Somebody should really do something

Does Troy Carter know what that is?  Doesn't seem like it. 

Attendees told Carter that they felt helpless, confused and worried about the federal government’s actions. In response, Carter told the concerned residents to take to social media and to call elected officials in Louisiana and other states to express their dissatisfaction with Democratic leaders in Congress.

One attendee, Andrew Cosgrove, asked Carter how to increase political engagement among residents. Carter’s response — encouraging voting and organizing among church groups and on social media — did little to satisfy Cosgrove or other attendees who spoke with Verite News.  

“It seemed like he had no plan and no answers,” Cosgrove told Verite News after the town hall. “He’s saying, ‘Make sure you vote next time,’ but he’s talking to a room of folks who voted and then took time out of their night to go to a town hall meeting, so that didn’t make any sense to me.”

You see, Troy is simply the elected representative to the US Congress.  He's not really there to do anything difficult.  It falls to you, then, to exercise your much greater power to... vote sometimes and also do posts.  Whatever you do, don't yell at him about it.  Remember, he just wants all this stuff off of his desk. 

This might be interesting if it wasn't so predictable. I think I'm just getting old now but I do get tired of watching a cycle stuck on repeat. I used to wonder if the latest turn of the ratchet would be the one the finally breaks it. But I don't know if I still think that can ever really happen. The Democrats, in the main, seem ready to make their same familiar move: not so much opposing the radical right as figuring out how to benefit from its ascendance.

Here is a recent interview with Minnesota Governor (and 2024 VP candidate) Tim Walz where he looks forward to Trump's unilateral and illegal shuttering of federal agencies as a new "opportunity."

How much can Democrats can rebuild, of what Trump is un-building right now? We’ve seen cases where employees are laid off, a court orders them back, but they’re still laid off. Do Democrats run in 2028 on re-establishing it?

I use the analogy of the car running out of gas. Car runs out of gas, you go get a can, you pour some in, you start it up, and it’s all fine. This is the car running out of oil, and it’s broken. And what I’m saying is, he is breaking it. This is a little bit in the Ezra Klein space: Democrats need to acknowledge that not all these agencies work perfectly. All of us who teach would agree to that. You know, we say how important the Department of Education is, how it does incredible work, but we would all argue there’s ways they could be better.

I think we need to start messaging right now. We need to put our experts on this. How will we build back next time? I think it’s an opportunity. I think it’s an opportunity to create the agencies the way we saw them in the first place, functioning better, without all the barnacles. So, Trump might be doing us a favor. He stripped it down, he blew the motor up. We’re going to put a new motor in it and take off. And I think that’s how we have to start thinking about it.

He's just articulating the thing we've known for a while. Democrats actually agree with Republican austerity policy. They, too, want to dismantle what's left of the welfare state. But they don't want to be the party seen as responsible for that happening. And, of course, they want to make sure they're in position to grab whatever coins they can that spill from the smashed pinata. 

None of this is new. It's just worse now than ever because, well, that's what happens when rot runs unchecked for so long. What is DOGE, after all, besides just the latest and most extreme form of neoliberalism. 

One important reason for the trend toward privatization is the long-standing, bipartisan belief in Washington that private-sector contractors are inherently more efficient than government employees. The Reagan administration embraced contracting with open arms, despite early warning signs, and eventually initiated a formal commission on privatization. This was followed up by the “National Partnership for Reinventing Government,” through which President Bill Clinton promised that he would “make our Government work better” with the help of the business world. This private-sector fetish remains strong within the Trump administration, which has encouraged government workers “to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.”

Despite how widespread this perception of contractor efficiency is among policymakers, there has never been much strong evidence for it. In 1994, a Defense Department inspector general report noted that “Federal agencies often contract for services at a cost that is 25 percent to 40 percent greater than if Federal employees had been used to perform the services.” A 2011 report by the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight found that private contractors are often greatly overpaid in comparison to government workers. And in the situations where waste and abuse is identified in government programs, for-profit contractors are often the culprits.

We've been on this long path to destruction for a generation or so.  Politicians at every level of government and in both parties have specialized in smash and grab for longer than most of us have been eligible to vote for or against any of them.  Why are things so shitty? Because the entire era in which we've been alive has been about making things shittier and shittier for the sake of concentrating wealth in fewer hands. The thing that has been happening is still happening. It's happening in your city on a routine basis. 

Under the auspices of his charitable group, the Wisdom Foundation, and a newly created for-profit company called Civilized.ai, Wisdom and his team had been working for months with the city to integrate “newer technologies” with the city’s infrastructure. To do that, he planned to work with the city’s existing database of 311 requests. 

In late 2023, he rolled out FixNOLA, a website that catalogues and gamifies the city’s 311 data regarding road and drainage issues, creating a leaderboard to keep track of top “fixers,” a mix of contractors and volunteers who provide photographs and updates to existing 311 requests. Then, in February of this year, Wisdom launched ChatNOLA, a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence that can help log 311 requests as well as provide updates on already submitted requests while communicating in a human-like manner.

Behind the scenes, Wisdom and his nonprofit have rankled some city staffers, who noted that Wisdom is doing this work without a formal agreement with the city government. They are also concerned about whether Wisdom’s team is getting access to the personal information, such as phone numbers and home addresses, that residents enter into the city’s 311 system when they make a complaint. 

Five city employees familiar with 311 systems and protocols told Verite News that they are concerned that Wisdom, who has no background in public service administration, is creating a parallel 311 system when the city is in the process of implementing an already purchased new system for processing 311 data. (The employees declined to be identified publicly for fear of retaliation.)

The city already publishes 311 complaints on a public-facing database. But it scrubs the data of personal information, such as the complainants’ names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.

Neither the Wisdom Foundation nor Civilized.ai has any contract or agreement with the city outlining the terms of this work or setting limits on how it can use the personal data it collects.

You can see the continuance of this in evidence as the field of candidates for this year's municipal elections begins to take shape.  A group of donors, politicos, and other local heavy hitters is hoping to influence the campaign by publishing its own Project 2025 document of sorts.

The recommendations from the City Services Coalition, which was formed in 2024 by real estate developer Pres Kabacoff, attorney David Marcello and others, focus on streamlining the structure and management of city government.

They include a proposed overhaul of the Sewerage & Water Board, empowering the mayor’s top deputy to manage day-to-day city operations, reforming the civil service system and clarifying the role of the city attorney.

