Heading into a Senate election year, some Democratic elected officials hope to heal internal leadership divisions by getting state chairman Chris Whittington to step aside. Several political sources say Whittington has agreed to resign his office if Democrats can come up with a consensus candidate that can gain the support of the governing body, the Democratic State Central Committee. Whittington did not return two calls for comment. He and his allies successfully resisted an attempt in March to remove him from office with three years to go in his second elected term. Now some elected officials, who did not wish to be quoted, say Whittington has told a delegation of active party members that he is leaning toward stepping aside for the sake of unity on the eve of an election year.
—The decisive factor in Judge Marcus Clark’s victory over attorney Jimmy Faircloth in the Supreme Court election in northeast Louisiana was the high turnout in his home parish of Ouachita, due to a property tax proposition on the ballot to support development of the V-Vehicle car plant in Monroe. In a low turnout overall, Clark bested Faircloth, 53%-47%, or by 3,026 votes. The 19,575 votes cast in Ouachita made up 35% of the total electorate in the 20-parish district. Clark, from West Monroe, carried the parish by nearly 9,000 votes, while Faircloth, from Pineville, carried the other 19 parishes by almost 6,000. The 1.8-mill property tax to help fund the parish’s $15 million contribution to the state’s incentive package passed with 53% of the vote. It rivaled the highly negative Supreme Court race for voter interest.
—Those closely following the New Orleans mayor’s election see two primary races developing, among whites and among blacks. Business consultant Troy Henry announced this week, causing some handicappers to see him as the most serious competitor yet to state Sen. Ed Murray for primacy among black voters. Businessman John Georges, who will be the first white candidate to announce next week, is actively pursuing something he barely tried in the 2007 governor’s race: raising other people’s money. How well Georges he did at his well-attended fundraiser will be revealed in the next campaign finance report in early November, which will be a closely watched indicator of the money race.
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com.)
