Quote Originally Posted by Lemur
... What nobody's answering, though, is how on earth did this happen? I mean, what the heck were the voters thinking?
10-page local background story from the Times-Picyune.

Basically, he reliably brings home the pork, since the early 70's. In a system awash with patronage and nepotism, all he had to do was call in his "markers"; coupled with the fact that only 20% of voters bothered to show up at the polls = so-called "landslide".