Can any Louisiana DUers explain why...

[ButterflyBlood]

New Orleans reelected that corrupt piece of shit Jefferson?

The guy is a complete pariah from the party now and will do no help for the district whe it desperately needs it. Now he's just made the district the laughingstock of the country.

[Bitwit1234]

1. If the election can be hacked????

Why can't the cons pull an embarrasment to the dems/

[blitzen]

2. i'll try....

i'm not a political scientist but i've lived in louisiana for 15+ years...and my next-door-neighbor and good friend is a political scientist...

"national politics" doesn't mean much in jefferson's district....they are by and large disenfranchised people...they don't much care whether Rush and O'Lielly mock their congressman

jefferson worked the churches really hard...got out the vote

harry lee--the notorious and inimitable asian-american sheriff of redneck jefferson parish (yes, "jefferson") endorsed jefferson--although i must confess that i don't know why the hell he did....and Lee supposedly told white folks not to vote

there are undoubtedly other reasons, but, in sum, this election was a local deal--his constituents wanted him...and (please excuse me) they couldn't give a fuck about what we think about it

if anything, national "outrage" against jefferson worked in his favor

[Hippo_Tron]

3. I'm a New Orleanian but away at college so honestly I can't figure it out myself

My dad told me that Carter was going to win and he keeps up with politics especially locally.

If I were in Howard Dean's job I would've sent Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and all of the all-stars down to New Orleans to campaign for Carter as well as raising millions nationally. I would've made a huge media story about how Democrats deal with our corruption problems unlike the GOP.

I genuinely hope that his inevitable indictment comes early so that we aren't dealing with it around election time. Otherwise we could suffer the fate of the 80th congress.

[Stevepol]

4. I know there are a myriad of explanations that can be given,

but why try? Elections in the US these days are a sham, and that includes the mid-terms this year. There's no reason to have confidence IN ANY ELECTION IN THE US TODAY as long as we have our votes counted in total secrecy without verification.

I have no idea if Jefferson actually won this election and nobody else does either (unless the votes were on paper and hand-counted and I doubt seriously they were).

This is not intended as a cricism of any individuals, but I think poli-sci folks should begin to realize this fact and get used to making disclaimers for all statements made ex post facto about any US elections. "Assuming this election was fairly counted, . . . . " -- that's a good one to start any of these statements about the alleged vote results. From there, any conclusions and inferences would be welcome, but to start with the assumption that the vote was fair is a very grave mistake. Let's get our democracy back before coming to conclusions about the American people or any sector thereof.