Gov. Bobby Jindal continues to garner praise for his handling of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, and the key to his success may have been some strategic hires the governor made earlier this year. Few would have suggested then that Jindal was building a Category 5 administrative team, but some say the analogy is warranted. 

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  The PBS news division weighed in with a re-election analysis of Louisiana senior U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, and it wasn’t a pretty picture for the Democrat. In a story update posted to the site of NewsHour with Jim Lehrer last week, the writer suggests that the 2005 storm season uprooted the Bayou State’s political structure and will continue wreaking havoc during the ongoing fall elections.

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  Northshore businessman Jim Harlan, a conservative Democratic businessman, is crowing about a recent poll that shows him narrowing the gap between him and freshman Congressman Steve Scalise, a Republican. 

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As newsrooms shift their focus to gathering pictures and reports from random readers and viewers — known as the i-reporter trend — it’s becoming more difficult than ever to find investigative journalists on the beat. Read the rest of this entry »

Energy issues continue to fuel the fires of Louisiana’s U.S. Senate race, which pits GOP state Treasurer John Kennedy against incumbent Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu. Earlier in the campaign, the two candidates fought over who loved drilling more as experts weighed in with a reality check: any senator elected from Louisiana will be pro-oil. The focus on drilling is a national Republican strategy against Democrats, and Kennedy appears to be following that cookie-cutter template — something Landrieu’s previous opponents also did, to no avail.  Read the rest of this entry »

The Democratic primary in the Second Congressional District is getting tighter, and that could be bad news for incumbent Bill Jefferson. The latest independent poll shows Jefferson falling slightly and all of his major African-American challengers creeping upward.

What’s really “new” about the latest poll is that the “undecided” vote is breaking solidly away from Dollar Bill, who also has seen his core base of support dwindle over the past six months.

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The congressional campaign of former TV newscaster Helena Moreno was crowing last week about a poll by Multi-Quest that showed her making the runoff against Congressman Bill Jefferson and beating him in a head-to-head match-up. Indeed, the poll by veteran pollster Jack Grimm showed her running second in the crowded Democratic primary field in the Second Congressional District and leading Jefferson by a margin of 49 percent to 36 percent in a head-to-head match-up. The poll was completed shortly before Hurricane Gustav — roughly five or six weeks before the Oct. 4 primary.

However, the numbers that were released to the media did not include a racial breakdown of either the primary “horse race” or the head-to-head contest between Moreno and Jefferson. 

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From the Jefferson Parish Web site:

As of this morning, Entergy has not restored power to most of Jefferson Parish’s 505 sewerage lift stations which move wastewater from homes and businesses and to the wastewater treatment plants. Residents are cautioned not to flush toilets, wash clothes or dishes, take showers, or allow any water to go down the drains in their homes or businesses. If the system becomes overwhelmed, sewerage wastewater may back up and overflow into homes and businesses.

The state of New Orleans three years post-Katrina is the subject of a special edition of City Limits Investigates, a magazine published by City Futures Inc., a New York-based nonprofit devoted to “rethinking, reframing and improving urban policies in New York and, by extension, other cities throughout America.” Because of the story’s relevance to New Orleans, the special edition of the subscription-based magazine is available free online (www.citylimits.org/neworleans).

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  Louisiana appears to be turning over a greener leaf. The Advanced Biofuel Industry Development Initiative officially kicked off earlier this month. It’s meant to expand fuel supplies in the state without boosting dependence on foreign oil and gas.  Read the rest of this entry »