Americans loathe Congress, but they still like President Barack Obama according to a recent Associated Press poll.  A mere 22 percent support Congress while public approval for Obama’s job performance checks in at 53 percent even though Karl Rove casts the president as “undisciplined.”

The poll also reveals that party affiliation doesn’t inspire confidence — 50 percent of those surveyed would give a pink slip to their congressperson. As the midterm elections approach, public perception obviously matters and pols, but not polls (there’ll be plenty more), will struggle to prove their worth.

And it raises the question, what do you think of your own representative? Will you vote for them, choose someone else, or does it matter what you think, change is going to come?

*photo by Cheryl Gerber

In the end, the runoff for the District A council seat came down to three women behind a podium: District A councilwoman-elect Susan Guidry, state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson and retiring District A councilwoman Shelley Midura. Guidry’s opponent, former District A councilman Jay Batt, had the money and the mojo behind him (both his war chest and his list of endorsements dwarfed Guidry’s), but both Peterson and Midura had thrown their support to Guidry early and enthusiastically, and both of them were more visibly ebullient than the candidate herself. (Midura, famous for wearing her emotions on her sleeve, was alternately beaming and choked up.)

GUIDRY, PETERSON AND MIDURA.

Guidry supporters had gathered at the Olive Branch Cafe in Mid-City to watch the results come in, but the winner’s address was anything but an olive branch; while she thanked her supporters and the voters, she also took the unusual step of swiping at Batt in her victory speech. “My opponent tried so hard to polarize us,” she said, her anger still palpable from a bruiser of a runoff campaign, later adding in acid tones, “Little people. Little power.” For his part, Batt sent out a concession press release to the media while she was speaking, but by the time Guidry finished (according to her campaign officials), he still hadn’t called to congratulate her.

The numbers were dramatic. In the Feb. 6 primary, Batt had 39.32% of the vote to Guidry’s 44.22%; the remainder was split among candidates Virginia Blanque and Fred Robertson. Blanque endorsed Batt, a fellow Republican, but the final total in the runoff was Batt at 37.66% and Guidry at 62.34%; Batt had actually lost support in the final month of the campaign, while Guidry gained 18 points — and this despite Batt’s endorsements from across the political spectrum, from Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson to DA Leon Cannizzaro; from The Times-Picayune to The Louisiana Weekly; from Democratic state Sen. J.P. Morrell to Republican congressman Steve Scalise.

In the end, perhaps it wasn’t the fact that Guidry triumphed in the runoff; it was that she had done so so decisively, and with so little backing from the local political establishment … and that was, perhaps, why Midura and Peterson, the only two politicos behind her on the podium, had their eyes gleaming so brightly. As the whole city learned on Feb. 7 at the Sun Life stadium in Florida, victory is never so sweet as it is when the pros count you out of the game.

Sen. Scott Brown, meet Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao. You two have a lot in common.

Brown became a hero of conservative Republicans last month when he was elected to the Massachusetts Senate seat held for decades by the late Democratic stalwart Ted Kennedy — but he saw how quickly the political winds can turn this week when, in his first vote since being sworn in Feb. 4, he broke ranks with the GOP and voted for Sen. Harry Reid’s jobs bill. Brown, who had raised more than $14 million in the 19 days before the election, found himself under attack by the very conservative media which had buoyed him (Glenn Beck, once a supporter, took to the airwaves to denounce Brown as a “liar”) and besieged by angry donors nationwide asking for their money back.

It all might sound familiar to Cao, the Louisiana Republican who was hailed as a hero when he took the traditionally Democratic 2nd District seat in January 2009. At the time, House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner issued a statement titled “The Future is Cao” — but the honeymoon was definitely over in November, when Cao was the only Republican to vote for a version of President Barack Obama’s health care bill, and suffered the financial consequences from his own party. According to an Associated Press report this week, Cao’s campaign contributions dropped 40 percent in the three months since that vote. The AP also reported Cao had raised $874,602 since beginning his reelection campaign last year — but had spent $640,000 of it on more fundraising. (Cao will need all the money he can get, as Democratic state Rep. Cedric Richmond has already announced he’s running for the seat later this year.)

It may be too early to tell whether Brown will feel the slap of checkbooks closing, but his supporters went into paroxysms of fury on his Facebook page, many of them swearing never to give the junior senator another cent. Perhaps the unkindest cut of all came from the blog The Rude News, which headlined its condemnation “Heckuva Job, Brownie.” Ouch.

Not 24 hours after Mardi Gras ended, the City Council District A race got heaty when the Jay Batt camp sent out an announcement saying third-place finisher Virginia Blanque had endorsed Batt for the runoff. Now Batt’s opponent, Susan Guidry, is firing back with a little vinegar of her own. In a statement provided by her spokesman, Matt Larson, Guidry says of the endorsement:

“I am shocked given that Virginia Blanque’s campaign message — like mine — was that Jay Batt represents the politics of the past and that we can’t effect change by recycling a politician we previously voted out of office.

“I agree with what Ms. Blanque said during the campaign that we need ‘a new direction in District A’ and ‘a break from politics as usual’ (Virginia Blanque campaign material). Jay Batt doesn’t represent a new direction. This endorsement reeks of political deal making.