The effort comes seven months before voters head to the polls to decide who will represent them on the City Council and who will succeed Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who is term-limited and unable to seek re-election. 

The coalition, which released the 216-page policy manual during a news conference Monday afternoon, has already met with announced and prospective mayoral candidates, including Helena Moreno, Arthur Hunter and Oliver Thomas.

Basically what's going on among the local politicians, donors and consulting pros is they're all trying to maximize their potential for getting a piece of whatever new patronage conduits are created after the next round of privatization.  With all the vandalism going on at the national and state levels, locally we have opportunists not pushing back against any of that but rather positioning themselves to catch as much as they can of the money that gets shaken loose. Somebody should really do something about all of this, you say?  Well, that's what your favs are doing. The same thing they always do. 

Mayhem

How does one even do Carnival on COVID? It's a citywide party people come to from all over town... all over the world, really.  They all stand in the street talking, eating, drinking, sharing with friends, family and strangers. If you're doing it right, you will see every single person you know at least once by the end of the season. Carnival is a social binder. But you're supposed to be isolating; "socially distancing" as we say now. You can't really make plans to see anyone. You can't have anybody over. You should probably just stay home.  Is Mardi Gras a marathon or a sprint?  How can one do either if you can't even catch your breath?

But what if your quarantine quarters just happen to sit a block or so off of the parade route?  Are you really going to just lay there all night when you can hear the drums outside? Wouldn't you be just a little bit tempted to bundle up, put on a mask, and oh so carefully creep up to St. Charles to take in a few moments from the other side of the street?

No, of course you should not do that.  You should stay your sick ass in bed until you get better. 

I did try and do that on Friday, though. Here's what it looked like. 

Yeah okay so you really can't see that well from back there. At least not when the marching units are going by. The floats came out okay, though.  Even the Oshun floats, although all I really saw of Oshun was the king and court stuff.  After that I had to go back in and take a break.

So here's something about having COVID, you might not have heard.  It really sucks. Even when the fever is gone, and even when your cough is mostly under control, the fatigue is still very freaking real. My only plan this evening was to walk a block and kind of stand around for a while.  But I couldn't even do that without going back in to rest and get warm.  Oh also it rained during Oshun (it always seems to rain on Oshun) and I wasn't going back out until that stopped. 

By the time it stopped, Cleopatra was already rolling. Looked like they had some kind of gem theme going. This float was Diamonds.

And this one was Turquoise

Oh and Lapis Lazuli

By the way, I don't think I'd noticed before now how much nicer my float pictures come out when I take them from this distance. Maybe not great for detail, but there's a sense of scale and balance to them this way. And you can see the crowd well.  Also I can still zoom in when I want and... oh my that doesn't look very safe!

Don't worry. Nobody fell off a float.  Not on Friday night, anyway. 

Here's what did happen. 

Entergy New Orleans blames a car striking a utility pole for the electricity failure during Friday night's Uptown Carnival parades.

Spokesperson Lee Sabatini said the car hit a pole on St. Charles Avenue at Terpsichore Street at about 9 p.m., darkening the river side of St. Charles as far as Prtania Street between Felicity Street and Andrew Higgins Boulevard. Almost 1,500 Entergy customers were powerless until 10 p.m.

Wait. Is that what actually what happened?  Witnesses differ.

Bc there was no car that hit a pole. After that report, I walked Terpsichore over to Prytania and then back across St. Charles to Carondelet. Everything was business as usual. Asked people on both sides if they’d heard a car hit a pole & no one heard anything like that.

— Candice, right? (@YesICandice) February 11, 2023

Ok, fine, then, people from the internet. Please tell us about whatever crazy conspiracy y'all are on about now before Elon shadowbans you or something. If it wasn't a car, then what?

Confetti cannon at erato appears to have hit a transformer. Saw it blow. We have no power now. Parade halted.

— @Sharney@mastodon.social (@sharney) February 11, 2023

Knocking out the power by shooting confetti from a parade float sounds like something out of a 60s TV Batman episode. It's plausible, though. Jefferson Parish has already banned metal confetti specifically because of this problem having come up in the past. Still, Entergy is out here saying it was a car accident that nobody saw. Why would they make something like that up? I mean, sure, we know they're super defensive about the fragility of their infrastructure and all but they wouldn't just lie about it, right?  I mean what if somebody had it on video?

Hi, I have footage of confetti cannon blowing transformer. pic.twitter.com/YFmKJaKP1Y

— ⚜️A. Ruffins⚜️ (@lifethrufiction) February 11, 2023

What if there were more than one video, even?  What would this story look like then?

A video shared with The Times-Picayune, by a person who asked to remain anonymous, shows what presumably is a float-mounted confetti cannon blasting toward utility lines on St. Charles Avenue during the Krewe of Cleopatra parade. The blast results in sparks flying and darkness descending on the area.

How much would that change Entergy's position on the matter?

Sabatini said a confetti cannon might have contributed to the power outage, because confetti made of Mylar can act as a conductor on power lines.

Oh okay the cannon "might have contributed." That's good. I might have contributed to paying my light bill this month. I'll have to check back on that too. I sure hope they don't cut me off in the meantime. (You know.. on purpose for once.) Maybe I should say something to my Congressman about this problem.  You think I can get his attention?  I mean I'm all the way in the back of the crowd and he's up there on that float. 

Troy's a West Bank guy so it figures he'd show up in the Alla (Algiers, la) parade. I'm an Uptown guy and even though this West Bank parade comes through my neighborhood now, I barely had the energy to stay out and watch it.  It looked like they were doing a festivals theme. But it was cold and I was already overspent. So I let the rest of it go and went back inside to collapse. 

On Saturday, I was even more determined not to overdo it. I found an oak tree root I could sit down on, conserve energy, and people watch. I can't really drink. And it gets lonely when you can't go into the crowd or really even talk to anybody. But I like to take in the scene, and listen to the music, and watch some of my favorite totems roll down the street.  

But first I had to watch this cop parade. Troy Carter was also in that. 

So was Susan Hutson.  At least her float was better than the one in Krewe du Vieux. 

Oliver Thomas was there too. He was on the Army float.  This made me think of Elvis Costello. 

Also, in the cop parade, the cops. 

