Louisianians go to polls in 2 congressional races

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- A conservative Democrat who portrays himself as a tough-on-crime former prosecutor may spoil Republican hopes to keep a long-held Louisiana congressional seat.

Democratic state Rep. Don Cazayoux has run ahead in recent polls and raised twice as much money as Republican Woody Jenkins for Saturday's special election.

Jenkins, a 61-year-old Christian-right GOP candidate who spent 28 years in the state House, is seen as the candidate that Democrats finally can beat because of his political baggage and strident views. Despite his background, Republicans haven't abandoned Jenkins, and Gov. Bobby Jindal campaigned with him this week.

The 6th Congressional District covers the Old South plantation country around Baton Rouge and had been held by Republicans for 33 years.

Republican Richard Baker gave up the seat in January to take a job in hedge funds. Also running are independents Ashley Casey of Baton Rouge, Peter Aranyosi of Hammond and Randall Hayes of Winnfield.

Also on Saturday is a special election for the 1st Congressional District seat. Republicans are expected to hold the suburban New Orleans district easily.

In that race, state Sen. Steve Scalise, a 43-year-old computer systems engineer, faces Democrat college professor Gilda Reed and two independents, Anthony "Tony G" Gentile and R.A. "Skip" Galan.

Coming amid a presidential campaign, the Cazayoux-Jenkins race has attracted attention from Washington interest groups and the national parties.

Cazayoux, a 44-year-old small-town lawyer, has drawn the brunt of the attacks. He has sought to rebuff a campaign that brands him as a supporter of "big government" policies of Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"The overall message is that it's not so much tying him to a particular person, it's tying him to the overall big picture. People across the country are campaigning on solutions. Whose solution do we want? Nancy Pelosi's or the Republican Party's?" said Jason Dore, Jenkins' campaign manager.

But Jenkins' strident views on abortion and religion do not resonate with Republican voters in affluent parts of Baton Rouge, and he has a track record of losing elections, Bernie Pinsonat, a Baton Rouge-based pollster.

"If you're the Democrats, you've got the candidate you can beat," Pinsonat said. "If you can't beat Woody Jenkins, I don't know who you can beat."

Jenkins narrowly lost a bitter Senate race in 1996 to Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, and then was defeated in a 1999 race for state elections commissioner. And Jenkins' company, Great Oaks Broadcasting, has run into problems for not paying taxes on time.

Jenkins' biography also overlaps with polarizing figures such as Oliver North of the Iran-Contra scandal and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

In 2002, Jenkins was fined by the Federal Elections Commission for illegally concealing his purchase of a phone bank tied to Duke. In the 1980s, Jenkins was aligned with North through a charity he operated, Friends of the Americas, which sent medical supplies to Central America.

But Jenkins has run an adroit campaign that has sidestepped toxic issues such as the faltering economy, abysmal popularity ratings for President Bush and the Iraq war, said Roy Fletcher, a Baton Rouge political consultant.

Fletcher said Republicans "have made Cazayoux the issue instead of Jenkins."

"We've seen [Cazayoux linked to] Obama, Hillary, Bill Clinton, Pelosi, whatever," said Katie Nee, Cazayoux's campaign manager.

"At the end of the day, Louisiana is about Louisiana. Don is a conservative Democrat," Nee said. "He wants to work on both sides of the aisle." E-mail to a friend

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