BATON ROUGE, LA (AP) – With the debates done and the campaign ads in constant rotation, candidates were making their final swings around Louisiana, hoping to rally voter support and persuade them to show up at the polls Tuesday.
Even the most optimistic prediction from state election officials pegged voter turnout at only 35 percent or less, so candidates were trying to energize their bases of support, knowing that turnout was the key to victory.
At the top of the ballot is the race for U.S. Senate. Republican incumbent David Vitter leads in the polls for his re-election bid against Democrat Charlie Melancon and 10 other candidates in the field.
Also on the list awaiting voter decisions are six of the state's seven U.S. House seats, a special election for lieutenant governor, 10 constitutional amendments and a slew of local races around Louisiana.
While other states have been inundated with ads from third-party groups and out-of-state organizations, Louisiana's races have drawn less national attention, largely because they're seen as less competitive in a state trending more and more Republican each election cycle.
In the Senate race, Melancon has hammered Vitter for a 2007 prostitution scandal and for more recent revelations that Vitter allowed an aide to stay on the job for two years after pleading guilty to charges in an attack on his ex-girlfriend. But Vitter has maintained his lead, largely by tying Melancon to President Barack Obama, who is unpopular in Louisiana.
“David Vitter has stayed well ahead from the jump, so it's going to end up that way,” said Shreveport political consultant Elliott Stonecipher, a pollster who isn't involved in the race.
A three-term congressman from Napoleonville, Melancon said Vitter doesn't respect women and chooses party politics over his constituents. on Monday, Melancon was stumping in five cities on what he called a “Louisiana Deserves Better” tour.
It was unclear exactly where Vitter was campaigning the day before the election. He's rarely announced public appearances to the media. A Vitter spokesman said the first-term senator was appearing on talk radio, waving signs and stopping at coffee shops to talk with voters, but didn't provide any exact location details.
Melancon opposed Obama's health care overhaul and has run as a moderate who works across party lines, but Vitter's repeatedly slammed Melancon as a vote for Obama. In an e-mail to supporters Monday, Vitter called Melancon Obama's “hand-picked candidate.”
“The Obama administration has set our country on a course to economic disaster. Our debt is soaring, President Obama's stimulus hasn't worked and bailouts have become an expected part of Washington. I humbly ask for your vote to fight President Obama and his radical agenda,” Vitter said in a recorded phone message to voters.
In the other congressional races, four of the five Republican incumbents – Steve Scalise in the 1st District, John Fleming in the 4th District, Rodney Alexander in the 5th District and Bill Cassidy in the 6th District – were predicted for easy victories.
The one Republican congressman considered to be in trouble was Rep. Joseph Cao in the New Orleans-based 2nd District, who had fallen behind in the polls and faced a tough re-election bid against Democrat Cedric Richmond, a state lawmaker.
Cao portrayed himself as a bipartisan friend of Obama, but Richmond criticized Cao's votes against the Democrats' stimulus bill and the health overhaul. The 2nd District, a mostly Democratic district, is one of the only districts where Obama remains popular in the state, and the president recorded a campaign ad in support of Richmond.
The 2nd District seat isn't the only one in Louisiana that may switch party hands. The state's open congressional seat – the 3rd District seat left vacant when Melancon chose to run for the Senate – has seen a strong bid for the job from GOP candidate Jeff Landry, a New Iberia lawyer who is running against political newcomer Ravi Sangisetty, a Democrat from Houma.
Sangisetty has cast himself as a conservative Democrat who doesn't support House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and who's complained about Democratic-backed policies, including spending levels. But he's been unable to gain assistance from the national party in the southeastern Louisiana district that overwhelmingly backed John McCain in the last presidential race.
Landry ran a partisan campaign, arguing Democrats supported out-of-control spending levels and big government bureaucracies. he talked of firing Pelosi and repealing the health care bill.
“We cannot accomplish these goals and get our country back on the right track by sending another liberal Democrat to Congress, who will continue the failed policies of the liberal Democrat Party,” Landry urged his supporters Monday in an e-mail.
Meanwhile, voters statewide will choose a new lieutenant governor to fill out the remaining term of Democrat Mitch Landrieu, who left the job to become mayor of New Orleans. The runoff was between Republican Secretary of State Jay Dardenne and Democratic newcomer Caroline Fayard, a lawyer from New Orleans.
Dardenne has run on his longtime political experience as a state lawmaker and secretary of state. He's attacked Fayard as out-of-step with Louisiana voters because she supports Obama, has longtime family ties to the Clintons, supports gay marriage and opposes the death penalty.
Fayard's running as a fresh face for politics, and she's called Dardenne a 23-year career politician who doesn't offer new ideas.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana
campaign ads, david vitter, incumbent
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