Don't know how this affected their delicate deployment issues. Maybe this is why nobody could substantiate Entergy's "car accident" theory about the power outage. The cops who would have taken that report were getting ready to ride on the float?  Sad, if true. 

Anyway, I was low on energy again Saturday afternoon so I hung around just long enough to see the big catfish before I went back inside. Ordinarily I like to watch Pontchartrain and play the little fill-in-the-blank game with their float titles. I just couldn't do it this time. 

Like I said earlier, though, I don't feel like I'm participating in the ritual unless I am able to bear witness to certain of the idols presented for admiration by the throng. The catfish is one. The Sparta helmet is another. So I had to go back out.

Sparta.. or.. The Spartan Society, now, I guess.. was, like Oshun doing a kind of global festivals theme. 

But theirs was a little more esoteric. These floats depicted Carnival celebrations around the world and the music associated with them. So we got float titles like, "Maslenitsa - Hopak" and "Carnival-Danzon" or  "Ostatki-Polonaise" Also if you are wondering what the big reflective jacket looking aura is in these photos, it is a ghost. When you have to step back from the crowd to photograph Mardi Gras floats, it turns out that you can see ghosts. 

Anyway, shortly after this, I ghosted.  It was too cold and starting to get wet and, um, I had COVID so.. time to go in and rest.  Besides, it would be a while before Pygmalion showed up, anyway. Why was that?

After taking too wide of a turn at Jefferson Avenue and Magazine Street, the Pygmalion parade stopped for at least 30 minutes before resuming on Saturday night.

The krewe's seventh float, titled "Jester," hit a tree. The float then appeared to disconnect from its tractor trailer.

Killer trees! Here's what that looked like. 

Jester float hits tree. Everyone is okay. @wdsu #mardigras pic.twitter.com/ynW5k3QaDt

— Jake Kleinmahon, MD (@jakekleinmahon) February 12, 2023

It's absolute mayhem. 

@wdsu Rider falls off Pygmalion Jester float after it hits tree. pic.twitter.com/GnAIKxjHZj

— Jake Kleinmahon, MD (@jakekleinmahon) February 12, 2023

You could call the police but they all went by in a float earlier that afternoon. The trees must have known they had free rein too because it just kept happening. 

On Sunday afternoon, a somewhat similar incident took place, when the 43rd float in the King Arthur parade plowed into what apparently was the same oak branch.

A NOLA.com editor riding in the parade said the Big Bird head on the float hit the limb. She said a second tractor driver arrived and tried to complete the turn, but hit the limb again.

Noooo not Big Bird too!

How did this happen?  Don't they inspect the routes anymore?  Of course they do. I can vouch for this because I saw it with my own eyes too but many people reported observing crews on the street taking measurements. This guy from the city confirms that's, at least, what they were supposed to be doing. 

A city spokesperson, John F. Lawson II, said via email Monday said that the route had been “previously inspected leading up to parade start dates” and that floats had routinely made the turn in the past.

Lawson said that after Pygmalion, members of the Department of Parks and Parkways' Forestry Division “confirmed that the branch was outside of the clearance zone.” The branch, Lawson said, “was roughly 10 feet from the curb, leaving approximately 18 feet of roadway for the turns to be made.”

Obviously everybody did their job.  Only one explanation at this point. The tree did it on purpose. Time to face the consequences.

A twisting branch jutting from an age-old oak tree was rammed by two parade floats over the weekend, causing considerable damage to the floats — in one case, decapitating a large jester — and frustrating delays to the parades.

By Monday afternoon the fern-covered limb at Jefferson Avenue and Magazine Street had been cleanly removed by the city’s Parks and Parkways Department. The 25-foot-long, 9-inch-diameter branch was a safe distance from where floats were supposed to pass, according to City Hall, and shouldn’t have interfered with the turn in the first place.

Sorry, tree. But let this be a lesson. 

And for me too. Let it be a lesson to not go to Mardi Gras if you are sick with COVID.  I was so beat from just sitting outside for 45 minutes on Saturday that I couldn't make it out for Sunday at all.  I'd better be over this by Thursday at the latest. Otherwise, we might have to take it out on that tree I was resting on.

Fire and loss prevention department

 Oh no, Billy!

Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser's Plaquemines Parish home was burglarized Thursday, according to the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff's Office.

The criminals took sports memorabilia and rare coins, WDSU reported. Nungesser said he was in the process of moving during the break-in

The Highway 23 home, located in Point Celeste, was also damaged by a small kitchen fire that occurred during the burglary, according to the Sheriff's Office. 

"We're still investigating, but at this time, it's believed that the fire was unintentional," said Lt. Chaun Domingue, spokesman for the Sheriff's Office.

That sounds bad. I feel bad for Billy. I hope they didn't get his socks. But because of certain circumstances and Billy's status as a person of some prominence, we do have to ask if there's something beyond just simple burglary going on here. We do know, for example, that this wouldn't be the first time something strange happened to collectibles under Billy's supervision. In 2017, he was involved in "some pretty strange crap" along those lines. 

Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser has been using a Lower Pontalba Building apartment and space in other state museum buildings in the French Quarter for his personal benefit and has engaged in a pattern of political interference with the agency's operations, the Louisiana State Museum's interim director said Monday while resigning in protest.

Nungesser’s interference includes attempting to override museum officials and board members who objected to plans to loan U.S. Sen. John Kennedy artworks for his office in Washington, D.C., and threatening to sell museum works of art on eBay to raise funds, said Tim Chester, a museum consultant who took the interim position in October.

“I have never encountered anything like this in the 40 years I’ve worked in the field, ever,” Chester said. “I’ve seen some pretty strange crap come down in museums, but this one takes the cake.”

We also know that, intentional or otherwise, this would not be the first time a Louisiana politician or political operative suddenly found their home and/or car to have been set on fire. Let's look at a few relatively recent examples. 

In 2009, a political gadfly/consultant type named Brian Welsh was involved in a stunt of a campaign promoting Stormy Daniels as a challenger to then Republican Senator David Vitter. Then his car burned up.  Welsh went on the news to air his suspicions that Vitter's henchmen had it out for him.  A lot of people were skeptical of this. (I was skeptical.) The fire department was also skeptical. 

“It was a fire. The car didn’t explode,” said Public Information Officer Jonathan Pajeaud. An arson investigation is underway and foul play hasn’t been ruled out. But, Pajeaud said, Welsh told firefighters he’d recently gotten electrical work done on his 1996 Audi, and investigators are also looking into that as a possible cause.

