Louisiana Representative Ernest D. Wooton recently changed his voter registration from “Republican” to “independent”, and he also filed to run for U.S. Senate as an independent candidate. Wooton has been in the legislature since 1999, and he will continue to be in the legislature through 2011, assuming he doesn’t resign or die. He represents Plaquemines Parish, in the extreme southeast corner of the state. He was also Sheriff of Plaquemines Parish 1984-1992.
The Reform Party also has a candidate in the U.S. Senate race. He is William McShan of Leesville. Louisiana has five qualified parties: Democratic, Green, Libertarian, Reform, and Republican. Incumbent U.S. Senator David Vitter, a Republican, is running for re-election. There are eight independent candidates. Thanks to Gene Berkman for the news about Wooton. UPDATE: there is a contested primary for the Libertarian Party U.S. Senate nomination, between Anthony Gentile and Randall Hayes. Thanks to Hayes for this information. This is the first minor party primary in Louisiana since at least the 1910’s decade. The Progressive Party was strong in Louisiana in the 1910’s and it may have had its own primary in either 1914 or 1916. There definitely has been no contested minor party primary in Louisiana since then. In Louisiana, when only one person files for office in any party’s primary for all offices, the state does not hold a primary for that party.
Louisiana has always had interesting and colorful politics. It is interesting – and baffling – of the fact the Progressive Party was strong in Louisiana in the 1910 era, when this party – even with Teddy Roosevelt as it’s candidate for president in 1912 – was not very strong in most southern states. In Louisiana in 1912, Roosevelt received under 12 percent of the total vote. Does anyone have some historical insights as to why the Progressive Party “caught on” in Louisiana state policitcs, but in not the other southern states?
Louisiana is demographically quite different from most southern states due to the large number of catholic voters in the southern part of the state and New Orleans. You could quite easily divide Louisiana into three distinct areas. North Louisiana (geographically speaking you could almost draw a straight line from the right angle where the boot starts to the Texas line) is predominantly white, anglo-saxon protestant and similar to a typical southern state. The Florida Parishes (those parishes bordering Mississippi on the above New Orleans) which is again, predominantly white anglo-saxon protestant. And the Southern part of the State and New Orleans with a distinct Cajun/Creole/Catholic bent. While the WASP areas of the state followed the rest of the South in leaving the Democratic Party, the southern part has been more hesitant and still maintains an, at least lukewarm. allegiance to the Democrats although it much more common to see Republicans running well in these areas now than it was a decade ago. One major reason for this has been the so-called “values”issues such as gay marriage and abortion. The Progressives were able to run well here because these “values” didn’t exist at the time and the party appealed to the liberal elements of the Cajun/Creole/Catholic ideology.
Great question by Alabama Independent (#1).
Although Louisiana Bull Moose leader John M. Parker, the vice-presidential nominee on the headless Progressive ticket in 1916 and the party’s candidate for governor earlier that year — polling 37.2 percent of the vote against his Democratic opponent — was a close personal friend of Teddy Roosevelt, the party’s success in the Bayou State was more the result of growing antipathy toward the Wilson Administration than any other factor.
Financed by wealthy sugar planters, the Louisiana Democrats who bolted to the Progressive Party were bitterly upset by the Underwood Tariff, which sharply reduced the duty on sugar. They were also miffed by the fact that New Orleans had been passed over by the cities of Atlanta and Dallas as a site for a Federal Reserve Bank.
As a result, thirteen Democratic members of the Louisiana legislature defected to the Progressive Party in 1914, as did the entire Democratic executive committee in the state’s 3rd congressional district — a district that elected Whitmell P. Martin, a chemist-turned-lawyer, to Congress on the Progressive ticket against Democratic opposition that year and again in 1916.
Remarkably, the Progressives, while petering out almost everywhere else in the country, held five state Senate seats and claimed a dozen state House members in Louisiana in 1916, the year Roosevelt let the Bull Moose Party die a quiet death.
As part of the “Solid South,” Louisiana Democrats, of course, couldn’t stomach the idea of joining the GOP. T.R.’s Progressive Party provided the perfect vehicle for their mini rebellion against their national party.
Parker, a longtime foe of the Ku Klux Klan and fiery reformer who long headed Louisiana’s Good Government League, was elected governor as a Democrat in 1920, shortly after returning to the fold.
