Hey Sapling, how that personal appearance persuasion going. You put your prestige on the line by coming into Louisiana and got your ass kicked, you incompetent buffoon. Not only did Landrieu beat good old Mary, but the elephant men had a turnover lost seat by dropping Cooksey's old one. Oh, and for the record, in her initial win, she only won by about 6000 votes. This time, Landrieu won by about 35,000 votes. Gosh, I guess that old Sapling magic keeps turning the tide, huh? Lost by putting his prestige against Daschle in South Dakota's Tim Johnson Senate race, lost by making some campaign stops for Simple Simon's son in the gubernatorial race in CA, and now makes a WELL-PUBLICIZED push for Terrell in Louisiana only to be rebuffed. Geez, that SOFT approval rating doesn't mean a heck of a lot does it? http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=683&e=1&u=/ap/20021208/ap_on_el_se/louisiana_senate
Well since I know you are still stinging from the many Senate/House losses from back in November, I'll let you have this one Tom. Just this once. No excuses, the GOP was flat out beaten in the two races. We ran close, we ran hard, but in the end Tuwho was right, the sugar cane fiasco put Landrieu over the top. The reality of the situation is Louisiana Catholics voted their wallets ahead of their conscience. The sad thing is Terrell most likely would not have supported any agricultural bill that would hurt Louisiana sugar farmers. As for the 5th District (where I live when I'm not in school, and I made sure to absentee vote Thanksgiving weekend) Rodney Alexander was helped by Republican infighting. Clyde "Has-Been" Holloway decided to be a sore loser and refused to endorse Lee Fletcher, driving down GOP turnout in central Louisiana Fletcher was counting on. I'd also be willing to bet too many NRA members were in the woods hunting instead of at the polls voting. But be warned Tom, if you are counting on Alexander to join forces with your girl Nancy Pelosi to advance a liberal social agenda, you may be in for a rude shock. Alexander ran on an identity as a social conservative (he is pro-life, an NRA member, favors Christian prayer in public schools and posting the Ten Commandments in federal courthouses according to his commercials) but a fiscal populist (sadly, he is a firm believer in the Welfare State and never met a tax increase he didn't like during his time in the State House) and apparently, enough white voters bought the message to elect him by a whopping 500 votes. So, considering the close margin in both races, this proves nothing to me other than, once again, our fair state is a few steps behind the rest of the country. A day late, a dollar short. 51% of our people bought the old Democratic populist bull again, hook, line and sinker. By the way, Bush wins in 2004. Convincingly.
Agree. Terrell should have been more assertive and should have outlined, in graphic detail, what projects she wanted to get funded to help Louisiana infrastructure. The I-49/I-69 plans are a very hot topic in Shreveport, and I'm sure Landrieu did well there if she promised to get it done. Instead, Terrell attacked Landrieu on the issues of taxes, Homeland Security, and social issues like abortion, which almost worked. Almost. Anyway, since I am a North Louisianan and since I will be forced to stomach six more years of DEMON-CRAT control of our Senate seats, I tell Mary this: get the federal money to get I-49 and I-69 built. No excuses! GET IT DONE! The Caddo Parish/Shreveport sections should have top priority, otherwise Texas will beat us to the punch and I-49 will still be a road that goes to nowhere. Where is the map of the parish by parish results Tuwho? I'd like to see it, and one for the 5th District race as well.
Gimme a break... "The reality of the situation is Louisiana Catholics voted their wllets ahead of their conscience" No, what it proves is that unchristian coalition campaign tactics don't work with catholics. No, louisiana catholics didn't forget their conscenice - I doubt that they will start having abortions, unlike the republican leadership. There's a major leap from not voting for a candidate who wants people jailed for having an abortion than saying they are pro abortion. Proscription, jails and prison cells aren't the answer to social problems, regardless of what the unchristian coalition says.
