Jennings’s campaign and her politics. This morning, on KSYL, Ms. Jennings spoke about ensuring that government procurement practices were inclusive and not influenced by institutional racism or complacency, something with which I absolutely agree. And when the City of Alexandria launched an initiative to ensure best practices in workforce development and diversity, Greg Aymond said the entire thing was “racist” and “sexist.” Ms. Jennings has repeatedly described herself as a champion of these exact issues. She’s built her career around them.
Earlier this week, Ms. Jennings was quoted in The Town Talk as saying, “There are needs throughout the city. His (the Mayor’s) accomplishments are not in Lower Third. They’re across town.” To be sure, there are, in fact, numerous projects currently underway in the Lower Third neighborhood, including the largest private-sector construction project in the last twenty years, massive renovations and expansions at neighborhood parks, and a multi-million dollar streetscape enhancement project. To me, Ms. Jennings was attempting to imply the Mayor’s real accomplishments were on the other side of town, not in Lower Third, a collection of majority African-American neighborhoods, but “across town.”
In my opinion, the quote should read: “There are needs throughout the city. His accomplishments are not only in Lower Third. They’re all across town.” But somehow, the numerous projects currently underway and the investments being made in Lower Third are invisible to Ms. Jennings. That’s unfortunate. Obviously, none of the current projects in Lower Third were the work of a single person. All of them were built and championed by people in the community. Lower Third has one of the most vocal and engaged community groups in the entire City, and their passionate, civic-minded advocacy should be applauded, not discredited or overlooked. Yes, there is much work to be done, but if you subscribe to Greg Aymond’s logic, then you probably believe that additional infrastructure investments in Lower Third (or any investment made by the SPARC initiative, for that matter) represent nothing more than a “give away” to “black neighborhoods.”
Incidentally, Mr. Aymond thought he was agreeing with Ms. Jennings’s statement about the Mayor’s accomplishments being “across town.” Quoting:
I agree with Von. All parts of this town need development, not just the Black parts to buy their voted (sic). Under Jacques’ plan, about 90% of the $96 million of SPARC will be spent in the Black areas of town but will be paid back by largely the White taxpayers. SPARC should benefit all racial areas of town.
According to Greg Aymond, Von Jennings was advancing the notion that infrastructure improvements should be prioritized by or considered within the context of the racial and socioeconomic make-up of a neighborhood.
She receives the support of Greg Aymond, calls it a miracle, and now, the man is not only endorsing her, he’s also attempting to define her platform.
Just rich.
Frankly, I’d find Ms. Jennings much more credible if she stood up to Mr. Aymond, instead of acquiescing to him and allowing her candidacy to be defined by him. Perhaps she believes Mr. Aymond can provide in-roads among white voters (at least the dozen or so who subscribe to the same political philosophy as a former member of the KKK).
Despite all of the attention I’ve given him, I’ve always considered Mr. Aymond to be a sideshow, a case study in cognitive dissonance, noteworthy primarily because of his prolific intellectual dishonesty and outspoken racism. There are a few static links on his blog: A tribute to the Confederacy, a sloppy image of the Mayor of Alexandria as Adolph Hitler, and a picture of a noose.
Congratulations, Von, for the endorsement.
And thanks for proving the old adage. Indeed, politics makes strange bedfellows.
From Andrew Tuozzolo, campaign manager for Butch Gautreaux, a Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor:
Speaking for the campaign, and for the candidate, Butch Gautreaux at no time has ever endorsed or shared the goals, purposes, or methods of the “Tea Party.” His name’s appearance on the NCLA Tea party website and pledge is a mistake that, now brought to the attention of the campaign, is being rectified as quickly as possible. He will be asking that his name be removed from all NCLA Tea Party affiliated content.
The Tea Party ideals and philosophy, despite often draped in patriotic verbiage and rationalization, are antithetical to Butch’s core beliefs. The Tea Party’s nihilist rhetoric and eccentrically regressive perspective stands in stark contrast to Butch’s long record of fighting for progress, equality and opportunity and for a better Louisiana.
Unfortunately, by clerical error weeks ago, this “pledge” was signed and returned to the NCLA tea party. We will be kindly asking the NCLA Tea Party to remove Butch’s name from among the signees.