Welsh told a local TV news station that police told him they’d never seen anything like it.

But, Pajeaud said, “Car fires here are very common.”

He added that investigators, on average, have a preliminary report in about two weeks. Pajeaud said that, for now, the investigation is being handled solely by the fire department and not by police. The police department has not responded to our questions.

Welsh persisted, however, posting surveillance videos that appear to show someone tampering with his car just before the fire happened. Still, nothing ever came of the investigation.  "Car fires here are very common," after all.

In 2014, Mario Zervignon was consulting for a Public Service Commission campaign challenging Eric Skrmetta when this happened.  

An apparent firebombing ignited a pair of early morning blazes Thursday in Uptown New Orleans, incinerating three vehicles and scorching a house in a startling scene that resembled a war zone. Federal law enforcement officials said they were investigating whether Mario Zervigon, a well-known political fundraiser, had been specifically targeted in the attack.

Flames engulfed Zervigon’s vehicles and quickly spread to his home at the corner of Prytania and Constantinople streets. Eight people escaped the home’s three apartments uninjured, but three cats were believed to have perished in the fire, said Katy Patterson, Zervigon’s wife, who made it out safely with Zervigon and the couple’s two young children.

If the Zervignon case was ever solved, I don't remember seeing it. Maybe someone can clear that up. Casual googling doesn't get me very far today.  The usual pattern with these things is they happen, they look suspicious, we talk about them in the news, and then everyone forgets about them until the next one happens.  Every now and then they solve one, though. In fact, that 2014 story also references a prior incident from 1997 that resulted in a guilty plea.  

Firebombings, while exceedingly rare, are not unprecedented in New Orleans. Thursday’s incident recalled a series of intentional fires beginning in 1997 that targeted Stuart Smith, a vocal opponent of loud music in the French Quarter. Bar owner George Mellen Jr. pleaded guilty in 1999 to hiring an arsonist to toss Molotov cocktails at Smith’s home and vehicle on several occasions.

Here is more detail on that one in case anyone is interested.  There are a lot of old favs in this story.  None of them (including Stuart Smith, even though he was the victim of the attack) comes off looking particularly good.

Smith, a lifelong New Orleans resident who moved to the French Quarter in 1997, blamed the decline on the city's refusal to enforce noise and zoning ordinances.

But city officials said their hands are tied.

"Every time we come up with a resolution, we're sued by one side or another," said Councilman Troy Carter.

Mayor Marc Morial, who had all performers cleared out of Jackson Square when he was married there, has been otherwise reluctant to get involved. "A lot of what the complaining is about really has to do with the comeback of the entire city," Morial said. "The Quarter is not a suburban neighborhood."

The stance by Smith and his allies has at times drawn an aggressive response.

When Smith tried to stop the city from issuing a music license to an outdoor bar around the corner from his 5,000-square-foot home, Molotov cocktails scorched his Mercedes-Benz and rained down on his roof and into his courtyard. His home was not badly damaged.

The bar's owner, George Mellen Jr., and an associate, Richard Jones, pleaded guilty to conspiring to plant firebombs.

Unlike Mellen and Jones, the New Orleans Police officers who murdered Henry Glover and burned his body in a car after Hurricane Katrina did not plead guilty. Their convictions were overturned and they were eventually set free.

In 2015 a vehicle was set on fire near the site of a Planned Parenthood facility under construction.  It was investigated as a suspected arson.  Not sure if anything came of that either. 

Then, in 2016, this happened. 

A Lamborghini found burned to the ground Tuesday belonged to the owner of a Baton Rouge company that last week pulled out of a New Orleans contract to remove Confederate monuments after he had received death threats.

David Mahler’s Lamborghini, worth in excess of $200,000, was parked in the H&O Investments parking lot at 17425 Opportunity Ave., in Baton Rouge when flames were spotted from the air, said Roy Maughan Jr., Mahler’s attorney.

Immediately, we were told, we'd never really know what happened. 

It’s likely investigators will never know how the fire started, though, as the evidence was destroyed in the fire, Tarleton said. He said the department has not ruled anything out.

All that was left of the car was the seat frames, the tires and a heap of melted debris.

Accidental car fires are not unusual, often caused by mechanical issues, he said.

These things just happen all the time. It's pretty amazing when you think about it.  At least we won't go bored puzzling over the stream of unsolvable enigmas we're presented. 

Did anyone ever figure this one out, by the way?

NEW ORLEANS — Someone set two vehicles on fire in a Lakeview neighborhood last week in an explosive moment caught on camera. 

The man fires what appears to be a flare at one of the cars, soaked in gasoline, blowing it and another nearby vehicle up.

According to neighbors, it happened around 2:15 a.m. on July 29. 

That's a strange story, right?  Because of the long history of these, I thought it worth noting at the time that it was really close to qualifying week for the 2019 state legislative and executive elections. But nothing else surfaced in the news to connect back to it.  It did have me looking sideways at some of the fishy goings on in the state house races. But there's no evidence any of it is related. Anyway, it's likely we'll never know. 

Bill Cassidy's victory tour

Much like Troy Carter, Bill now gets to go on a tour of the state doing a bunch of ceremonial groundbreakings and/or aspirational ribbon cuttings for stuff in the infrastructure bill that *might* build infrastructure but will definitely line the pockets of some important <strike>donors</strike> "private partners while at least seeming to try to build things.  For Troy, it just means a fun year of being a new Congressman-for-life.  But for Bill, it could very well be the opening round of his campaign for Governor. 

Cassidy may have an easier time winning the governor’s mansion in 2023 than reelection to the Senate in 2026. Gubernatorial elections are more often about candidate qualities and local issues, while U.S. Senate races tend to track national partisan fights. This could lessen Trump’s influence in a contest for governor.

If Cassidy runs for governor and makes a runoff against a Republican, he could win the faceoff with support from Democrats, independents and his remaining personal base among Republicans.

Conversely — if he makes the runoff against a Democrat, he could win with votes from Republicans, independents and conservative Democrats. Even most Trump die-hards would hold their noses and cast ballots for Cassidy, a Republican with an 83% conservative voting record, rather than vote for a left-leaning Democrat.