Three cheers for Rep. Ernest D. Wooton! It is always so nice when any person demonstrates the political courage and intelligence necessary to leave the Republican Party. I wish this man lots of luck and good fortune.
To Gale Luquette. Thanks for the enlightment as to why the Progressive Party did well in 1910. But why did that party – or some successor party with liberal ideas not remain to appeal to those Cajun?Creole/Catholic liberal voters? Or have I already answered my own question with the realization that by the 1912-1916 era the Democratic Party in the South was becoming more “progressive?”
Phil Sawyer. One can leave the GOP and still remain philosophically a “secular conservative.” I attempted to learn if Mr. Wooton has a website up. He does, but it is only his official page to the Louisiana Legislature website. Doesn’t give any specifics of where he stands philosophically.
If Mr. Wooten is a genuine “Christian conservative” – or better yet a “Christian patriot” – then I too will wish him well. While he obviously is popular in Plaquemines Parish, does he have the name-recognition and funds to become a household word in Louisiana? You can be sure the “secular conservatives” and “country club” Republicans will do all they can to re-elect Vitter. Still, it always encouraging when someone runs Independent – even if I’m dissappointed in their political viewpoints.
It does not matter to me if the person (leaving the Republican Party) is liberal, moderate, or conservative. As long as the person gets out of the GOP, it is a blessed event and one more victory for the eventual enlightenment of the whole human race!
Phil Sawyer. I will agree with your comment, “As long as the person gets out of the GOP,it is a blessed event and one more victory for the eventual enlightment of the whole human race,” provided that you will agree with my comment, “As long as the person gets out of the Democratic Party, it is a blessed event and one more victory for the eventual enlightment of the whole human race.” Do we have a deal?
No, thank you. Currently, I am registered to vote with the Democratic Party myself. The two largest parties in our country are not the same at all. Any person who is still a member of the Republican Party, after the eight years of the Bush-Cheney Administration, should be ashamed of himself or herself.
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Hayes is a former Constitution Party member, but has always identified as “libertarian”. Gentile formerly ran for office as an Independent (congress and governor) and called himself an “independent conservative”.
#9 Shouldn’t the Democrats who spent eight years enabling Bush and Cheney be ashamed of themselves?
Tom Yager (#12): Your question is excellent and your implication is correct: There was too much enabling taking place during those years.
That sort of failure of judgement should not distract us, however, from holding members of the Republican Party especially responsible for what their Party did to the country and the rest of the world. One can not simply say that he or she did not agree with the Bush-Cheney policies (not that many members of the GOP would even do that) and still honestly remain a Republican out of inertia. There is a moral evil in there somewhere, I believe.
Darcy G.Richardson. I apologize for not catching your post earlier. Thanks for the depth of history regarding the Progressive Party in Louisiana. Very interesting.
I understand why the Populist party never caught on in the South. The Democratic “Redeemers” appealed to the racism of many poor white farmers who had flirted with the Populist party in the late 1890’s and convinced them they must “unite” with all White men in the Democratic Party or else the Blacks would overtake them economically and politically. It worked.
Do you think the same thing happened with the Progressive Party in the South? I have never understood – unless it was a case of the voters getting their political satisfaction via the Democratic Primary -that some Southerners were content in voting Democratic decade after decade from about 1900 to the 1950’s.
This is one question which has baffled me for decades.
“An Alabama Independent” (#14): The Democratic Party was dominant in the South for so long because the Republican Party was essentially a northern party when it was created. It was mainly because of President Richard Nixon’s “southern strategy” (pulling the George Wallace voters into the GOP) that the Republican Party finally started to make serious inroads into the South. If you combine the total of Nixon’s vote in 1968 with that of the Wallace vote, the Democratic Party was beaten pretty badly.
Phil Sawyer. You still don’t get my point. Yes, the Republican Party was considered a “northern” party. But surely there were some Southerners between 1900 and the 1950’s who did not agree with the establishment Democratic Party – despite the Democratic Primary which gave every political stripe an opportunity to participate.
But then again, I’m sure many Southern voters were not politically “sophisticated” enough to utilize the General Election process. “The results of the ‘Primary’was good enough for most gallus-wearing, tobacco spitting, whiskey swigging southern Democrats.”
The old southern State regimes at least had top 2 runoff primaries — so that the more lunatic Donkey racists could be defeated once in a while.
Still about 8 southern States with top 2 runoff primaries ???