By: Senator Karen Carter-Peterson
The state of the Louisiana Democratic Party is unquestionably stronger than where we were just four years ago. We had three strong candidates in congressional races, and Congressman Cedric Richmond cruised to re-election, while Mayor Mayo and Governor Edwards both polled first in their primaries in qualifying for the runoff election. Ollie Tyler was elected as the first African-American woman to lead the city of Shreveport, and Jacques Roy won a resounding victory to continue serving as mayor of Alexandria. In addition, there were a number of new Democrats elected in local races that are the future of our Party. We are on strong financial footing for next year, and we have good support from our donors and great partnerships with Democratic elected officials across the state, as well as with the national committees.
But the fact of the matter is this — the non-stop onslaught of negative and inflammatory Koch Brothers ads, added to the toxic media environment driven by Fox News and the right-wing echo chamber, have made it challenging for us to drive out our message to voters. Our Party’s values — valuing work with a fair minimum wage, fighting for fairness in the workplace, expanding access to affordable health care, investing in education to help our kids compete in the global marketplace — ARE Louisiana values. We ARE the Party that is fighting for Louisiana working families. We don’t cater to the national special interests, the ideologues or the political noise machines. Our day begins and ends working for Louisianians to make our state a better place for all. We cannot cede that ground to Republicans, or we will keep falling further behind.
So I’m upbeat about our prospects moving forward into 2015. Louisiana has been ground-zero for a failed radical experiment in governance implemented by Bobby Jindal, one of the least popular governors in the country. Louisiana is ready for a new direction and return to a government that works for all. There’s a lot of hard work to be done, but I’m committed to doing whatever it takes to turn this state from red to purple and eventually to blue.
CenLamar 
Karen, you are (without peer or question) the best thing the party has going for it in Louisiana. Please consider offering yourself for higher office. In the meantime, thanks for all you do to promote reason and counter the right-wing craziness that seems to be on a high-speed quest to destroy the very fabric of our nation.
As an Independent, I am thinking Ms. Carter needs to evaluate how strong her party is, and what it is willing to do, to “drive out” the Democratic message to voters. I live in Sabine Parish and, other than my own Mary Landrieu bumper sticker, I never saw another sign, bumper sticker, or Democratic message of any kind in my Parish. Nor, to my knowledge, did Mary Landrieu pass through the Parish at any time to deliver a message. We are now a state that is completely dominated by the far right at the federal level, yet only 28% of the registered voters are Republican. This fact alone, demonstrates the lack of the Democratic Party’s ability to drive out their message to the voters.
Karen, you are in a FOG! 56.8% of La’s voters did not vote to re-elect Mary Landrieu or to elect Cassidy.
You did not energize ALL OF YOUR BASE!!! – Souls to the Poles was a great idea, but what
about Latino, Caucasian or other ethnic groups that aren’t familiar with the richness, heritage
and strength of the African American Church?
Clearly, the La. Democratic Party needs to revamp the way it does business, it cannot exist like it is. What
was, IS NO MORE.
Louisiana Dems need a party this is business friendly, to let the state know we’re not just activists
behind social ills. We realize all factions of life need to work together here. We’re not a renegade
body of people, and we don’t hate Corporate America.
This party also needs to BE INVOLVED AND TO HELP EVERY DEMOCRAT WHO
RUNS FOR A STATEWIDE OFFICE. IT CAN’T CLOSE THE DOOR
ON THE THEM IF THEY’RE UP AGAINST A BIG INCUMBENT.
IT NEEDS TO LEND ASSISTANCE.
The organizational structure is not balanced. When was the
last time that a business owner was recruited to the party, or to
some sort of supervisorial board?
The crescendo of campaigning is now over after Early Voting.
The push for a statewide office needs to be at least three months
before that date, not just one or two months before.
Can’t you understand, Democrat “values” aren’t what the country wants? We’re tired of tax and overspend, political correctness, the Louisiana Purchase, Obamacare, and scores of other democrat legislation that limits freedom and enslaves our kids in debt. And to blame the loss on the media… Laughable.
Like others who purport to speak for the country, I wonder what your creds for doing so are. But, let’s say you have them for the sake of discussion. What, exactly does the country want? Be at least as specific as you have been in stating what the country does not want.
Still waiting for bob C’s reply…amazing when you ask Conservatives to back up their statements the silence is deafening.
LOL @ Bob C – You can always tell a partisan hack when they use “Democrat” as an epithet. ***SEE the end of my diatribe for proper usage of the term. Not using it properly in ENGLISH (remember ENGLISH ONLY? That is something which conservatives seem to harp on) makes you sound like a dolt.
There are two things that are “laughable” here. 1. Bob’s total buy in of his corporate overlords in the Republican Party (the 1%, which includes the Kochs who are as unAmerican as you can get) and their talking points. 2. The complete failure and collapse of the DEMOCRATIC Party of Louisiana.
Both are only laughable for a very limited time of course.
After the laughter is over you realize how desperately sad the situation is.
Republicans and Libertarians are only getting their information from the FOX echo chamber (which does as much fact checking as a high school freshman copying and pasting a term paper from a blog) and keep falling into the trap of race politics by pandering to the looniest in their base, more and more every day.
Democrats (used properly here) and Progressives in Louisiana are disillusioned by several factors. First and foremost seems to be ineffective leadership. The Party has fallen into complacency and has allowed the Republicans to control the message.