That Ron Faucheux column doesn't really even mention Bill's support for (and significant role in crafting) the "bipartisan" infrastructure package. But he sure does get a ton of credit for it from the Advocate's ostensibly liberal  opinion writer. So much, in fact, one would think she has some sort of quota to fill.  All of which is to say that should Cassidy run for governor, he will be a very well positioned candidate on paper... or in the paper, as it were. 

But that doesn't always mean everything. Faucheux does point out also Bill isn't the most popular guy among so-called "Trump Republicans." And given that the term Trump Republicans pretty much just means Republicans then that could be a problem. Also, as has been famously noted, the "dude is weird."

Rep. Cedric Richmond, a dapper politician from New Orleans and key Landrieu supporter, was more blunt. “He’s weird. Dude is weird,” Richmond said. “He’s not what Louisiana is. He’s not personable, he’s not charismatic.” 

Of course that is far from the only issue with Bill. He's not just a "weird dude." He's a weird dude who protects the chemical industry from consequences when they poison our air and water. 

Under federal law, Louisiana must develop a “state implementation plan” outlining actions that plants must take to reduce emissions below that standard. As part of that process, the Department of Environmental Quality in 2017 and 2018 ordered Rain to adopt a plan to change its manufacturing processes to keep sulfur dioxide levels in check.

Rain balked, however, saying it was having trouble figuring out how to monitor the heat and flow of gases and other materials at its plant because conventional meters kept melting. In 2019, U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., intervened on behalf of the company and joined the state agency in successfully lobbying the EPA to delay implementation of the plan.

Still, if he does run, he's going to be the favorite candidate of the Advocate editorial page.  But that also isn't surprising given the company line over there with regard to protecting the environment.

Troy Carter's victory tour

It may be true that Congress is so wracked with corruption and indifference that it can't protect voting rights, or labor rights or get us our health care and child care bills we desperately need. It is nonetheless a great time to be an incumbent congressman.  This is especially true if you happen to be a freshman incumbent congressman like Troy Carter. 

Troy doesn't really figure in to the high level back room negotiations over anything in the deadlocked megabills that comprise the work of the modern congress.  Because of this doesn't own any of the failures. But, because the last two years of perpetual crisis have forced through little bit more non-military federal spending than would otherwise have been possible,  he still gets to go around the state cutting ribbons for the next two years. 

Carter said the bridge is his first stop on his tour that will see him announce various infrastructure investments across the 2nd Congressional District, which covers almost all of New Orleans and stretches north and west along the Mississippi River to Baton Rouge. 

His next stop is Thursday in Grammercy, where he will announce tens of millions of dollars in repairs for the Veterans Memorial Bridge, he said. 

It's a fantastic time to get the job.

Feels like a Monday

Try not to go too hard out there. 

A vehicle fire in the eastbound high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes of the Crescent City Connection is snarling traffic on the West Bank, Monday morning.

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development reported the fire just after 8 a.m.

I'm certainly not one of these people declaring a return to post-pandemic normalcy yet.. especially with only 25 percent of Louisianians fully vaccinated (31% with at least one shot) as of today.  But certain of the old familiar comforts of home, such as everything being on fire, do seem to be returning. 

Oh also, was there an election over the weekend or something? I found all this trash laying around. 

We'll definitely have to talk about this one later. There are so many bad takes flying around today it's hard to pick out the absolute worst. But this is a contender. 

James Carville, the New Orleans-based political strategist, believes the outcome has national implications, noting that Peterson had the advantage of her side spending more money and a low turnout special election (16.6%) that typically favors candidates who seek to excite their party’s most fervent supporters.

“Voters voted against wokeness,” said Carville. “They just did. Woke did very, very poorly.”

I mean, it isn't very surprising that Carville has adopted the pejorative form of "wokeness" to mean any political platform to the left of, say, Ronald Reagan.  But he's also wrong (or lying, if you prefer to call it what it is) to claim this result is a rejection of such a platform instead of a candidate.   But, more on that later.  

In the meantime try to avoid getting exploded by anything.

Why lie when the facts are bad enough

Every year Joe Bouie tries to nudge us ever so slightly in the direction of untangling the corrupt nightmare system that runs our public schools "like a business."  Every year it fails.  No reason to stop trying, though. 

A state legislator who has a history of criticizing the way New Orleans schools are governed is pushing a bill in the upcoming session that would strip NOLA Public Schools Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr. of his power to close or renew charter schools without an Orleans Parish School Board vote.

State Senator Joseph Bouie Jr. spoke briefly with board members during their meeting Tuesday about the bill, which he has prefiled for the 2021 legislative session beginning next month. Bouie’s bill aims to undo the charter school renewal system established by a state law passed in 2016 that brought the city’s charter schools — most of which had been overseen by the state-run Recovery School District after Hurricane Katrina — back under local control. 

That law, Act 91, gives near unilateral power to the superintendent to decide which nonprofit-run charter schools up for contract renewal with the district will remain open and which ones will close. Under the current system, the board can only overturn Lewis’ recommendation with a two-thirds supermajority vote within one month of a recommendation’s presentation. 

Bouie’s proposal would require board votes on all charter renewals.

One of the principal authors of Act 91 is congressional candidate Karen Carter Peterson who, over the weekend, (just barely) slipped into a runoff against Troy Carter.  During the primary, Carter tried to make hay out of Peterson's relationship with the charter school movement. Those links do exist and voters should consider them during the runoff.  They should also, consider, however, that Troy Carter also supported Act 91 and does not appear to have taken a stand against the charter movement that meaningfully distinguishes him from Peterson. 

On the other hand, at least his attack ad acknowledged the devastating effect the charter movement has had on teachers. Leaving aside the question of his sincerity about that, it matters that it's something Peterson does not talk about unless she is refuting an opponent's accusations. Which is what happens in this article. 

Only days before Saturday’s primary, Karen Carter Peterson is calling foul on Troy Carter for a television ad that slams her and her husband on education matters.

“Troy Carter’s latest attack is a lie,” Peterson, who like Carter is a state senator from New Orleans, said in a statement.

She is correct.  Carter's ad does lie. It cherry picks certain events and compresses their timeline to imply a stronger causal relationship than the viewer would otherwise infer. I'll try to summarize this as clearly as I can.  

