| Here are the final results of the race in LA-06:
LA-06 ... 520 of 520 precincts reporting:
| Candidate |
Votes |
% of Vote |
| Bill Cassidy (R) |
150,226 |
48.14% |
| Don Cazayoux (D) |
125,716 |
40.28% |
| Michael Jackson (Lane Grigsby) |
37,133 |
11.58% |
If you add up the totals of both Cazayoux and Jackson, that means that the majority of the voters in LA-06 voted for a pro-union candidate. A majority voted against Mr. Cassidy.
There were two things at play here - the belief that a Democrat needs to emphasize their conservative credentials in order to win, which I discussed here; and the fact that Michael Jackson was bought and paid for by L. Lane Grigsby, the owner of Cajun Contractors, an anti-union construction corporation. I wonder what Mr. Jackson gains being paid off by Mr. Grigsby to spoil the election. Some have suggested that the Federal Election Commission needs to delve into the full extent of their financial relationship, since Mr. Grigsby has already made illegal donations to Mr. Cassidy, and the fact that there is no disclaimer on ANY of Mr. Jackson's election paraphernalia:
This is the image plastered on billboards all over North Baton Rouge:
And this is the image on the few lawn signs they had printed up:
Do any of y'all see the union label on these signs? I don't. Do any of y'all see the disclaimer required by federal election law that states it must detail who paid for the signs? I don't.
Mr. Jackson is a lawyer. I'm sure as a candidate, he took the time to read federal election law as to what was required of him as a candidate. The fact that he didn't put a disclaimer up there leads me to believe that there is a pattern of disregarding the law on his part. Mr. Grigsby broke the law by donating more than is legally allowed to Mr. Cassidy. And we know that Mr. Grigsby has donated nearly half of the money raised by Mr. Jackson in this campaign. Were there more donations that we don't know about?
All of that aside, I am saddened by the decisions made by Michael Jackson in this election. While I understand his frustration about losing the special election primary run-off in April, as someone who is progressive, how he runs a campaign fueled in large part by money from a wealthy, anti-union, Republican donor who is diametrically opposed to most of what he stands for is beyond me.
I don't buy the idea floated by other progressives that this election was the best opportunity for a progressive candidate to win election to Congress. I also don't buy the idea floated by some black commentators that this was the best opportunity for a black politician to win election to Congress from this district.
The conventional "wisdom" propping up this belief were the ideas that the white "conservative" Democrat and the white Republican would split the white vote down the middle, and so long as the "independent" black candidate took 90% of the black vote in a general election plus the liberal white vote, the black candidate would win.
Such thinking assumes that black voters are sheep, and will only vote for the black candidate. Black voters are Democrats, y'all. The vast majority of them vote for the Democrat in a general election, not the black candidate. This election should prove that, as Don pulled a majority of the black vote from majority African-American precincts in EBR Parish:
| Candidate |
African American Votes |
% of African American Vote |
| Bill Cassidy (R) |
1,503 |
4.91% |
| Don Cazayoux (D) |
19,955 |
65.20% |
| Michael Jackson (Lane Grigsby) |
9,147 |
29.89% |
I've actually had a few discussions with folks via email and in person that voted for Michael Jackson, and they all say that it wasn't unreasonable to assume that Michael Jackson could win he took 90% of the black vote like he did in April. The problem with that analysis is that it conveniently forgets that Mr. Jackson got 90% of the black vote in a Democratic Party primary. Either way, black folks would win ... they would get their concerns listened to by whomever got out of the Democratic primary. In a general election, when black voters make up far less that 50% of the vote, getting 90% of the black vote simply ain't enough to win in a 3 way race. If Mr. Jackson were the Democrat, perhaps, but he wasn't. He ran as an Independent who was paid off by L. Lane Grigsby to tilt the race to Bill Cassidy.
There is one more thing these folks forgot ... when there is a Republican candidate in the race, to assume that a majority of black Democrats will vote for the Independent black candidate is
fallacy, especially when the white Democratic candidate is almost certain to get the endorsement of the party's first black Presidential nominee. Why these folks thought that there was a snowball's chance in hell that a majority of black folks were going to disregard the endorsement of Barack Obama is also beyond me. Further, please tell me the last time an Independent candidate won in a 3 way election in this state.
Another person I have discussed this with brought up the salient point that it makes no sense to keep pushing DINO's like Mary Landrieu and Don Cazayoux when I am for progressive policies, and they are not.
In a general election, when the choice is between a Republican, a Democrat, and an Independent candidate (who can't win), the most progressive candidate will ALWAYS be the Democrat. I don't care how smart Bill Cassidy is. He votes the way the fundamentalist wing of the Republican Party tells him. Otherwise, he wouldn't have a 100% rating from the Louisiana Family Forum. And in the United State Congress, where the Republican Party exercises a vise-like grip on their Members' votes, Mr. Cassidy will not be free to exercise his "reasonableness." He will be forced to vote the way the Republican leadership wants him to, just so he can get their support for re-election. And he has done just that in the Legislature, with respect to his votes for the Louisiana Family Forum.
Mr. Jackson's egomaniacal candidacy sent Mr. Cassidy to Washington. His shameless selling out of the working families in this district is absolutely despicable. The losers in this are not Don Cazayoux, who will be fine; nor Mr. Jackson, who will also be fine; but the black voters of Baton Rouge. They have done without adequate representation for all but 6 months of the last 15 years.
They can thank Mr. Jackson for the lack of representation for the next two. |
