Talking Politics

Woody Jenkins a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives thought by aligning Don Cazayoux the Democratic candidate with Barack Obama would gain his victory for representation of Louisiana’s 6th District.

This strategy proved to be unsuccessful when Don Cazayoux emerged on Saturday the winner even against a multimillion dollar effort to define Cazayoux as a liberal Democrat in step with Barack Obama. This victory boosted the Democrats optimism heading into the fall elections. Seeing this seat for Louisiana’s 6th District was held by Republican Richard Baker for decades.

Democratic candidate Don Cazayoux, a state senator, and Republican candidate Woody Jenkins, a newspaper publisher, were vying for the seat of Republican Rep. Richard Baker, who resigned in February. Mr. Cazayoux’s victory will increase House Democrats majority to 235-198.

This victory could also help aid the Illinois senator in making his case to uncommitted elected super delegates wary of how the top of the ticket could affect their own races in November.

Elected super delegates consist of about half of the 795 officials who also cast ballots at the Democrats’ national convention. Barack Obama released a statement Saturday evening congratulating Mr. Don Cazayoux on his victory.

In contrast to the March 2008 special election that happened in Illinois to fill the seat of former Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert. The winner, Bill Foster, ran as an “Obama Democrat”– Barack Obama was used against Mr. Cazayoux in Louisiana, who has not publicly embraced either Mr. Obama or rival Sen. Hillary Clinton.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s campaign arm, ran a series of ads in the district aligning Mr. Don Cazayoux to Mr. Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.

“A vote for Don Cazayoux is a vote for Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi,” said one ad. “The Obama-Pelosi team needs Don Cazayoux to win this special election” to vote for their “radical agenda” said another. “Is Barack Obama right for Louisiana? Is Nancy Pelosi?

The campaign against Mr. Don Cazayoux suggested that he did not win because of Mr. Barack Obama, but in spite of him. In campaign appearances and interviews, Mr. Don Cazayoux resisted attempts to weigh in on the national race.

He cast himself as a conservative Democrat in the vein of popular former Louisiana Democratic Sen. John Breaux, who endorsed Mr. Don Cazayoux. “I’m a pro-life, a pro-second amendment, pro-family” candidate, he declared at a debate.

Mr. Don Cazayoux aligned himself with Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, who proposed a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax for this summer. Mrs. Clinton supports the suspension; Mr. Barack Obama does not.

The NRCC said that aligning Mr. Don Cazayoux with Mr. Barack Obama and Mrs. Nancy Pelosi worked because Mr. Don Cazayoux had a big lead in polls starting into the race. A Survey USA poll commissioned by Roll Call favored Mr. Don Cazayoux to win by nine points; he won by 49% to 46%.

“What we know is that a Democrat was clearly favored to easily win this election before Republicans invoked the names of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi,” the NRCC said in a memo. “This should come as a warning shot to Democrats.”

A second test of using Mr. Barck Obama as the foil in down ballot races comes on May 13 in another House special election in Mississippi where Democrats have been able to make a reliably Republican seat competitive this year, in part by funneling more than $1 million into the race. Mr. Barack Obama won both the Louisiana and Mississippi primaries.

Using a similar strategy, Republicans are aligning the Democratic candidate, Travis Childers, with Mr. Barack Obama in a race against Republican Greg Davis, a local elected official.

Mr. Davis ran an ad accusing Mr. Childers of being “silent” in the recent controversy over incendiary remarks made by Mr. Barack Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The ad also suggests that Mr. Barack Obama has endorsed Mr. Childers. “He took Obama’s endorsement over our conservative values,” the ad states.

Mr. Obama has not made a formal endorsement in the race, but his campaign Web site posted a notice asking his supporters to make calls on Mr. Childers’s behalf.

In a sign that the strategy has been effective, Mr. Childers, who is running as a “pro-life and pro-gun Democrat,” distanced himself from Mr. Obama and ran a response ad condemning attacks that link him to “politicians I don’t know, and have never even met.”