Stop claiming its racism or because the state is "deep south." The reason is simple, and most likely similar to why this happens in many states, lack of education and poverty.
Its not racism, the people here are less racist than in other southern states. Due to the fact that our population has such a diverse range of cultures in the southeastern louisiana region, having been migrated to by Vietnamese, Jamaicans, Africans, and Europeans - this is what creatd the culture of New Orleans, to say we are racist is silly - take a walk through New Orleans and see the diverse culture.
In regards to politics...The current Governor is the first Indian elected Governor in the country. And during the War on Terroism no doubt. And he is a REPUBLICAN and Louisianas first non-white governor, the times they are a changin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Jindal
Redshoe, while I understand your question, the fact is this issue goes much deeper than just politics. Youd have to understand the civil war, the way this area was under its own holocaust type of period during the Great Expulsion of the French (my people, my family, forced to stop speaking language, killed, placed on boats with no food to cross ocean etc...) and the class division that would persist afterwards and still today.
I am from here and I would say its mostly because the majority wont vote and those that do are the die hard republicans. Now of course there are Dems here, it just also happens to be the Catholic bible belt, and a stronghold of religious nuts.
However, don't overlook the fact that in regards to Presidential elections, the people's vote doesn't matter, and nowhere is that fact more true than in a state like Louisiana, why?
Simple: because Louisiana electoral college is free from being forced to vote for their party when it comes to Pres. Some states they are, but in Louisiana electoral college is not bound to vote one direction because of their party affiliation. So you have Dems who vote for Republicans due to lobby efforts and money.
So what you have here is people like Ray Nagin and Mary Landrieu who are "democrats" but the fact of the matter is they are tied to the Big Oil and other things that coincedentally put them in a circle of friends that remains Republican influenced.
The most important fact regarding who gets elected down here is the money influence and nothing else. Ray Nagin worked for Shell and Cox Cable so big oil and big marketing, Mary Landriue is family tied to Big Oil and considering Barack is against Offshore drilling, we can see how our Democratic Electoral college will vote.
You tie it all together and what do you get?
I couldve just said "because its the south" but that would place me in the uneducated category along with those who actually think we have a say in this upcoming election. If "we" did, Gore would've been president.