Swing State Swing: Louisiana

We asked our chief political writer, David Paul Kuhn, to get in a car and drive from Portland, Maine to Portland, Ore., via all the Battleground States – those states expected to be the most hotly contested in the presidential election. Armed with a pen, laptop, camera and plenty of No Doz, Kuhn is sending back dispatches that will offer impressions and snapshots of a country making up its mind.

LOUISIANA

Lake Providence

The house by the lake is all the providence Wayne Nolan seeks. The veteran hopes to retire here. He has a Jacuzzi inside. Standing on the wooden pier behind his home, Wayne tosses fish food into the water. As catfish and bass sputter up, he looks down and says that sometimes things are just the way they are. President Bush's reality, the choices he made in wartime, are the problems that come with hard times.

Wayne is voting for President Bush. The 44-year old, like his president, sees no need to mince words: Mr. Bush "has just done what he had to do," he says.

Louisiana went for George W. Bush in 2000. And analysts say he must win it again. Wayne thinks Bush will win; he certainly hopes he does.

But John Kerry is fighting hard here. (His vice presidential nominee, John Edwards, was in Louisiana rallying the faithful on Thursday.) This is a state where 22 of 24 governors in the last century were Democrats. Times have changed, though. It comes down to turnout: a huge turnout favors Democrats; a normal one helps Republicans.

Wayne picks up some buckets, his thick arms befitting his job as a pipe-fitter at Northrop Grumman. He works at the plant 25 miles south of the lake, where he lives, and where he takes disabled veterans fishing.

He can't stand people who "put [Bush] down for what he's done… but if he had done nothing, they'd put him down worse."
Wayne says that as commander-in-chief, the president "did what he had to do."

Standing before tall, gray-steel grain silos, Tammy Skipper strikes a golf ball and watches its short flight.

"I'm still looking, watching and hearing what they are talking about," she says, her short-dark frame silhouetted by the setting sun. "I'm a Democrat. I'm with the Democratic Party." But she's undecided who will get her vote.

Tammy is concerned about "health care, education, prescription drugs… I was having to pay for my medicine. But now I'm on a program. They just passed a plan that helps you pay for your medicine, that helps a lot."

She has a nervous-system condition that makes her feel older than her 40 years. Prescription drug coverage "may" entice her to vote for Bush. His plan pays for most of her medication. For what pills can't do, there's golf.

"Dealing with this disease, the stress and stuff, golfing helps," she says as the local marching band practices on the grounds across the street, horn blowers and drummers preparing for football season.

New Orleans is the wild, rebellious, seedy child of America. That's what brought Lawrence Smith here. In his fuchsia pin-strip suit, with matching silk shirt, he says, "I'm a Democrat."

Why? "Because when the Democrats get in office it seems like jobs open up for people and everything else," says the old bouncer and doorman, as a band plays some loud blues at the bar. "But when you got a Republican in office, everything tightens up for some reason."

It isn't easy to be 57 and living in this city, where youth rules and America comes to escape normalcy.

"People come here to listen to blues and jazz. They come to eat their Creole and Cajun food," he says. "People enjoy themselves, and that's what it's about."

That's what keeps Lawrence here.

Yomi Martin is relaxing at Zotz, a 24-hour New Orleans café. His arm on the white windowsill, he stares out at a street blanketed with sunlight.

Thin, black, with long dreads and a soft disposition, Yomi says he's voting for John Kerry, "mostly because I don't like Bush."

Louisiana has the second highest percentage of African Americans of any state in the nation, after Mississippi.

Why doesn't Yomi Martin like his president?

"A couple of things, going back to the debacle of how he was elected, what happened in Florida," he replies. He also mentions Enron, which he views as inseparable from President Bush.

And, Yomi adds, "I don't like that we went to war unnecessarily."

Pat "Mother Blues" Cohen is all woman; when she walks down the street, full-figured and pink-wigged, heads turn.

In a jeweled choker, the entertainer says, "I've gotta go Democrat because I feel it will work more for me. There are times when I need assistance. We all need assistance."

She thinks President Bush is "a nice enough man, but I don't think he knows what he's doing."

As for John Kerry: "I think he's a nice enough man also, but I'm wondering if he know what he's doing."

Sitting at the oyster bar at Bourbon House Seafood, manager Eric Bogren, 29, says he loves his city.

Eric's a Kerry man. He "likes his stance on social issues, his stance on the VA, making sure we've got money for our veterans."

White, clean-shaven and with a buzz cut, Eric says, "for the most part, President Bush has done an all right job."

But he's "not so sure about how fast we went into Iraq; Afghanistan I agree with. We just seem to have jumped into Iraq rather quickly."

Esteban Carter Jr., with a gray beard and a baseball cap, relaxes against a poll, taking a break from driving his taxi. Around his neck is a picture of his son Tristan, who's in Iraq.

"I'm worried about him," Esteban says. "That's my son and I love him dearly."

He says he has "mixed feelings" about Iraq. He's voting for Kerry, but he's not sure if this war was a war worth fighting.

He firmly believes, though, that the "draft should be reinstated. Let the senators know that our sons are just as important, how we feel about our kids, as they feel about theirs. Maybe they'll think about it a little bit more."

Doc Lewis plays his golden trumpet. It juts forward as he leans back before green shingles.

Asked whom he's supporting for president, he says, "It won't be Bush, hell no. Everybody already knows. I don't have to tell nobody why. Man, I can't stand Bush. I'm being honest with you."

Leonard Bosket picks his afro. The bathroom attendant at a hot and cheesy tourist bar, Leonard doesn't like President Bush because "he's starting wars over in the Middle East."

He says there are two things he's learned about people coming down to New Orleans: "One, people love to party and do crazy stuff. Two, no one washes their hands unless I ask them to."

Liz the stripper says she's voting Republican. She's cold to her customers. Yes, she flirts; yes, she strips. But, she explains, to live down here you have to be cold.

What she admires about President Bush is that he makes decisions.

"Sometimes you just have to know which guy is worth it," the tall brunette says.

"You can't talk to someone who ain't worth it. That's what I mean. Bush couldn't talk to those allies because they weren't worth it."

Café au Lait, daytime, and David Rubenstein is meeting his wife and daughter for lunch. He owns a men's clothing store. His daughter runs the female version, and she looks it, relaxed in tan linen.

David says of President Bush: "I like him a lot. I think he's not great on communicating, but I really don't like the Democratic position. I really don't know what they want to do. I still can't get any concrete ideas of what Kerry is going to do."

David says his father was "the oldest listed Republican" on the roster in Louisiana. His father believed Louisiana had to be something other than Democratic, otherwise "we get no response from the national government."

Wearing a crisp knotted tie and a crisper suit, he adds, "health insurance is out of control." He feels "it's a drain on the people who least afford it." And to David, only the Republicans can help the uninsured.

"It takes a businessman's approach to solve it," he says.

Jag is a shaman. In Jackson Square, telling fortunes is standard. With crystals and tarot cards and semi-precious stones that "date back to Native American graves," Jag, with his thin, groomed beard, thinks he knows the answer to the question he knows this reporter is going to ask.

"I've been known to make speculations and they do come true," says Jag, clad in a straw hat and sleeveless black leather vest. "I already have a good feeling on who's going to win."

He explains that a shaman's power "comes from nature itself." He says he will make a prediction, which he seldom does; shamans advise more often than they predict. But he's making an exception.

"I'm that sure that John Kerry will become the next president of the United States," he says.

By David Paul Kuhn