This is what I had feared (previous post), and why this race looked no better than 50-50 to me -- in which case the home team wins. And LA, like WV, has yet to transform intlelf into a true Red State. However, a couple of observations:

What is going on with polling in LA? Can't analysts factor for all the things that they fall for (Bubba's, people lying, etc) in prognosticating races. The metrics are simply not working.

Will this victory make it more likely for Breaux to retire? With him the issue was not Reps win, he is in trouble - he would have not been; but rather, Reps win he can't leave on a down note.

Bobby Jindal will still have a prominent role at the GOP convention. Not sure what next job would be, but W and Rowe ought to get cracking on this.

Dems can not look to LA and say with a straight face that a pro-life, pro-guns, white woman who would not allow national DEM figures to cross the state line can be one of them. They can't even look to LA and feel they have learned much about winning in the South. LA appears to be more like a mafia, except, "French". Note the three most prominent Dems all have last names ending in "eaux". Reps were the revolutionary party voting for a brown, Ivy educated, first generation American candidate. Dems went with the "conservative" strategy of voting for grandma.

Remember, Louisiana is the state which in 1920s and then 30s had a governor and then senator whose political policies ran to the left of Franklin Roosevelt. So as far as your average southern political standards go, the state has been an anomalie for the better part of 75 years when it comes to the craving for social services and their politicians' willingness to expouse "share the wealth" policies that normally would be associated with states like Massachusetts or New York.

Jindal's loss may have been in the end due to Bubbas voting Bubba just because of the color of his skin, but his free-market policies may have been enough to push the Bubbas over the end in a state where their grand-Bubbas and great-grand-Bubbas lionized a politican who vowed to make "Every Man a King."

MG: You hit on a big part of LA politics. Blanco's maiden name is French and for a lot of the populace that is what matters. Plus, if she is pro-life, that would take the wind out of any Republicans sails. You can't run pro-abortion in LA.

Two things that come to mind about LA, they have been losing young talented people at an astonishing rate. While most of the South has had record growth in population, not so LA. But they have an aging population, and I swear, more hospitals (at least in N.O.) than any area I have been to. According to RealClear Politics, Blanco ran scare ads about Jindal's cutting the bloated medicare programs (though she didn't put it the way I did). So, not surprisingly, the bubbas voted their pocket books and went for the familiar (French).

I have to wonder if Jindal hurt himself by not having Bush come in. I haven't seen any explanations for this strategy. I think nationalizing the election would have helped Jindal and hurt Blanco. After all, she was careful to run without the Democrat party, probably because she didn't want to be associated with their platform.

Finally, I can't overemphasis the effect of a
-eaux name. Genealogy is a very popular pasttime for a reason there. And their history of politics can be summed up with "He may be an SOB, but he's our SOB."

John: You are right, Long is still very much revered there. And if it weren't for the issue of abortion, this state would be voting blue.

Jindal ran as a 21st century candidate; problem is, Louisiana is an 18th century state. Much like MS (sorry, Haley), I can't help thinking this governorship is a booby prize--and they elected the right boob.

The desire by the national media to see everything through racial glasses and then stereotype "The South" as being some monolithic place is one reason why Louisiana politics are often mis-analyized.

There's a total disconnect, going back to the 1920s, by the northern media that you couldn't have a state with the racial politics Louisiana had and at the same time have politicians promoting social programs and wealth redistribution schemes the way the Longs and their supporters did. The main reason for that was those people up north in the media (newspapers and magazines then, radio TV to follow later) who would have shared Huey Long's beliefs about social spending and equality felt that those beliefs were part of their "moral superiority."

To have those same beliefs held by a man who would use race to his advantage when necessary and supported by people the elites considered moral troglodytes meant that maybe these ideas weren't automatically part of an elightened person's make-up. That's why you can go through dozens of tomes about Huey Long and Louisiana politics in the 1930s and never really come face to face with the fact that Long's policies on social issues were every bit as to the left as liberal hero and 1932 Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas (grandad of Newsweek's Evan Thomas, BTW, who would probably go nuclear if you said grandpa and Huey Long were soulmates).

Racial politics are better in Louisiana than they were 40 years ago, but the state is still seen in the media as part of the monolithic South in being more in the Republican camp now than in the Democratic fold. The only state that doesn't go into that mold for the national press is Florida, due to all the transplanted northerners down there. But Louisiana by temprament is the state more inclined to support the national Democratic Party's domestic goals when it comes to crunch time.

As Buttercup noted, abortion hides a lot of that drift in the national elections, and no dobut Iraq and the war on terror will further mask Louisiana's Democratic leanings in 2004. But strip away those two issues from a Louisiana native and it's not to hard to come up with someone who acts and sounds (if not looks) like James Carville...

MG - Remember that after Landreau won reelection in '02 the same was said (She won by avoiding national Dems, ran conservative race) but it didn't stop the dems and national media from claiming this was a big Dem victory and slap at Bush. Perhaps race played a factor, it appears that LA is a state that is moving to solid GOP but hasn't gotten there yet (for 2002 race I thought I saw Dems were still over 50% registered voters).
And of course what this means for Breaux's retirement decision is important.

I think the combination of the near lock the Democrats have on the black vote (29% of the total population of Louisiana) and the fact that the Louisiana Democrats run somewhat moderate candidates means that the GOP is shut out. Add that Blanco used her Cajun name that ends with an x and it is an uphill battle for the GOP. What did Jindal get from the black vote? Did he even break 7%?

It is hard to root for the Saints and the Louisiana GOP when they disappoint me so much.

pchuck: But isn't being able to complain about the Saints, the LA GOP and the weather in Louisiana the point? At least in the New Orleans area, people are happiest when they are complaining about one or the other.

And the brothers voted white.

Buttercup: That and those funny 10 oz. cans of Bud at Fat Harry's.