What do you mean by Texas will beat us to the punch? And Who's statement about ripping the project out of La's hands and into Texas?' Is it a competition for adequate funding between Tex and La? Does the road go to Texas? With the amount of money this president is spending, he certainly could spare some for our drainage as well. These public works projects actually work - as a person domicled at the bottom of the N.O. saucer, rains that flooded us out 20 years ago don't do squat today - it's only the biggie that gets us. Keep digging.
Well then let me inform you of the situation. I-49 is an interstate that currently is in only one state, that being ours, Louisiana. I-49 is planned to run from New Orleans up through Louisiana to Shreveport, then through western Arkansas to eventually go to Minneapolis and the Canadian border, linking up with a highway to Winnepeg, Canada. Arkansas has got their project funded. They are ready to start pouring concrete. Unfortunately, we are not. Texas is currently exploring the possibility of making U.S. Highway 59 a limited access freeway from Texarkana to Houston. If that happens, Arkansas won't build their highway to link up with Louisiana's I-49. They'll build it to link up with U.S. 59, and all that commerce will be headed to the ports of Galveston and Texas City, NOT the Port of New Orleans. Yet with ML and Mike Foster, the emphasis has totally been on the Lafayette to New Orleans section of the highway. No attention is paid to the section in North Louisiana that has yet to be completed. No action is being taken. Lafayette can't even decide on a highway route through the city, for crying out loud. As long as the state can't make up it's mind about what to do, no federal money will come for the southern section. But the northern route is ready to go. All we need is a little initiative from our Congressional delegation. Unfortunately, nobody seems to care about us poor North Louisiana folk. I should have expected nothing less. Bush has told us that if we don't come up with a plan for I-49, he will yank federal support for the project and give it to Texas. And another economic oppurtunity will be lost. What is he supposed to do, sit up there and wait while we decide where to put the dang thing? Action is needed. NOW! As for abortion, since you are obviously one of "those people" who believes a woman's convenience is of more importance than a sacred human life, I won't even waste my precious time and energy arguing with you on that one.
'Many' apparently has changed its meaning "Well since I know you are still stinging from the many Senate/House losses from back in November, I'll let you have this one Tom. Just this once." ROTFLMAO!! Let's see...to you "many" means what a NET of 2 senate seats since you already had 49 and took 3 seats and lost 1 to gain a grand total of 2. And you gained a FEW house seats. So the bottom line is, you can try to scam the board into "many", but it was not many. Out of hundreds and hundreds of seats, including more than 200 that could have been turned over, only a FEW actually did. And the Democrats took NET governorships away from the elephant men...oh, let me rephrase that, since you like the word. The Democrats took MANY governships away from the GOP. I will continue to point out that the bellweather races were the Democratic seat in South Dakota where Sapling made it a Daschle vs. himself prestige race (Sapling lost that one) and this one where he made a special trip to Louisiana to campaign against Landrieu, and she won by a WIDER margin than 6 years ago. I will say that Breaux probably helped Landrieu also, because he campaigned for her just like Sapling for Terrell. The bottom line is Sapling has NO prestige to throw around. His rating is as soft as cotton candy. He actually lost TWICE in the CA governor's race, when he first backed Riordan in the GOP primary and then lost AGAIN when he backed Simple Simon's son in the general election. As far as your Sapling prediction, I will give that the same "credibility" I give to your assignment of me to the left end of the spectrum...which is you don't know what you are talking about. I am a moderate unlike you and the extremist rightwing you support. Oh, and as far as being behind the nation's curve, California has always, and still is by most authorities, to be the leader as to the direction the nation goes (after all, they have about 5% of the nation's population), and they just put ALL their governmental branches under DEMOCRATIC control. So pump up Sapling all you want, but make sure you do it quickly. It won't look as timely or as believable 2 years from now. Sapling firing his economic team shows the guy knows he is in REAL TROUBLE. The Democrats have given the guy a pass on international issues, but if they follow Clinton's comments and start challenging him over Iraq instead of worrying about al Qaeda, Sapling is headed for a fall. Basically, all Sapling can do is to try to use terrorism as the new "red scare" on this decade. Sapling is an incompetent buffoon, which more and more people are recognizing despite an anti-terrorism approval rating.