“This is eerily similar to what happened 4 years ago, when Sal Palmisano said before the primary election that he would not support Batt and then changed his tune after Batt hired him as a ‘paid consultant’ in the runoff. It didn’t fool the public then, and I don’t think it will now.”

There’s no District A forum scheduled yet, but there’s sure to be one or two between now and the runoff Mar. 6. We’ll keep you posted.

Virginia Blanque, the Mid-City businesswoman and activist who ran third in the City Council District A primary Feb. 6, has today endorsed the second-place finisher in the race, businessman and developer Jay Batt, according to a press release from the Batt campaign:

“Jay doesn’t just share my values as a fellow Republican,” Blanque said. “He shares a common vision for the people of District A and for the future of our city - a vision for safer neighborhoods, paved streets, job creation, and an end to blight. I didn’t leap to make this decision immediately after the primary. I gave it considerable thought and reexamined both of the candidates and their positions on the issues that matter most. Jay Batt is clearly the best choice.”

Blanque finished with 15% of the vote, while Batt carried 39%. The frontrunner, attorney Susan Guidry, a Democrat who is new to politics, received 44%.

The runoff will be held Mar. 6.

Take a minute away from your Who Dat preparations and check out this map, compiled by NolaStat’s Brian Denzer — it breaks down last night’s mayoral race precinct by precinct. Denzer writes:

The election of Mitch as mayor with 66% of the vote was a landslide. In the election map completed for NolaStat (3 MB PDF), it’s clear that Mitch won every precinct except for one near Lake Catherine where Georges picked up 12 votes to get the majority. The attached map clearly shows that Mitch won support from a broad base of voters, who sent a signal that we won’t allow our diversity to be turned against us as a weapon to destroy our dreams. We are stronger when we work together toward shared goals.

The map is a large download, and really comprehensive. Thanks to Brian and NolaStat for compiling it.

…with numbers larger than any pundits predicted. Official numbers soon.

At the final televised mayoral primary debate Feb. 4 on WWL-TV, all six candidates had the chance to take their last shots at their opponents. Frontrunner Mitch Landrieu was the big target, but John Georges, Troy Henry and Rob Couhig all came in for some drive-by criticism from other candidates.

Early in the debate, in a question about community policing, Landrieu made a reference to NOPD officers in communities meeting citizens, “not just as a Gestapo.” The Georges campaign jumped on the choice of words; within an hour of the debate’s end, they had issued a press release blast headlined “LANDRIEU: NOPD IS A GESTAPO” and calling on the candidate to apologize.

But it was Couhig who seized the opportunity to bring up the issue that had been hot gossip in local political circles for nearly a week: the discovery of a 1980 photograph from a party at Tulane’s Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) fraternity, in which several members posed for photographs in blackface. John Georges was a member of the frat at the time, and would become its president in 1981.

In answering a question about how the next mayor would heal the racial divisions in New Orleans, Georges stressed the diverse makeup of his company, Imperial Trading, noting his employees were “50 percent African American, 50 percent female and the leadership of my company is African American.” That left an opening for Couhig to parry, “There’s a bigger issue out here, and it has to do with Mr. Georges. I was so disappointed today when I was presented with evidence that an organization he ran had people in blackface parading around. How can you be mayor if you condone that in an organization you were the president of?”

Georges, seated directly to Couhig’s left, replied, “You know, you don’t respond to blogs. It’s not true. Those are all misrepresentations. I never condone anything such [sic], and it’s just last-minute political tactics.”

The blog in question, American Zombie (theamericanzombie.blogspot.com), had on Feb. 2 published several photographs from Tulane yearbooks featuring the Dekes in various party-animal shots, some of which included members dressed in blackface at a yearly event called the Debutramp Ball. While the blog’s author, Jason Berry (no relation to the local Catholic Church sex-scandal historian of the same name) did not claim Georges was one of the men in blackface, the photos did establish that the fraternity had worn blackface in 1980, when Georges was a member. He became president of DKE the following year, and the Debutramp Balls continued through the 1980s before DKE had its charter permanently revoked by Tulane University in 1987 after a blackface march near campus.

Reached the day after the debate for comment, Georges spokesperson Helena Moreno said, “John made a public statement on the issue last night during the debate that he won. On the contrary, we are waiting for Mitch Landrieu to explain himself to the men and women of the New Orleans Police Department after calling them the Gestapo.”

Gambit’s Election Guide is now online in flip book form (just in case you missed your copy on the streets).

Here is the link to the web published stories too.

Read and comment on the candidates’ answers on Gambit and Maple Street Bookshops Electionland.

If you can’t be bothered to do your research, go ahead and vote like us.: Gambit’s Print Friendly Ballot.

If the myriad forums and our rather extensive coverage for this year’s local elections still leave you yearning for more information about the candidates, you can get all of the facts about the mayoral and city council races on your iPhone. PolicyPitch.com creator and Gambit 40 Under 40 alum Zach Kupperman (along with Neel Sus) launched Election Hub, a free iPhone application that provides candidate biographies, news, platforms and financial information, at the beginning of the year.

The below video shows how it works. Among the excuses for not voting this year — inability to vote due to age or other factors, coma or paralysis due to extreme Super Bowl anticipation — being uninformed is certainly not one of them.