Many of us seldom ever hear the Party message except via the internet. How many in the Party (or the base for that matter) are internet savvy enough to search it out?
Republican policies are harming this state and it’s people, left and right, but where is our unified outcry and where is our populist leader at the State level? How depressing was it for us to hear the the National Party withdrew funding from Landrieu? Then again many of us consider her a Blue-Dog and Democrat (used properly here) in name only. Keystone? Really? A project that will create less than 50 permanent jobs… to provide oil to other countries… which may cause an environmental catastrophe by poisoning and aquifer… that people get their water from… all to profit a foreign (Canadian) company? How American is that? Oh yeah, Republican just sold Native American land to a foreign country… so right on par.
Meanwhile, religious zealots in both parties rule the land, are working towards making this country a “christian” Theocracy, and are gleefully tittering over their accomplishments in keeping us stuck in the Middle Ages as far as social policies for Women and Minorities, such as LGBT, go.
I think that looking to the bright-side, as Senator Karen Carter-Peterson appears to do here in her statement, is an attempt at “positive thinking” but it falls flat and comes across as very “Pollyanna-ish”. We need a house cleaning, we need an overhaul, we need a colon-cleansing of epic proportions. To save the Party we need to move towards the Progressive values that populists like Elizabeth Warren are pushing. Not a return to the status quo that has kept certain Party leaders in power… for life.
Until then, Louisiana will remain (with Mississippi) the laughing stock of the Country.
To rebut Bob’s talking points:
1. We need to acknowledge taxes are important to the function of this nation and local communities… but at the same time we need sane tax policies and need to eliminate waste.
2. Political Correctness is an old buzz term and dates you. How about “don’t be a douche and treat others the way you’d like to be treated”.
3. Louisiana Purchase? The sale of territories to the US? The musical? The film? Or are you referring to Louisiana EBT – Electronic Benefit Transfer and the Louisiana Purchase Card? Or, erroneously, to the Affordable Care Act? See #1 and #2.
4. Obamacare? You mean the Affordable Care Act? LOL, again you are all up in that echo chamber and you are only hearing the Obama hater’s toss refuted “facts” about. All the polls and data (from independent sources) are pointing towards net positive effects such as the increases in people’s premiums are slowing, more people are covered, people are relying less on Emergency room services, more people are able to stay on their parent’s insurance longer (if need be), and my best friend who has a pre-existing condition finally has insurance for the first time in more than a decade and can finally afford to see a doctor. Those are all good things… unless you are evil… or a partisan hack. See #2.
5. This “democrat legislation that limits freedom and enslaves our kids in debt”, I don’t think you know what that means. I’ve spoken of Elizabeth Warren… see her policies on debt reduction and shaking the yoke of the big banks. You are in the wrong party my friend.
6. As far as limiting freedom… tell me where are the raids on your stockpiles of weapons you and your ammosexual friends are always talking about. If you are talking about religious freedom, again your are living in a very tiny world in your head. You are free to practice whatever religion you fancy but you cannot enforce it on others. There is a pesky little thing called Separation of Church and State. It’s in the Constitution… the actual Constitution of the U.S.A…. not that “edited” document that is floating around conservative websites. The actual document. While you are reading it take a look at the 2nd Amendment… the ENTIRE 2nd Amendment…. especially that last part that y’all forget about and misinterpret. Again, it may not mean what you think it means.
****Lightning Lagniappe round****
– IRS “scandal”? Groups from BOTH parties were targeted… bc they were using their tax exempt status incorrectly. Just turned out that more Conservative groups were doing more shadier things than liberal groups.
– Benghazi? Tragedy. The loss of life is tragic. The REPUBLICAN “House Intelligence Committee’s Final Benghazi Report” and reports from the PENTAGON (not a liberal bastion by any means) said that Republican Representative Darryl Issa’s misguided witch hunt was exactly that. He is the modern day Don Quixote tilting at imaginary sightings of Clinton and Obama. Suck it, Y’all were wrong.
– Lois Lerner’s missing emails? A crashed hard drive and missing 30k emails does not equate, and pales in comparison, to the illegal use by the Bush White House of a private email system AND the subsequent purposeful deletion of 22 million emails. Million. With an M.
– The first Black, (real) AMERICAN, christian President did not ruin or wreck the country, saved the financial system, got Bin Laden, did not eviscerate the military (and in fact fully funded it where Bush did not), didn’t take your guns, didn’t put conservatives in FEMA camps, or kill y’all with death panels, and didn’t fake his own birth certificate (aka wasn’t the Manchurian or Kenyan Candidate), Overall Mr Obama was an ok Prez… and y’all can’t stand it!
*** “The proper name is the Democratic Party. Democrat is a noun and Democratic is the adjective to describe the party. When using democratic or Democratic as an adjective, it should be the adjectival form with ‘ic’ on the end, We should not refer to Democrat ideas or Democrat votes.”
Until and unless the Democratic Party (in which I’ve been registered my entire adult life) publicly repudiates the proliferation of profit-seeking charter schools, and the simultaneous attack on the profession of teaching, I will consider party leadership as useless as the Republican leadership. Given that the chair of the state party has a family member paid handsomely to destroy public education, I’m not very hopeful in the short term.