In 2004 Peterson sponsored a bill called Act 193 which empowered the state controlled Recovery School District (RSD) to take over so-called failing schools in Orleans Parish. Shortly after Katrina, a second bill (Act 35) enabled the RSD to take all of the schools in Orleans Parish. Peterson voted against this bill. RSD took over 102 of 117 schools and immediately fired 7000 teachers and support staff. This move effectively destroyed the teachers union and gutted what most people considered a core piece of the city's Black middle class at a critical moment. Those teachers, their union, and in many ways the whole city has never really recovered from that. The state then re-made the New Orleans Public Schools according to an experimental model of privatized autonomous charters working with largely non-union labor (although a very small number of charter school staffs have since been organized.) In 2016, Act 91, again, authored by Peterson, returned this reconfigured system to local school board's nominal control but locked the RSD's changes into place.  

Carter's ad presents this story as 1) Peterson voted for Act 193 and then 2) All of the teachers were fired. Obviously that isn't how it happened. In between those events there was a hurricane, a flood, and a thorough takeover of the schools that Peterson voted against. However, it does not get her off the hook for writing and supporting Act 91 which we can see as a validation of all of those events after the fact. She is further implicated by the close involvement of her husband and brother-in-law in the leadership of RSD and Orleans charter schools during this period although Carter's ad also fudges the facts on this so as to make it appear even more sinister. 

Which, again, causes us to question Carter's integrity as much as Peterson's.  The facts are bad enough.  But Carter is as culpable as Peterson for much of the situation being what it is so he has to lie to make it sound even worse. 

Anyway, I'm not sure when Bouie's bill is due up in the session or if Senators Carter and Peterson will be available to vote on it when it does.  The legislative session begins on April 12 and the runoff election is April 24 so it's a real tight window. Which is a shame because we might miss a key moment of truth for both of them.

The day she truly became mayor

There is something about being the Mayor of New Orleans that renders your endorsement a near guaranteed kiss of death for whichever office seeker comes upon the misfortune of acquiring it.

LaToya Cantrell’s first attempt as mayor to influence a local election failed recently, but it may be too soon to judge the true length of her coattails.

That’s because she endorsed, not in a municipal race, but in the race for King Zulu 2019. And her candidate, George V. Rainey, lost by an apparently close margin to Naaman Stewart, the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club’s president.

So that's normal, anyway.  One thing this article doesn't point out that may be worth noting is Stewart was a heavy donor to LaToya's opponent in last year's election.  Granted a somewhat less prestigious post was up for grabs there but there's still clearly an element of payback at work in all this.

Also, the number of players who got involved in this and the way they aligned themselves is interesting.

Rainey also was backed by state Sen. Troy Carter and Entergy New Orleans CEO Charles Rice, both Zulu members, according to the mailer. Clerk of 2nd City Court Darren Lombard and Constable of 2nd City Court Edwin Shorty also endorsed him, as did City Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer.

Meanwhile, Stewart received the backing of 11 former Zulu kings, former Mayor Marc Morial and three former Zulu board members, according to a separate mailer.

As for me, I'm still a little mad LaToya didn't throw me a shoe when she rode in Muses this year.  At least I don't have to go through her to get a coconut now. 

Can't get out of their own way

The state Democratic Party would have us believe that one relatively unknown first time candidate is single handedly holding them all hostage.

Handwerk said several other Democrats were interested in running for treasurer but that it is difficult for a Democrat to get into a runoff if more than one member of the party is on the primary ballot; the Democratic candidates split the party vote. Edwards made it clear that he intended to stay in race, regardless of who else entered it.

"Leading up to qualifying for the Louisiana treasurer race we had several interested folks, but we all knew it wasn't viable to have more than one Democrat in the race and Derrick Edwards was already running and one of the first to qualify," Handwerk said.

That is ludicrous. Either run a bigger name candidate or back the one you have. If the reason there's only one Democrat is because there can be only one then, for chrissakes, you need get behind the one. These were your rules to begin with. Live by them. 

That isn't what they're doing, though. Instead they're out working to elect a Republican.

At least a handful of high-profile New Orleans Democrats appear to have decided that (State Senator Neil) Riser is an option, possibly because Schroder has made clear he will probably attack John Bel Edwards' budget and tax proposals if elected. Schroder also withdrew his support last year for state Rep. Walt Leger, D-New Orleans, in the House speaker's race, rubbing many New Orleans Democratic legislators the wrong way.

Thus state Sens. Troy Carter, Wesley Bishop and JP Morrell, all Democrats from New Orleans, organized a free-lunch meet-and-greet for Riser at Dooky Chase's restaurant Tuesday. Bishop's involvement is particularly noteworthy, as he is vice chair of the state Democratic Party.

They say they're doing this because they think Riser "is honestly running just to be Treasurer," instead of turning the office into a trolling platform the way John Kennedy did for 17 years. Riser hasn't actually said this is his plan, though.  As we explained yesterday, there's really not much of a point to just being Treasurer. People run for this office because it leads to things.  That the Democrats can't get out their way in time to seize an opportunity like that and build their own party's strength is no reason to pretend otherwise.   

Why are the Democrats ceding the State Treasurer's race?

What does the Louisiana State Treasurer do all day?

When Louisiana voters choose a new state treasurer this fall, it's likely they won't have much information about what the person will actually be doing. Of all the elected positions in state government, the treasurer's duties might be the most opaque.

The treasurer can't do much without the permission of the Legislature, governor or other Bond Commission members. The position doesn't call for much direct interaction with voters, either.

Yet the treasurer handles billions of dollars in public money. And John Kennedy was one of the state's most popular elected officials during almost two decades in the job, before he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016. Both Kennedy and Mary Landrieu moved on to the Senate from the treasurer's perch.

That article goes on to helpfully describe the Treasurer's duties which basically amount to coming into the office every few weeks to sign some checks. Ironically, it's the relative lack of importance that makes this such an attractive office to ambitious Louisiana pols. The responsibilities are few and thus accountability is negligible. But it's a statewide office so just the process of getting elected to it is a significant networking and base building exercise.  The successful candidate establishes contacts and name recognition in every corner of the state. He or she then has access to a big public platform from which to advocate for, well, whatever gets more attention, ideally.  It's basically politics for politics' sake and a pretty nifty stepping stone to higher office.

So it's a discouraging measure of the state Democratic Party's impotence that it hasn't jumped at the bench strengthening opportunity provided by this year's vacancy.  Rather than promoting an up and comer from its own ranks or, failing that, at least supporting the Democrat who did qualify to run, the party leadership is playing defense.