On Butch’s behalf, I want to make one thing clear: Butch has never, and will never, be a candidate of any Tea Party, or any group purporting to share the goals of such an organization. Butch has been a strong Democrat, a progressive, and a champion for working Louisianians all of his life. He’s in this race because he believes he can make government work for the people again, not for big corporations or special ideological interests. It’s been our message all along. Louisiana First. Our people, our culture, and our future over politics and polemics.
I hope you’ll understand this error and give Butch a second look.
Senator Gautreaux also sent me and the folks at The Daily Kingfish a personal e-mail renouncing the NCLA Tea Party Pledge, and obviously, his campaign feels very strongly about this issue.
Kudos to them for quickly correcting the mistake instead of simply avoiding the criticism and the questions.
To Royal Alexander and the NCLA Tea Party/Red River Tea Party/whatever you’re calling yourself, I hope you will honor Mr. Gautreaux’s request and remove him from your list.
Sep 18
Remember Royal Alexander?
For a short time, he was Chief of Staff to Congressman Rodney Alexander (no relation), and in 2007, he ran as the Republican candidate for Louisiana Attorney General, a race he lost handily to Buddy Caldwell, the Democratic candidate.
Not surprisingly, Mr. Alexander is still engaged in politics, and it appears that he is attempting to assert himself as a leader of the Tea Party in Louisiana. Yesterday, Rachel Maddow reported that Senator David Vitter signed a pledge from the North Central Louisiana Tea Party that he would, among other things, conduct himself “personally and professionally in a moral and socially appropriate manner,” a commitment that draws obvious attention to Mr. Vitter’s admission of a “serious sin.”
Interestingly, the North Central Louisiana Tea Party is not registered to conduct business in the State of Louisiana.
They’re just an informal, grassroots organization of like-minded folks who want to take back the government, right?
Not really.
Royal Alexander’s name and e-mail address are plastered all over the website for the North Central Louisiana Tea Party.
Clearly, Mr. Alexander, who was embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal in 2006 involving another Congressional staffer, is a founder of this informal organization, and as the former Chief of Staff to a Republican United States Congressman, it probably wasn’t too difficult to get Senator Vitter to endorse his “Tea Party” pledge, particularly if the whole thing could be framed as grassroots.
Royal and company haven’t yet taken the time to register the organization with the Louisiana Secretary of State, but they don’t seem to mind asking for donations and contributions.
Either way, Royal has, in fact, registered an organization called the Red River Tea Party, LLC, which, on Thursday, hosted what may have been the most boring and lackluster political forum in Louisiana history (though, to be fair, it did feature a bizarre attack on the alleged true “religion” of Louisiana’s Secretary of State and candidate for Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne).
Considering the North Central Louisiana Tea Party is now asserting itself as a political organization seeking donations and pledges from candidates, I believe they have an absolute obligation to be as transparent and open as possible. Louisianans need to be aware of the connections between the North Central Louisiana Tea Party and the Red River Tea Party. Are they both merely front groups for Republican Royal Alexander?
Like most folks in Louisiana, I don’t really care about what David Vitter promised Royal Alexander he would do or how he would behave during his second term; both men have been plagued by scandal. It’s kind of funny that they’re able to generate national attention by signing pledges about personal and professional behavior. TPM and Rachel Maddow missed the real story: This has nothing to do with the Tea Party; this is primarily about establishment, scandal-plagued Republicans attempting to manufacture a movement.
Honestly, I’m most disappointed in Butch Gautreaux and his campaign, as a Democrat, for Lt. Governor. Apparently, he signed off on Mr. Alexander’s so-called Tea Party pledge. With all due respect to Mr. Gautreaux, I hope he’ll take his name off of Royal Alexander’s list. Royal’s not grassroots; he doesn’t represent the Tea Party; and there is absolutely no reason a Democratic candidate for any statewide office should feel compelled to pay lip service to Royal Alexander. Mr. Gautreaux’s decision to publicly align himself with a blatantly astro-turf Tea Party organization d0es absolutely nothing for his candidacy; if anything, it emboldens Caroline Fayard, who appears to be, by far, the most qualified and informed candidate for the job.
