By TOM KELLY
Editor and Publisher

The smoke has begun to settle from the uproar over the surprise decision last month by Fifth District Congressman Rodney Alexander of Quitman, Jackson Parish, Louisiana to seek reelection as a Republican, rather than under the Democrat party banner where he won his first two-year term in 2002. Whether the last-minute switch by Alexander was politically astute, or a disloyal last-minute trick with questionable consequences, depends upon your viewpoint, as well as your party preference.

Alexander had already filed his candidacy for reelection as a Democrat, after acknowledging four months earlier that he had considered, and then decided against, switching parties. Then on Friday, August 6, the filing deadline date, he changed his voter registration to Republican at the Jackson Parish Court House in Jonesboro, and drove to Baton Rouge to re-qualify as a Republican candidate, as the clock ticked down minutes before the 5 p.m. closing time at the office of Secretary of State Fox McKeithen.

The Congressman's earlier announced decision to remain with the Democrat party had made it unlikely that any major Democrat would enter the race, since Alexander has maintained high visibility within the District at community meetings and political events, and has kept friendly contact with local governmental agencies and political action groups in support of popular local and regional development projects. As an apparently popular Democrat Congressman with conservative "Blue Dog" credentials, Alexander held off opposition from Democrats with wide name recognition, and reduced the Republican opposition to only one candidate with a credible chance of making a strong race. On the surface that appeared to be a strategy for a cake-walk victory.

Now that strategy is stood on its head, and Alexander may - or may not - have put his secure position in question by making the eleventh-hour switch. The state Democrat party hierarchy, including the popular retiring Senator John Breaux, Senator Mary Landrieu, and others immediately disowned Alexander with a vengeance, using terms like "confused politician," "coward," and "disloyal" to express their chagrin. Republicans, including President George Bush, and the Louisana GOP organization quickly welcomed Alexander into their party, and count on the power of incumbency, plus his own and the Republican President's popularity to secure his reelection. Perhaps. In spite of the switch with angered some and confused others, Alexander retains his basic popularity across party lines, including strong support from many in the forest industry which applauds the national Republican party programs affecting national forests, and other issues.

However, this election is not your usual horse race. The national presidency is one of the most closely contested in American history, with residual resentment by Democrats over the election of 2000, disagreements about the national economy, federal budget deficits, tax policy, health care, and conduct of the Iraq war contributing to unusually scorched-earth campaigns by both national parties. Democrats yearn to win back control of one or both houses of the U.S. Congress, and Republicans are equally determined to hold or even expand their now thin majorities in the U.S. House and Senate.

The battle over Congressional seats in Louisiana - both House and Senate - is a tooth-and-nail fight between the parties, with Republicans smelling the prospect of victory in enough races to turn the 5-4 Democrat edge in the State's Congressional delegation to a tie, even a minority.

Both Louisiana's U.S. Senators are currently Democrats, and the House delegation is 4-3 Republican, with Alexander counted as one of the Democrats. With no other changes coming out of the November 2 election, Alexander's move would shift the Louisiana House delegation to 5-2 Republican.

So, loss of the Fifth District by a switch in party by a popular incumbent is especially galling to the Democrat side, already facing serious challenges in other areas of the State, including the first prospective Republican U.S. Senator in modern history.

Alexander served in the Louisiana Legislature for eight years as a Democrat.

As a Democrat, Alexander won the race to fill the Fifth Congressional District seat held for six years by Monroe physician Dr. John Cooksey, a popular Republican who gave up his secure seat for an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate. In that race, New Orleans Democrat Mary Landrieu was reelected for a second six-year term by 52-48% in a runoff with New Orleans Republican Suzanne Haik Terrell, after leading a nine-candidate field in the primary with 46% of 1,246,333 votes cast.

In a campaign in which three Republican candidates ran hard-fought races loaded with bitter inter- and intra-party attacks, then-Democrat Alexander won by only 974 votes in a 172,462-vote runoff against Lee Fletcher of Monroe, who led a strong field of three Republicans in the 2002 primary.

So, given the dynamics of the presidential national campaign, the national and statewide Congressional fist-fight, and the dilemma of personal and party loyalties within the Fifth Congressional District itself, how may the race play out with Rodney Alexander as a Republican instead of Democrat?

The Fifth District, which for years was one of eight Congressional Districts in Louisiana, is now one of seven, as the State's population declined in relationship to the nation, and the District declined in relation to the State. While still viewed as a conservative leaning area in the Northeast Louisiana region which originally was its bailiwick, the Fifth District has been stretched out to include all or part of 22 parishes, extending all the way down to Iberville west of the Mississippi River and south of Baton Rouge, and including much of what was the old Eighth District in Winn, Rapides, and Avoyelles, which were more liberal Longite areas politically.

(It was in Iberville that the lawsuit was filed seeking to upset Alexander's Republican filing. Separate story.)

In the 2002 primary when Alexander ran as a Democrat, he polled 29% of the vote, and carried Concordia, East Carroll, his home parish of Jackson, neighboring Lincoln, Madison, Morehouse, Pointe Coupee, Richland, Tensas, and Winn.

Republican Lee Fletcher, a Monroe resident and former staff member of then-Congressman John Cooksey, won 25%, carrying Caldwell, Franklin, Ouachita, Union, and West Carroll.

Republican Clyde Holloway with 23% carried Allen, Avoyelles, Catahoula, Evangeline, Iberville, LaSalle, and Rapides.

The District has few common denominators except agriculture and forestry, which are present in most of the rural parishes. The major population centers of Alexandria and Monroe share interests common to both, but are occasional competitors for new business and industry. The extreme southern end of the District is nearer to the State Capitol in Baton Rouge than to the cotton fields and forests of northeast and central Louisiana, and closer to the Mississippi and Atrchafalaya Rivers than the Red and Ouachita. No single print, radio, or television outlet reaches the entire District. Moreso, probably, than any other of Louisiana's Congressional Districts, a candidate faces almost the entire range of populations and local issues present in the State as a whole

A rule attributed to the late Massachusetts Democrat, House Speaker Tip O'Neill, says, "All politics is local." Acquaintances and friends of ours who have been among both the "Ins," and the "Outs" at various times in several levels of public service, have said in a number of ways also that "Most politics is personal." To affirm that, one need look no further than the recent public and widely quoted exchanges between Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy and Vice President Dick Cheney - details of which we will not repeat here. Or, to the national media frenzy over whether Democrat nominee John Kerry did or did not legitimately earn the medals he brought home from his tour in Viet Nam during the early 1970s. Or whether President George Bush did or did not fulfill his obligations as a member of the air National Guard during the same Viet Nam period.

So, not only local and parochial issues, but the spillover of the national campaign, will influence voting decisions in this Congressional election in Louisiana and the Fifth District. Issues will count, but also personalities. Voters who reasonably say, "I vote for the candidate, not the party," will not face the dilemma of those to whom party matters.

Whether Rodney Alexander's last-minute decision to switch parties will create lasting animosity with voters of either party who otherwise favor him, remains to be seen. Whether long-time Republican Jock Scott can rally the old-line Republicans and enough conservative Democrats to be competitive is a question. If national interests in a Democratic Congress rally around political newcomer Zelma Blakes to make a strong party effort, she could be a factor. And if qualifying is reopened to bring in more candidates, as the Iberville Parish judge ordered, anything is possible. In any event, the campaign has attracted national attention already, and is sure to be interesting, if not unique.

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