Texas Blue Mailbag: Week of 10/21/2007

This week's mailbag is heavy on issues from outside Texas, from Louisiana all the way to Pakistan.

Wendy Melton says:

Its not a surprise that Jindal won in Louisiana. The last governor’s race was extremely close, and with most poor people displaced by Katrina, the Democrats have unfortunately lost their majority. Bush put Louisiana in the shape its in with his failure to immediately respond to the Katrina disaster, the failure of his ability to work with any democrat, not to mention Ms. Blanco to honor his long term commitment to “rebuild New Orleans”. Things were different in Mississippi where the Governor of that state was the former Chair for the National Republican Party, and an insider close to the Bush administration. Undoubtedly, we’ll elect a Democratic President, as well as pick up more seats in both the Senate and House. However, Mr. Jindal will come out looking as the winner, because the Democrats will work to rescue New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in a bipartisan manner, as each of the candidates have promised.

The very unfortunate fact is that the poorest of the poor, who were on the New Orleans HANO (Housing Authority), Section 8 voucher program, or in public housing, have been displaced permanently with no way back. After 2007 the Vouchers issued to New Orleans residents will be transferred to the towns and cities in which they now live. Anyone wanting to go home will be put on a waiting list, which has been shorted my thousands and is growing longer each day.

So much for the support for the poor people wanting to return to their homes.

Wendy Melton
Democratic Party County Chair
Montgomery County, Texas

Josh responds:

I'd like to add to this, by relating to you what Bush said today about Louisiana Governor Blanco when he was hanging out with the Governator in California yesterday. He ssid "It makes a significant difference when you have somebody in the statehouse willing to take the lead." It's like he never stops trying to deflect blame on Katrina.

Ken Leach says:

Katrina moved masses of people (who vote Democratic) out of Louisiana who will not return. The GOP win was a sign Louisiana will be a strong GOP state for a long time to come.

The good news is Texas which was slated to pick up two new congressional seats in 2010 will get three possibly four seats.

Josh posits:

I don't know if you can contribute it all to Democrats being relocated. I'm not saying that a big chunk of Democratic voters weren't removed from Louisiana by Katrina — they most certainly were.

Since the storms, tens of thousands of New Orleans residents who historically voted Democratic have been dislocated.

The Secretary of State's office reports 56,995 fewer Democratic voters now than when the hurricane hit, and 11,355 fewer black Democrats. Those numbers understate reality because at least two years must elapse before the state purges former residents from voter rolls, office spokesman Jacques Berry said.

That's a lot of votes, and as County Chair pointed out, Blanco got very little help from the administration, andd Republican spin turned that lack of help into frustration directed at Blanco, rather than at the administration. I think, though, that Jindal came close to winning in 2003 and spent $15 million on this year's primary, and that those things combined with the Blanco-fatigue may have had more to do with him winning than the displacement. Jindal is a pro and he shouldn't be taken lightly. The loss of Democratic votes was a factor, but I don't think it is necessarily a harbinger of doom for Louisiana Democrats. That is, of course, unless the number of displaced Democrats ends up being enormous.

Sarah asks:

Did George Bush really say that we should leave bipartisan political issues out of the decision about allocating the money for the war? Who does he think he is?

Josh replies:

Republicans do this kind of thing all the time. Democrats control the agenda on everything these days so the Republican position is usually wrong. Essentially they latch on to some tangential, ethereal point that has almost nothing to do with with original argument and then they make a bunch of noise about the opposition issue position, treating it like news of Superman's existence or something. I swear, if the issue were whether cake is good or not, and Democrats had the position that cake is good, Republicans would stamp their feet and want everyone to know that cake mix has the potential to be used by illegal immigrants.

So here is Bush, not saying anything about the actual issue, but rather just telling you about how he wants to deal with the issue when it comes up, whenever that will be. And also, if Democrats don't agree with him, they are "playing politics." No one ever accuses someone else of "playing politics" when they agree on everything.

As for who he thinks he is, he's the guy that somehow keeps getting away with doing stuff like this. Or at least, he got away with it long enough to term-limit out. The rest of the Republican Party, well... most of them have to stick around, so they probably wish he would please be quiet, please.

Jason asks:

Do you think the return of Bhutto will create a positive or negative shift in the extremist actions in the Middle East. Or is she just in cahoots with the "war on terror" (evil participant)?

Josh analyzes:

Jason is referring to Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan. She recently returned to Pakistan from a self-imposed exile, and as soon as she made her in-country, a suicide bomber attack on her motorcade injured around a thousand people and killed well over a hundred.

Pakistan is a complex nation, and the military has placed a dominant role in Pakistani politics almost since the country formed. In fact, a general who had assumed the role of President after deposing Bhutto's father, also a former Prime Minister, had him executed. Bhutto's relationship with the Musharraf government is good enough to have worked out a power sharing deal but still strained, because everything in Pakistan is strained. If it isn't the rising tide of militant Islam it is Musharraf struggling to retain power despite term limits and laws that might require otherwise.

As for what it will do in the Middle East, I don't know. She has to get elected and have a power sharing agreement with Musharraf that will stick first, and then they will have to come up with some sort of cohesive plan to combat terrorism in Pakistan without the requirement that he still be in charge of the military. So there's much that remains to be seen but change at the top, in any form, has the potential to be beneficial. The intelligence services have long been sort of a shadow rule in Pakistan and militant Islamic terror has flourished, and as Bhutto isn't a huge fan of either that might lead to something good. Pakistan is approaching the tension level of the colloquial powderkeg, though, and it could just as easily go wrong as it could go right. But Bhutto represents the opportunity for some kind of change from the status quo, at the very least.