The Gret Stet Goober race has been a helluva ride. I’ll take it over a fucking roller coaster any day. I’ve never understood the appeal of going really fast then puking at the end. Now that I think of it, that described the condition of many Louisiana Democrats yesterday. There was a whiff of panic in the air because of Vitter’s decision to run against the non-existent Syrian refugee menace. I was downright jittery myself after losing so many Gret Stetwide elections in recent years even though there was a strong reply ad from GumboPac.
When you have a bad case of political jitters, who you gonna call? Not Ghostbusters, but Deep Blog. I considered sending out smoke signals but that might upset Oscar and Della. Instead, I reached into my bag of Watergate analogies. You may recall that Woodward signaled Deep Throat with a potted plant on his balcony. I signal Deep Blog by mentioning his name on the Tweeter Tube. Then, as if by magic, I got a text with a link:
Actually, the link was to the movie version of Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead, but the Ella Fitzgerald/Billy May version swings more. If we’re going to celebrate, why not do it big?
It turns out that Deep Blog, who has been expecting a Vitter surge, was the soul of optimism about the Goober race. Why? He’d seen a reliable private tracking poll showing Edwards with a 10 point lead. Additionally, that pollster believes that early voting for JBE was so strong that he may have this in the bag. I’m not as optimistic as that: I think 55-45 is the best it’s likely to get, if our voters turn out in waves tomorrow. I’ll have my more restrained call later in the post, but it looks as if I might be writing Bitter Vitter’s political obituary this weekend. I’ll take a narrower split as long as Vitter loses. But a complete defenestration of Diaper Dave would be more fun than pillaging Aqaba with Lawrence of Arabia.
One reason for my concern has been the deluge of political ads we’ve been subjected to in the New Orleans market. The pro-Vitter ones are increasingly ugly and packed with lies about Syrian refugees flooding the state. 14 ain’t much of a flood. Here’s a teevee ad from a PAC tying Diaper Dave to Gov PBJ:
As my regular readers know, I hate relying on polls as the basis of my analysis. But we seem to have gotten to the point where the die has been cast; as you can see from this tweet by Andrew Tuozzolo:
Here's my #LaGov polling trendline + dataset including new @WinWithJMC poll: https://t.co/HkVkSAJwoy pic.twitter.com/LrwB0QBgqu
— Andrew Tuozzolo (@ATuozzolo) November 20, 2015
Andrew is a political professional as well as a self-described “armchair poll QB.” He’s been crunching the numbers throughout the campaign and I respect his analysis. Here’s my reading of the situation: Vittter is gaining but a week of xenophobic “terrorist” baiting is not enough to change the dynamics of this campaign. The voters have Jindal fatigue and seem sick and tired of being sick and tired of Diaper Dave’s baggage as well. I have an admission to make at this point: I thought the hooker issue would not work and would backfire to Diaper Dave’s benefit. I was wrong and Lamar was right. There, I said it.
Speaking of Andrew the T, he’s conducting a Goober election results pool. I received an honorable mention in the primary pool. We’re asked to pick vote totals for the candidates as well as a turnout guesstimate. The prize is bragging rights and y’all know what a braggart I am: TOP OF THE WORLD, MA. BOOM. Here’s my entry, Edwards 52 Vitter 48. Turnout 43%. Here’s hoping I’m right. If Diaper Dave wins he’ll be pissed and we’ll be in a world of hurt. He’ll fling dirty diapers at us like an adolescent zoo chimp. Splat.
Finally, the post title. I realize I’m posting this while the sun is still out but The Night Before is one of my favorite mid-period Beatle songs. The title has NOTHING to do with the brand new bro-comedy of the same name. I have standards and while they’re low ones, I’m not big on slapsticky bro-fests featuring dudes in ugly holiday sweaters. I would never invite those bozos to a Gooberpalooza shebang: they’d get drunk and burn the joint down. And now without further ado, the Fab Four get the last word: