This Year's Democratic Freshmen-- And Today's 2 Louisiana Congressional Run-Offs

Last month the voters elected 25 Democratic and 25 Republican freshmen. Presumably in a few hours, after Louisiana's two House run-offs, there will be 25 Democrats and 27 Republicans. You think I'm being pessimistic? I'm not. First off, in one of the districts, the 3rd (the southwest coast and Lafayette and Lake Charles-- where Obama scored 32% against Romney) doesn't even have a Democrat running-- just two crackpot right-wing Republicans vying to replace Lord Boustany, who was defeated in an ill-advised Senate run. The two Republicans are Scott Angelle and Clay Higgins and they are running an ugly vicious campaign, tearing each other apart like savages. Higgins, who doesn't live in the district, is a far right, Trump-like sociopath and Angelle is the establishment candidate, best known as an owned and operated shill for Big Oil. A poll released yesterday shows Higgins ahead 49.14% to 46.34%, but with Angelle gaining ground, Democrats backing him strongly.

The 4th district (the rest of the western part of the state including Shreveport) at least has a Democrat in the mix today. John Fleming also ran for the open Senate seat and lost. Obama did a little better in the district-- 40% each time he ran. In the jungle primary the Democrat, Marshall Jones an anti-Choice/pro-NRA Blue Dog type, came in first and state Rep. Mike Johnson (R) came in second and they're facing off today. But don't get too carried away. There were 5 Republicans in the primary splitting the vote and just one Democrat. Jones wound up with 80,593 votes (28.18%) to Johnson's 70,580 (24.68%). There were nearly 130,000 other Republican votes in the primary so... The last poll shows a landslide for Johnson-- 67.04% to 29.73%.

So, when I say 25 freshmen Democrats and 27 Republican freshmen, you'll take my word for it? Now let's look at who they are-- not the Republicans. Every one of them is a less-than-worthless pile of crap, indistinguishable in any way important from all the other piles of crap. Unfortunately, many of the Democrats are as well. Of the 25 Democrats 13 have joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus:

• Ro Khanna (CA-17)
• Nanette Barragán (CA-44)
• Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE-AL)
• Val Demings (FL-10)
• Anthony Brown (MD-04)
• Jamie Raskin (MD-08)
• Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01)
• Ruben Kihuen (NV-04)
• Vicente González (TX-15)
• Pramila Jayapal (WA-07)
• Dwight Evans (PA-02)
• Adriano Espaillat (NY-13)
• Donald McEachin (VA-04)

The more secretive Blue Dogs and New Dems-- the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- haven't published the lists of their new members yet but the candidates who they endorsed and supported include these:

• Tom O'Halleran (AZ-01)
• Salud Carbajal (CA-24)
• Lou Correa (CA-46)
• Stephanie Murphy (FL-07)
• Darren Soto (FL-09)
• Val Demings (FL-10)
• Charlie Crist (FL-13)
• Brad Schneider (IL-10)
• Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05)

Other freshmen who haven't joined any of the caucuses yet are Jimmy Panetta (CA-20), Al Lawson (FL-05), Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL-08), Jackie Rosen (NV-03), and Tom Suozzi (NY-03). It's worth mentioning that of the freshmen Democrats, the only ones who were pushed and financed by the DCCC were Tom O'Halleran, Salud Carbajal, Stephanie Murphy, Val Demings, Charlie Crist, Brad Schneider, Jacky Rosen, Ruben Gallego, and Josh Gottheimer-- basically, with the exception of Kihuen-- all conservatives and not a very inspiring bunch.