Defeat William Jefferson! Vote Karen Carter!
Those of us in Central Louisiana may not be in the same Congressional district as our friends in the 2nd. (We’re represented by Rodney Alexander. Remember him? The guy whose page got creeped out by Mark Foley, the guy whose secretary was pen pals with convicted murderer Scott Peterson, the guy whose chief of staff, Royal, is now being sued for sexual harassment… and all of this came to light only two months before the election. Yeah, that’s our Congressman!).
But even those of us in Central Louisiana have a limit to what our leaders can get away with (and still expect to be re-elected).
Consider, say, $90,000 in cash in a Congressman’s freezer as a metaphor for that line.
It doesn’t matter how it got there, and it doesn’t matter how Jefferson intends to eventually explain it all away: When the feds find 90K in your freezer (after you’ve been accused of taking a $100,000 bribe), you shouldn’t even consider making a run for Congress.
I’m certain Karen Carter is more qualified than Jefferson for Congress. Why? One reason: No one has ever found $90,000 in cash in her freezer.
Daniel T. Smith tells a good story:
Last weekend, Matt Stoller of MyDD called on 100 people to donate $100 a piece, and when they received 11K plus dollars they decided to hire a man named Tim Tagaris, who covered the Ned Lamont race for MyDD, and send him to NOLA for the next thee weeks to follow the La-02 runoff.
www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/15/154230/71
In the comments of MyDD’s announcement, they put forth an open invitation for people to contribute blog names of New Orleans activists (I signed up to MyDD to plug the Roy election victory and your blog, btw). It’s an interesting list, and here’s the motherload:
thinknola.com/wiki/New_Orleans_bloggers
Anyway, Oyster over at YourRightHandThief (a nicely written progressive NOLA blog) in his most recent entry titled “MyDD: Moral Ghostbusters” (I couldn’t find a permalink), has some interesting opinions about Stoller/MyDD’s portrayal of Landrieu as a “moral ghost” and MyDD’s decision to send Tagaris to NOLA. In the first comment blogger Adrastos (.blog-city) calls Tagaris a “carpetblogger.”
Tagaris actually left a comment of his own on the thread, and it’s really conciliatory and he immediately won the support of Oyster’s readers (no small feat in the blogosphere). He seems extremely motivated, and in spite of his benefactor and previous jobs he is not directly attached to the Carter campaign. Here’s his first segment, which has okay comments as well, the highlight (lowlight?) being a picture of a Katrinacorpse.
www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/16/195119/10I’m sorry to give you so much to look at all at once, since you have more than you can handle with one city already, but this is all going to be irrelevant after December 9.
I thought you’d be interested because this actually represents the national blogging community refocusing on New Orleans, and an example of how bloggers are not simply a bunch of computer potatoes. There are real projects that bridge the gap between the virtual and the visceral. It is also informing my opinion of Landrieu (Oyster at YRHT defends her pretty well, and he has the same reservations that we do, i.e. Holy Joe, and with the upcoming coastal oil revenue sharing proposal she and Blanco are going to be in the spotlight a bit more over the next two months). It’s also interesting that Tagaris seems to completely understand the importance of engaging a community through it’s bloggers, especially considering that his medium is professional internet journalism as well.
Read more: MyDD.com
The Legal Woes of William Jefferson
William Jefferson Filmed Taking Cash
PS: Yesterday, RightHandThief Said Jacques Roy is a Rising Democratic Star.
CenLamar 
Thanks for the links. Yes, I agree that District 02 needs to get rid of William Jefferson, but it’s MUCH more difficult than it should be, given his machine.
Here’s the link to the MyDD Moral Ghostbusters post. I don’t like it when anyone (even progressives) uses the Katrina aftermath merely as a political weapon. (Or when they fail to do any research on a crucial issue like oil revenue sharing.)
hey erster, fancy seeing you here lol.
keep your eyes on those ‘carpet baggers’ because regardless of what they say, they are usually up to something.
If this son of a bitch was a republican he’d already have been out of office by his own party or his own accord. That he’s a democrat speaks volumes why he’s still in and seeking reelection.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…… Tom Delay, Bob Casey, Mark Foley.
Thanks for the shout-out Lamar; it makes me feel a little closer to home. One thing the Tagaris coverage points out is that many consider Carter the lesser of two evils, with some saying she is merely a second generation machine politician.
(By the way, I no longer need a proxy to view the .blogspot domain; I think in China the censored internet sites recycle every month or so per IP address, or something like that).
Delay, Foley, Cunningham… they resigned. Kennedy kills someone and continues to get reelected. Jefferson is known throughout DC and New Orleans as a crook and will get reelected
This really has nothing to do with political party, though. The Dems have repudiated Jefferson. The House leadership stripped him of his appropriations spot. The LA Dems refused to back him. He’s an embarrassment.
You’re right– Foley, Delay, and Cunningham all decided not to run. (By the way, I didn’t mean Bob Casey; I was talking about that guy up in Montana that Abramoff loved… what’s his name?).
Conrad Burns me thinks
It’s like this.
Those “ousted” by the GOP in response to corruption scandals generally left of their own accord or after they became a significant political liability.
Tom Delay was not forced from his party when he was indicted. House RULES forced him to abdicate. He eventually decided not to run for reelection, but not until he had collected over $1,000,000 in campaign contributions. That money was not returned; he used it (legally) to pay
his lawyer.
Foley (I just want to forget about this nobody) resigned after he discovered his indiscretions would be made public. The conflicting statements of GOP House leadership–and our representative’s forwarding the matter to Boehner, the GOP reelection strategist and not the House Ethics Committee–suggests they probably knew more than they let on but chose to keep the issue secret.
Bob Ney, my personal favorite, actually stayed in office a full month after he was indicted and around half a year after the media made clear that he was indeed “Representative A” from the Abramoff plea deal. He claimed he needed to clean up some staff issues before offering his resignation on the Friday before the November election. He made around $20,000 by hanging around an extra month. To their credit, many in the GOP correctly labeled his actions as despicable, but they certain fell short of being “our of office by his own party or his own accord.”
I agree that Jefferson is crooked, but unlike Delay and Ney he hasn’t been indicted. Burns was nearly reelected in spite of perceived corruption. Again, Jefferson’s party has distanced themselves from him both nationally and on the state level. Nancy Pelosi openly dislikes the man, but ultimately his decision to run is his own to make. It’s selfish for him to seek reelection, but selfishness seems to be the rule and not the exception when it comes to our representation in Washington.
My only hope is that dlc and Anon 9:37 eat their words when Jefferson fails to be reelected. Your desire to conflate the shortcomings of one representative with the entire party “speaks volumes why” we have to waste our time refuting your jejune one-liners.
Many (not all) of us try to fairly weigh the noble and underhanded moments of both parties based on a public consensus of fact. I encourage readers of both political persuasions to do the same.
Excellent synopsis, Daniel. I think you may be giving Boehner credit for Reynold’s work, but either way, the point remains.
Having lived in Houston during the Delay fiasco (and I know you can also attest to this, Daniel), Delay DEFINITELY wanted to run, and he was raising money left and right. Even after he was indicted and his mug shot appeared all over the world, the man still thought he had it in the bag.
It’s true that Bill Jefferson hasn’t been indicted yet, but I just can’t believe that there is a legitimate reason he had $90K in cash in his freezer (particularly when you consider he had been filmed by the FBI taking 100K in bribes).
One of the most disgusting things about the case is that the Republican-led Congress tried to stick up for Jefferson when his office was being searched by the feds. They attempted to argue that any search of a Congressman’s office violated the speech and debate clause.