Joubert chats with New York Times about Louisiana politics, campaigns

Former Eunice mayor Curtis Joubert was part of a New York Times report Thursday on evolving politics in Louisiana. The newspaper’s website also includes a video interview with Joubert.
“Even as the economics changed, Louisiana’s politics remained unusual: The state was alone in the Deep South in voting twice for Bill Clinton and is now the only one of the five Deep South states with a Democrat in the Senate.
“This distinctiveness endures in part because the state has three broad categories of voters – not two, as in most other Southern states. White Protestants have mostly been reliable conservatives in northern Louisiana. An engaged black electorate in New Orleans and elsewhere forms a Democratic counterweight.
“The white Catholic voters spread across southern Louisiana, many of whom identify themselves as Cajun, make up the third, and often electorally decisive, group.
“This bloc resists ideological labeling. Cajuns are traditional and conservative but, in part because of the history of discrimination against the Cajun culture in Louisiana, can also be receptive to appeals about obligations to the poor and a little more forgiving on matters of personal virtue.
“Furthermore, said J. Curtis Joubert, 83, a former mayor of the Cajun town of Eunice, they knew how to enjoy a good election.
“‘When chickens started hearing the sound trucks roll into town, they’d hide under the houses because they knew the barbecues were going to be starting up,”’ Mr. Joubert recalled. “The chickens don’t run and hide anymore. They’re all inside watching television.”
Read the entire story, view video at newyorktimes.com