BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Cameos by President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President Dick Cheney have brought star power to a hurricane-delayed battle between Democrats and Republicans for an up-for-grabs U.S. House seat.
Obama recorded a radio ad to help Democrat Paul Carmouche, while Cheney helped with fundraising and GOP up-and-comer Gov. Bobby Jindal helped with a television ad for Republican candidate John Fleming.
Saturday’s election in Louisiana’s 4th Congressional District will determine who replaces U.S. Rep. Jim McCrery, a 10-term Republican who’s retiring from Congress. The election was pushed back to December after Hurricane Gustav delayed party primaries that had been set for early September.
“The Democrats desperately want to go out on a winning note,” said St. Francisville political analyst Mike Smith. “The Republicans want desperately to retain this seat so they can say they didn’t have any additional slippage going into 2009.”
The race is one of two for Congress on the Saturday ballot in Louisiana. The other, in the 2nd Congressional District, matches incumbent Democratic Rep. William Jefferson against Republican Anh “Joseph” Cao. The election in the New Orleans area district also was delayed by Gustav.
Analysts said the winner in western Louisiana’s 4th District will be the candidate who can boost turnout. After the long presidential campaign, both sides are trying to engage voters who are less interested in politics than they are in spending Saturday watching college football, hunting deer or gift-buying.
“Winning is going to require identifying voters, mobilizing them and getting them to think about something other than Christmas shopping,” Smith said.
Carmouche needs support from black voters — many of whom supported rival Democrat Willie Banks, who is black, in the party runoff. Banks drew votes from Vernon and Beauregard parishes, plus support from black political leaders in Carmouche’s home base of Shreveport. Carmouche won 62 percent of the vote, Banks won 38 percent.
“If Carmouche doesn’t get good support from black voters, you can stick a fork in him,” said Bernie Pinsonat, a Baton Rouge-based pollster.
But the GOP also had a fractious runoff campaign, with candidate Chris Gorman flogging Fleming over his support for a plan to document and transport foreigners into the country as temporary laborers. Gorman also attacked Fleming’s support of the so-called Fair Tax plan, which would eliminate the income tax and impose a new, 23 percent sales tax.
Smith said the Republican infighting might harm Fleming’s chances.
Others think Fleming has an advantage in a district where about two-thirds of voters went for Republican John McCain for president.
“I think this hands Fleming a new argument: He’ll be able to say, ‘Elect me, to check the power of the incoming president.’ That is an argument that could benefit him in a district that voted heavily for John McCain,” said David Wasserman, an expert on House races at the Washington, D.C.-based Cook Political Report.
The other side of that argument: Carmouche could benefit from Obama’s victory.
“There seems to be such Democratic momentum on the heels of President-elect Barack Obama that it’s going to be difficult to turn the tide,” said Smith, who worked for Gorman, Fleming’s GOP rival, in the runoff election. “It can be done, from a Republican standpoint, but it’s going to be very costly and it’s going to require a tremendous amount of discipline.”
Fleming, a Minden physician, has sought to cast his opponent as a classic liberal, tying him to left-leaning national Democrats and accusing Carmouche of failing to lock up enough criminals in 30 years as Caddo Parish district attorney.
Carmouche, who’s running as a conservative Democrat, has defended himself partly by touting the bevy of endorsements he’s gotten from fellow DAs and from sheriffs around the state.
Also on the ballot will be two long-shot independents: Gerard Bowen of Bossier City and Chester “Catfish” Kelley of Shreveport.
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