Quick roll call on that host committee. Bishop is the 4th District State Senator and a Vice Chair of the State Democratic Party.  Morrell is the 3rd District State Senator and for a time was said to be considering a run for mayor. Carter is the 7th District State Senator and has been a mayoral candidate and city councilman in the past. There's a Democrat running but these guys don't care about that. They're promoting Republican and fellow State Senator Riser because they see State Rep. John Schroder as a more significant threat.  Most of us, though, would see little difference in Schroder or Riser getting a term as the state's official concern troll.  Here is what a Riser complaint agenda would look like.

If elected, Riser said he would continue to fight for gun rights, restrictions on undocumented immigrants and for divesting from countries that might support terrorism. The treasurer has nothing to do with gun laws or immigration, which Riser admits, but he said he would use the position as a platform to advocate for causes that he supports.

"I'll be outside the treasurer's course and scope as an individual defending the 2nd Amendment rights," he said.

Probably as election day gets closer we'll hear more about how smart and strategic all of this is.  But really it's just another missed opportunity for a state party continuing to suffer from a lack of depth and purpose. 

$8.50 an hour is a poverty wage

As far as the Republicans in the Louisiana House of Representatives are concerned, it's still probably too good for you.

To date, 29 states and Washington D.C. have minimum wages that are higher than the federal minimum wage. In Louisiana, 5.3 percent of workers earn the federal minimum wage or lower. Employees like restaurant waitstaff and agricultural employees are exempt from the wage laws. But Louisiana has a higher percentage of workers who earn minimum wages than any other state in the nation.

Jan Moller, executive director of the Louisiana Budget Project, said the hike would have given effected workers an additional $852 per year. He noted that one in three of those workers are single parents. About 119,000 children live in homes where their parents or guardians earn minimum wages.

But the Republican majority of the committee expressed concerns that business owners dealing with the increased costs would ultimately lay off staff or automate the entry level jobs creating even less opportunity.

Sen. Jack Donahue, R-Mandeville, said people who feel they're being underpaid have the freedom to seek out another job.

Sure. If you find that you are among the estimated 127,000 Louisianians held in destitution by a degradingly low wage floor, it's probably because you hate freedom or something.  There are worse quotes than Donahue's from today's debate. But the Republicans are either operating on a 5th grade understanding of economic policy or they're being insultingly disingenuous. Let's be nice and assume it's the latter. Either way, nothing they said is worth taking seriously enough to argue with.

In any case, they don't care. What they do care about is beating the Governor. And since raising the minimum wage (even this piddling, insignificant amount) was a key campaign promise of his, they're not going to help him accomplish even that.

The Fight For $8.50 (a year from now)

Kind of a joke in that it's not anything close to a living wage. Also it probably won't achieve final passage. But, hey, progress.. sort of.

The Senate Labor Committee voted 4-2 Wednesday to advance the wage hike to the full Senate. The proposal made it that far last year before fizzling when it was diverted to a second Senate committee for review.

It’s unclear whether new support has built for the effort.

If approved, Louisiana’s minimum wage would grow to $8 per hour in 2018 and to $8.50 an hour a year later under the bill by New Orleans Sen. Troy Carter.

If you can complain about the cameras but keep the money...

Troy Carter wants clearer signage and he wants it now. 

Taking aim at New Orleans' traffic cameras, a bill has been filed in the legislative session that would require "clearly visible" signs to be placed near speed cameras to alert drivers of their presence.

Filed by Sen. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, the bill calls for signs to be placed within 500 feet of any fixed or mobile speed camera. Anyone ticketed for speeding by a camera without a sign nearby would be off the hook, according to the bill.

For a state legislator who is entertaining the notion of running for mayor it's hard to know just how to handle the traffic camera problem.  On the one hand the cameras are very unpopular. Nobody likes getting a ticket from a robot. Since they first showed up on our streets, questions have been raised about their accuracy, their constitutionality, and even their efficacy in promoting public safety which is supposed to be, you know, the point of them in the first place. 

On the other hand, everybody knows their primary purpose is to generate revenue. The city is counting on collections near $24 million in its adopted 2017 budget. The fact that people know this only leads to more suspicion, though. It's especially grating to know that private contractors like Redflex and American Traffic Solutions are getting rich off of the scheme. Or that cities have been caught engaging in such trickery as shortening yellows in order to juice the rate of violations.

So you can see why Carter would want to make sure his constituents feel he's protecting them from unclear or misleading signs. If we're going to come after your money, the least we can do is not be quite so sneaky about it.  Of course, there is always the option of doing away with the cameras entirely. There is a bill in the legislature this session that could do exactly that, in fact. But, if you are Troy Carter, and you are thinking about maybe being mayor soon, are you probably aren't going to be keen on creating a $24 million hole in your own budget right now.  Better to focus on the signage thing first. At least that's the safe way to go about it.

Only seven more months until qualifying day

There's no rest for New Orleanians weary of politics in 2017. Under ordinary circumstances, this would have been a quiet year. But as it happens folks will need to keep their voting arms good and warm for a full round of municipal elections happening this fall.

The scheduling change was enacted a few years back in an effort to move the elections away from the busy winter/spring social season. This is probably for the best. But, since we aren't moving inauguration day until the following cycle, we do end up with a weird little one-time quirk.

The swearing-in switch would be delayed until after June 1, 2018, a political compromise that lets Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the current council serve full, four-year terms through May 2018 regardless of the vote's outcome. But that also means the next round of city leaders, if elected in October 2017, would have to wait more than six months to take office.

The first January inauguration would take place in 2022.

So, after the November run-off, we're going to go through an awkward transition where we have a newly elected government just kind of hanging around in the background all the way into May. Ray Nagin used to complain about the "shadow government" in this city but this takes things a bit literally. Imagine a local version of the uncomfortable dual Presidency we've been enduring for the past month and a half but extended for half a year. Should be fun.

That's just about the same amount of time, by the way, between now and the July deadline for candidates to qualify for these races.  So, sure, let's start trying to figure out who is running for mayor.

We're pretty sure LaToya Cantrell is in.  She was most recently spotted delivering this demagogic over-the-top praise of the city's latest installation of surveillance cameras.

The department won’t specify where the cameras will be located, but said they would be stationed first in high-traffic areas and crime hot spots.