Sep 15
Dale Genius, the Executive Director of the Louisiana History Museum in Downtown Alexandria, e-mailed me late this afternoon to announce the museum’s newest addition: a carefully-preserved, first edition copy of The Town Talk from the year of its creation, 1883.
It may be hard to believe, but The Town Talk is one of the nation’s oldest, continuously operating newspapers, though, to be fair, The Hartford Courant, which is still in publication, has The Town Talk beat by over a century. As documented in the book The Talk of the Town, The Town Talk was considered an innovator in newspaper publication during the mid-20th century, and although it is now the corporate property of Gannett, The Town Talk was owned and published by local residents, primarily members and relatives of the McCormick family (no relation to the current Town Talk reporter, Bret McCormick), for over 100 years.
Like many others, I hope, one day, it will return to local ownership. In my opinion, the paper is currently being bled dry; what was once an innovative newspaper is now just yet another corporately-owned asset under the direction of corporate stakeholders, instead of community stakeholders.
Anyway, check this out (click to zoom):
Sep 9
I know some people thought that floating the candidacy of Baton Rouge native porn star Stormy Daniels for the United States Senate was a hilarious way of undermining David Vitter. Ms. Daniels seemed flattered by the so-called grassroots support, and she earnestly pretended like she was taking the whole thing seriously.
But clearly, the whole thing was absurd. An adult film star running for Senate against Vitter would remind voters of Mr. Vitter’s admitted affairs with prostitutes. Therefore voters will vote for the porn star? What?
Ms. Daniels’s “campaign” attempted to position her as more “honest” than Vitter, but even though it took itself very seriously, Ms. Daniels’s “campaign” will be remembered as satire. A joke. This woman could never actually be elected to the United States Senate.
During the last two years, Senator Vitter’s opposition has been unable to properly frame and contextualize Mr. Vitter’s “serious sin.”
Ms. Daniels’s spoof campaign was spearheaded by a well-known Louisiana political operative, Brian Welsh, who, by the way, was allegedly terrorized and car-bombed while he worked on her campaign. Scary stuff, without a doubt. (And I’ve heard some provocative, off-the-record theories about who is actually responsible).
But with all due respect to Ms. Daniels and Mr. Welsh, using the American electoral process as a way of satirizing David Vitter is nothing more than cheap marketing; it exploits the process and diffuses the import of Mr. Vitter’s “serious sin.” Ms. Daniels received a ton of earned and free media, and maybe some people got a good laugh.
I thought the whole charade was stupid, a waste of time, and a complete distraction from the real issues.
Right now, the Louisiana Democratic Party is attempting to change the tone of the conversation about Mr. Vitter’s affairs with prostitutes; instead of tongue-and-cheek satire, the criticism is now packaged as some sort of Unsolved Mysteries, conspiracy theorist-friendly ploy, filled with salacious and ridiculous details.
I understand that recent (proprietary) polling suggests nearly one out of every four in Louisiana has never heard of Senator Vitter’s affairs with prostitutes or his admitted involvement with the D.C. Madam. It seems a little hard to believe, but I trust my sources on this.
If Mr. Vitter’s opposition wants to inform voters of his affairs with prostitutes, then they need to keep it simple:
Sep 8
Yesterday, as a friend and I drove back to Alexandria from Houston, we passed by a large, handwritten sign reading, “DON’T BLAME ME. I VOTED FOR THE AMERICAN,” proudly displayed in someone’s front yard, near the border of Rapides and Vernon Parishes.
I’ve been writing about smear campaigns against Barack Obama from, what seems like, the very beginning. I wrote my first post in January 0f 2007, a month before then-Senator Obama announced his candidacy, about an article by right-wing pundit Debbie Shlusser that claimed Obama was a “secret Muslim.” The bizarre stories about his birth certificate hadn’t yet surfaced, but whenever they finally did, honestly, I wasn’t too surprised.
Still, I’ve written about this for a couple of reasons: First, these stories and conspiracy theories demonstrate the lengths to which his opposition will go in order to undermine his legitimacy and credibility, but second and more importantly, they are, by in large, promulgating the notion of Barack Obama as Other. Unlike the critics on the left who opposed George W. Bush’s legitimacy because of the Supreme Court ruling or compared him to Adolf Hitler (which, let’s face it, is becoming an unfortunate bipartisan tradition), these attacks against Obama are based on lies about his fundamental identity as a human being: his birthplace, his religion, his ethnicity.
