Centerfield

Huh. She was running on her Centrist record? Does anyone know anything about her?

Louisiana, and this race in particular, are sui generis. What the Republicans need to worry about is losing the North as they extend their control over the South.

Hmm, that just makes the score 3-1 instead of 3-0. Probably gives the Dems a li8ttle hope moreso than making the GOP nervous.

She's a native Cajun with twenty years of public service, including spending the last eight years as Lt. Governor, and she's a pro-life Catholic with six children. Not exactly a radical Dem fem leftist! Frankly, her record would look equally at home in the GOP centrist bloc, and if she had a GOP party affiliation instead of a Democrat one she'd have been reviled by the Dems as a "religious radical" for her pro-life stance. She's also Louisiana's first Catholic governor since 1888. (Note: Jindal is also a pro-life Catholic moderate. Neither candidate can be fairly described as "conservative.")

Given the backgrounds and relative electoral advantages of the two candidates, the amazing thing is that the young-puppy freshman Jindal was even in the race. I doubt the GOP is crying too much over the loss of a seat they never really expected to get. As a native semi-incumbent credentialed moderate seeking to advance, it should have been a "walk" for Blanco from the start. Instead she had to struggle uphill all the way to pull out a barely four-point spread. The national Dems may be breathing a sigh of relief that they didn't lose the governorship, but the closeness of the race in what should've been a "gimme" for the Dems is not cause for serious rejoicing on their part.

Well, she definitely sounds like someone the centrists, especially in Louisiana, would want to cultivate and support. I wish we had more like her in California...

Yeah... like that would happen.... *sigh*