Jay Batt, call your office

I think this means it's ok to be on Team Trump again.

Former House Appropriations Cmte Chairman Bob Livingston, who nearly became House speaker during the Bill Clinton impeachment trial in 1998, tells reporters he decided last wk to back Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.

Late last year, Trump announced that Batt was his campaign chair in Louisiana. He and his family immediately disavowed. It might be safe to come out now.

What about Batt?

Trump's Louisiana roster seems to have changed.

Earlier this month, Trump’s campaign sent out a news release announcing former New Orleans City Councilman Jay Batt as chairman of his campaign here.

But on Tuesday, Team Trump sent a news release announcing Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta and former State Rep. Woody Jenkins are serving as his Louisiana chairmen, and Jeff Crouere and Brian Trascher will serve as state co-chairs.

The latest release makes no mention of Batt or the announcement re-do.

Those names fit pretty well anyway. Crouere is blowhard, Jenkins is a lunatic and an adviser to Skrmetta's most recent opponent had his house firebombed.   But what gives with Batt backing out?  Not very Trump-like. 

Meet the Trumpites

A few months ago we learned the roster for the local members of Team Jeb! (Pat Brister, Suzie Terrell, Joe Cannizaro, Boysie Bollinger, among others.)  That's all well and good. Party insiders and donors pretty much just doing what's expected.

The more interesting question is who are the local right wingers wacky enough to back Trump?  Well somebody asked.. or at least was told. 

Former New Orleans City Councilman Jay Batt has been tapped to chair Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s Louisiana campaign team.

Batt, who serves as chairman of the Orleans Parish Republican Executive Committee, was on the City Council from 2002 to 2006.

Ahh ha ha ha ha ha 

Everybody hearts Jay

Batt's "war-chest" is impressive. Take a look at all these fine, upstanding pillars-of-the-community just aching to put him back on the council.

Batt's donor list is peppered with familiar names.

Among those who have given him the maximum $5,000 contribution are car dealer Ronnie Lamarque and his wife, Natasha; Fred Heebe, one of the owners of River Birch landfill, which receives at least $7 million per year in payments from City Hall to dispose of garbage; and City Planning Commission member Lynes "Poco'' Sloss.

Batt received $3,000 in donations from developer Joseph Canizaro and venture capitalist David Voelker and his family and $2,500 donations from engineering consultant Walter Baudier, lawyer Calvin C. Fayard Jr., manufacturing executive Jay Lapeyre and former Councilman Bryan Wagner.

The $2,000 donors to Batt include lawyers Henry Braden, who raised money for Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu and failed mayoral candidate Ed Murray, and Herschel Abbott; and shipbuilder Boysie Bollinger.

Batt's $1,000 contributors include lawyers William Broadhurst and William Aaron, Vieux Carre Commission Chairman Ralph Lupin, businessman Greg Rusovich, restaurateur Ralph Brennan and Plaquemines Parish Sheriff Jiff Hingle.

People keep asking what happened to Ray Nagin's "shadow government" and I keep telling them it's doing just fine.

Still I wonder why it is that, despite the fact of this well-known perpetual campaign against him, so many people still seem to really love Jay Batt. I mean, we already know he's a great dancer



And that he likes cocktails with little umbrellas in them



That's all very endearing. But still something tells me there's gotta be something else. This morning we learned that Batt says it might be about keeping ACORN BOLD from doing... something... to the council's Utility Committee.

This week, Batt slammed (Karen Carter)Peterson with a campaign mailer alleging that her endorsement of Guidry is part of a "back room" deal to reacquire a consulting contract she lost in 2000 with the council's Utility Committee. The flier also attempts to make a connection between Guidry and the leaders of BOLD, Peterson's political organization.

BOLD, which has taken no position in the District A race, supported Batt when he won the seat 2002. Finance reports from that campaign show that Batt made a $15,000 payment to BOLD to cover his share of the costs for printing and mailing the organization's ballot.

Efforting to "connect the dots'' regarding the alleged deal with Peterson, the Batt flier cites a comment by Guidry at a campaign appearance where she expressed an interest in serving as chairman of the Utility Committee. It then says Peterson's endorsement came on the heels of Guidry's statement.

"There are no coincidences in politics," the flier says.

Indeed. It would be an unfortunate coincidence if someone managed to "back room" themselves into something like utility oversight who just happens to not know how to do Jay's dance correctly. Thank goodness there are no coincidences in politics.

Getting nuts... or maybe just back to normal

The District A race has officially crossed over into stupid-land. At the Gambit blog, Kevin Allman reports on last night's final candidate forum of the 2010 election.

And while neither Batt nor Guidry deviated from their well-worn positions on the campaign trail, one topic was much discussed by both candidates: ACORN, the advocacy organization for low-income families that’s been so much in the news lately. Given the voting habits in Lakeview and the makeup of the crowd (solidly Caucasian), it was safe to assume both Batt and Guidry wanted an ACORN endorsement about as much as they wanted one from Ray Nagin. And yet both candidates claimed the other had ACORN’s seal of approval.

I've been saying for a while now that the 2010 election has been a mostly conservative return-to-pre-K normalcy event. And, yes, I include the Mayoral result in that thinking for reasons I'll explain as we go along. But the fact that a District A debate can end up being about something as silly as ACORN endorsements is perhaps the strongest indicator yet that the new Golden Age is, in fact, what I think it is.

I don't want to give away too much of that Gambit post before you go read it. Allman has some fun pointing out Jay Batt's comic hypocrisy on the matter. I would have liked to see the post include the important background fact that the infamous James O'Keefe "pimp" videos (the reason this whole issue is a controversy in the first place) have been exposed as a major hoax. It's important context for anyone reading an article about what District A candidates think is worth talking about.

Also of note here is Susan Guidry's apparent discomfort with the fact of her SEIU endorsement.

During one of her trips to the podium, Guidry waved a flyer not produced by her camp, which claimed she had the endorsement of both ACORN and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which would like to unionize New Orleans restaurant workers. Guidry said that, as the Democrat in the race, she was the de facto choice for unions (and, indeed, SEIU Local 21 has endorsed her), but she denied ever getting or seeking support from ACORN.

Guidry doesn't want us to hold her union endorsement against her, especially one that could appear antagonistic toward the restaurant and tourism businesses which, of course, demands our eternal deference no matter how little real wealth it generates for most of its employees. Helpfully, she points out that being the "de facto choice of the unions" is really just an unavoidable consequence of happening to be a Democrat. (Poor Susan. Guess she was just born that way.) What she doesn't say is that she wasn't the "de facto choice" of labor as recently as the February primary. AFL-CIO endorsed Republican Virgina Blanque in the primary because, as one labor source put it, "Guidry is an asshole". And if Susan Guidry is enough of an "asshole" to make a Republican look okay to labor by comparison, we struggle to think of what this says about Jay Batt who in turn manages to makes Guidry look like "the de facto choice".

Either way, we rest assured knowing that when we're choosing between an asshole on the one hand and something worse on the other and neither of those can think of anything better to talk about than ACORN, things are definitely getting back to normal in District A.

T-P hearts Jay

I keep getting the feeling the man is back. Others disagree. I've been pretty bad at making predictions this year so we'll all just wait and see.

Question

If the Council race in District A is in danger of being taken over by mysterious masked vigilantes, is it not incumbent upon the citizenry... for the sake of the rule of law, mind you... to alert the authorities? Not saying that anyone relishes the thought of a "fascist" police force breaking up a political meeting. It's just that some neighbors might be a little afraid of Batts.

Jay Batt is against "the low incomes"

And possesses other such charms.