To me, it is particularly noteworthy that so many Americans actually believe in these theories. He wasn’t born in America. He was born in Kenya or maybe Indonesia. He’s not a Christian. He’s a “secret Muslim.” He’s not the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya. He’s an Arab.
And it’s even more interesting (and frustrating) that these ideas have gained traction in our national conversation. People are buying billboards and planting homemade signs in their front yards that claim the President isn’t actually an American. Certainly they have the right to do so, but that’s not the point. The point that what they’re saying is a lie– and not a lie about the President’s policies, but a lie about his identity.
When Barack Obama won the Presidency nearly two years ago, some talked about the dawning of a “post-racial America.” Obama was a “post-racial” candidate, and America demonstrated its rejection of institutionalized racism by electing him, or so the logic went.
Sep 2
H/t to The Daily Kingfish.
A couple of months ago, the Louisiana Democratic Party quietly created ForgottenCrimes.com, a website that is dedicated to one particular “cold case”: Senator David Vitter’s admitted dalliances with prostitutes working for Deborah Jean Palfrey, the so-called D.C. Madam. Yesterday, the Louisiana Democratic Party launched this blistering video attack against Senator Video, by way of ForgottenCrimes.com:
They obviously don’t intend on pulling any punches. The video was slickly-produced and well-scripted. And it accused Mr. Vitter of lying about having an affair with Wendy Cortez, who was subsequently made famous by none other than Larry Flynt.
I have to admit, however, that I found the video too salacious to be effective, and I think it perhaps unwittingly undermines its own credibility by unnecessarily disguising the identities of those interviewed. No one wants to go on the record about this?
Also, the digression about Vitter being a Harvard graduate and a Rhodes Scholar and going to school “with royalty” was amateurish and superfluous. No need. He’s a United States Senator; by virtue of his position, he, like everyone else in Congress, has access to other powerful and influential people.
Don’t get me wrong: I understand why the Louisiana Democratic Party believes it’s important to remind voters about Senator Vitter’s “serious sin,” and this was a blistering attack. But I still think it falls short by taking itself too seriously. Vitter’s prostitution scandal is a matter of fact, not conspiracy, and if the Democratic Party wants to remind voters of Mr. Vitter’s “serious sin,” then they should frame the issue around the facts, not as some sort of unsolved mystery or conspiracy theory.
Sep 2
It’s been nearly three years since he was elected Governor, and honestly, I still don’t understand Bobby Jindal’s prerogatives. He opposed the stimulus and then traveled the State posing for pictures handing out oversized checks from the stimulus. He (essentially) fired his own Secretary of the DOTD, William Ankner, right after Mr. Ankner said Louisiana would attempt to compete for funding to construct a high-speed rail line between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Jindal, as you may recall, used the proposed rail line between Las Vegas and Los Angeles as an example of wasteful stimulus spending during his infamously awful and nationally-televised Republican response to President Obama’s first address to a joint session of Congress.
Sep 1
A couple of days ago, in a post about the race for Louisiana’s Third Congressional District, I mentioned that Republican candidate Jeff Landry had been endorsed by The Tea Party of Louisiana, which I implied to be a monolithic group of Republicans. Needless to say, this didn’t sit well with the board of the Tea Party of Louisiana, and within hours, I was contacted by board member Barry Hugghins, who politely informed me that their organization included Independents and Libertarians and that of the 12 members of their executive board, only six were, in fact, registered Republicans. Fair enough. I made the correction in an update to the post, and I asked Mr. Hugghins if he would consent to an e-mail interview about The Tea Party of Louisiana. I told him I would publish his responses, in full and unedited.
Obviously, Mr. Hugghins and I have vastly different perspectives on the role of government and the direction this country is currently taking, but although I disagree with the platform of the so-called Tea Party, I’m a big proponent of the open and free exchange of ideas.
Here, in full, is my exchange with Barry Hugghins of The Tea Party of Louisiana:
