Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Landrieu used to know how to get the busses out and get people in New Orleans moving

The Baton Rouge Advocate, November, 1996:

NEW ORLEANS - Red beans, parades and a thousand people all were part of the push that got nearly 186,000 voters to New Orleans polls on Election Day and gave Democrat Mary Landrieu a U.S. Senate victory.

Republican Louis "Woody" Jenkins has refused to concede defeat to Landrieu, who had an unofficial 5,899-vote lead after voting machines were opened Friday. The statewide tally released by the secretary of state on Friday was Landrieu 853,076, Jenkins 847,177, the closest Senate election in Louisiana history. Campaign manager Tony Perkins said volunteers will be working all weekend, checking out hundreds of complaints - especially in New Orleans, where Landrieu led Jenkins 143,050 to 42,653.

Bob Tucker, a businessman and close advisor to New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, said it was Morial's get-out-the-vote teams that won the day for Landrieu, President Clinton and Orleans Parish Leader Harry Connick. "All elections begin and end in the streets on election day. That's where the Clinton, Landrieu and Connick team won Tuesday," Tucker said.

For instance, when the management team got word at 3:15 p.m. Tuesday that a GOP tracking poll showed Jenkins ahead, it was time for an instant parade. "Within 45 minutes, we arranged a motorcade," Tucker said. "We found Mary and Marc, got school buses for workers and sound trucks with music and put on a parade to flush out our voters." Landrieu and Morial waved from campaign manager Norma Jane Sabiston's convertible.

"We moved them into the major housing project areas blowing horns and playing New Orleans music," Tucker said. "We were doing what we do best in New Orleans, having a parade." There were more parades in key areas during "surge time" - late afternoon and evening, when people get off work.

Tucker's teams tracked the turnout all day in target precincts. If the vote was slow compared to past elections, some of the 1,000 street workers were sent there to knock on doors and ask people to vote. A phone bank worked all day, asking voters to go to the polls.

The street workers were divided into two groups of 500 -one for the morning, and one for the afternoon. Those were split into four groups: One to work polling places; one to wave signs at intersections; one to go door-to-door; and one to go to shopping centers and employment centers.

Hat tip FreeRepublic.com.