“Crime is out of control, shootings are up,” said Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell. “We need to be proactive in terms of catching criminals and deterring crime.”

Cantrell stresses that the readers are not for profiling or harassing people on the street, but for tracking vehicles used in crimes.

“It has nothing to do with profiling at all,” she said. “It doesn’t show you who’s in the vehicle, what they’re wearing, their skin color. It’s totally focused on that license plate as well as the make and model of the car.”

Cantrell said it will be a tool in the crime-fighting arsenal that the city so badly needs.

“My constituents are saying that crime is their number one issue. They not only want to feel safe, they want to be safe.”

Never mind the confused bit about racial profiling. That is, of course, always a concern. But it isn't the primary complaint against panoptic tracking of everyone's public movements by the police which we probably shouldn't have to point out is just inherently bad.   But it's that "My constituents not only want to feel safe, they want to be safe," comment that really floors me.  LaToya clearly doesn't recognize these cameras as the quintessential example of  ineffective, expensive security theater that they are. In fact, she seems to be describing them as precisely the opposite of that. This is worrisome.

We also know Michael Bagneris is in although nobody can figure out, exactly, why.  Back in October, Bagneris told Danae Columbus that running for mayor "is in my DNA." Medical science has not yet developed a treatment for this condition. 

J.P. Morrell might run. He was a vocal opponent of City Council's disastrous decision to legalize short term rentals last year. Affordable housing figures to be a major issue in these elections.  Morrell also recently held a high profile fundraiser at the home of wealthy trash magnate Jimmie Woods which could signal big plans.

Speaking of wealthy trash magnates.  This guy exists.

"One of the reasons I like private [solutions] is because I am looking at my bottom line," he said. "I'm not looking at what's politically correct. I'm not looking at what makes sense in how I am going to get to my next office or who's going to vote for me so I can keep my job as a politician."

Coincidentally, Landrieu's term ends in 2018, and Torres is said to be considering a run of his own. Until that decision is made official, "Trashanova" is returning to the trade that first proved profitable. With the noncompete clause from selling his waste business in 2011 expiring in June, Torres is launching a new waste-management company, IV Waste, slated to begin serving private customers in early August.


"Business leaders should get involved — not just financially involved, but get their hands dirty and find a cause to help out," he said. "I think it's important."

At first glance, Torres would appear to have at least two things working against him.  First, the local political memory still retains at least some of the lessons it learned from its last experience with putting a not-a-politician "business leader" in charge of stuff. Second, it's not clear that New Orleans voters really take Sidney all that seriously. He won "Best Potential Candidate For New Orleans Mayor" in the most recent Gambit "Best Of New Orleans" poll which most readers took to be something of a joke. Sidney took out a full page ad to thank them anyway.



At the same time, there's this annoying familiar feeling in the back of our minds here. Something about a wealthy, charismatic entrepreneur/reality TV guy who nobody took seriously until it was too late.  Can't quite place it, though. It's probably nothing.

Jason Williams is frequently mentioned as a potential candidate. This is mostly on the strength of the impressive victory by which he was elected Councilman At-Large in 2014.  In that seat, though, he's possibly dampened enthusiasm a bit. Councilman Williams often seems cautious to a fault.

When he ran, Williams was emphatic about his belief in the council's role as "a check and balance on the administration."  "It's not supposed be a rubber stamp," he said. And yet, during the STR debate, Williams proved to be among the more gullible followers of the administration's party line. Williams parroted the prevailing argument about the overwhelming imperative to "appease the platforms" insisting that we could always go back and "tweak" the permissive ordinance later.  Hilariously, at that very same time, Williams' Facebook page featured an obviously hollow statement of support for the DAPL protesters.

Right now "part of" Jason Williams is in Standing Rock asking if they can tweak the pipeline back out later maybe. pic.twitter.com/06mmu1G7KA

— skooks (@skooks) December 1, 2016

State Rep. Walt Leger has certainly sounded at times like he might be running. That shouldn't be too surprising given that things didn't go as he'd hoped in Baton Rouge last year.  He's also not the only member of our local delegation who might be fed up with the situation up there. Karen Carter-Peterson, for example, may have had quite enough of that cake already. There's also State Rep. Helena Moreno who, though her name has popped up regarding the mayor's race, is more likely to run for Stacy Head's Council At-Large seat.

Is that everybody?  Probably not. Clancy DuBos also mentioned Troy Carter and Nadine Ramsey during a recent TV blurb. We'll see about that.  There's also this guy @LarryLarmeu from Twitter who has threatened to run for various offices every few months or so for years now. Larry now says he is moving to England. We'll see about that too, I guess.

What we really need now, though, is polling data. It's never too early. This has been frustratingly difficult to come by in recent local elections.  So this year we're not waiting around for UNO or SMOR to throw out their one anti-climactic survey a week before the election. Instead we're making our own.  Poorly, of course, but so what. What is our method? Well, we just threw a bunch of names into a Twitter poll. There were... um...  problems with this.

First off, Twitter only allows you to create polls with four options.  But, as you can see from all of the above, we've identified quite a few more potential candidates than that.  So we had to put them into two separate groupings. The names appeared in these groups randomly in the order that I happened to think of them.  As it happened, the first grouping received almost 20 more total votes than did the second. Does this make the second group the "kiddie table"? Maybe. Is this in any way fair or valid? Hell no. That's not really our purpose here today or ever, really.

Suffice to say, even for a Twitter poll, the methodology here is highly suspect and pretty stupid generally.  So we're looking forward to doing more of these periodically at least until qualifying day. Anyway here are the results. You can click here to see the groupings. Or, if you like, I've tallied up the total number of votes for every candidate along with each candidate's percentage of the 126 total votes cast. And so, here is your very first, very blurry snapshot of the 2017 race for Mayor of New Orleans.

J.P. Morrell  19%  (24 votes)

LaToya Cantrell  17% (22 votes)

Larry Larmeu 15% (19 votes)

Jason Williams 14% (18 votes)

Karen Carter-Peterson 11% (14 votes)

Sidney Torres 9% (11 votes)

Walt Leger 8% (10 votes)

Michael Bagneris  6% (8 votes)

The big takeaway here, I guess, is that things are pretty tight at this early stage!  And, hey, look at all those votes that suddenly become available once Larry leaves the country.  Anybody's game, right?