Anyone interested in seeing the Republican game plan for 2007 unveiled should keep their eye on the special election in House District 94 where Democrat Deborah Langhoff has emerged as a threat to win the seat.

Langhoff, who has won endorsements from the Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO and the New Orleans Coalition, has been warned in recent days that she is about to become the subject of a smear campaign. How did she learn of this? From Republicans (including at least one candidate) who wanted her to know that they "had nothing to do" with what is, allegedly about to happen.

Element One of the 2007 GOP Game Plan: Crank Up the Slime Machine! No doubt money from the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority is not far removed from this effort.

I'm writing to seek your help in electing a great Democrat to a seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives.

Deborah Langhoff is a long-time Democratic activist who has worked in various local, state and national campaigns in New Orleans over the past decade -- including Howard Dean's, John Kerry's, Mitch Landrieu's and Karen Carter's. Since Katrina, Deborah has been a leading citizens' voice for a recovery process that is fair and accessible to all citizens of the city.

The seat she is seeking was vacated by the incumbent (a 32-year Republican veteran of the Louisiana House) in the hope of handing the seat off to his son via a low-turnout, special election.

The Baton Rouge Advocate reported today that a coalition of national corrupt Republicans, local corrupt Republicans and just rank opportunists have joined together to fund a new venture to win Republican control of the Louisiana Legislature in this year's statewide elections.

Among the participants: Bob "Swiftboat" Perry of Texas, the Bollinger Shipyard folks (Yep, the Bush Pioneer/Coast Guard rip-off artists themselves!), New Orleans recovery land-grabber Joe Cannizaro and others.

Here's the link to The Advocate story:
http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/5006971 .html

There are Democrats down here who are going to fight. We have the time, energy and people to do so. More after the break.

The lawyers are swapping paper in state and federal courts in and around Shreveport in Democrat Patti Cox's attempt to have Republican Jim McCrery (the man scheduled to be the ranking member of the House Ways & Means Committee) disqualified from office.

Cox has provided me copies of the various court filings.

In a phone conversation on Tuesday, she said she is getting no help from the party on any level (local, state or national) in her effort to get McCrery's apparent victory overturned based on the fact that the incumbent Republican has not lived in the district since 2004.

McCrery had the case transferred to federal court and is seeking a dismissal of the suit there and in the state court where it was originally filed. More after the jump.

Louisiana Republican Congressman Jim McCrery has asked a federal judge in Shreveport to dismiss the lawsuit challenging his residency in the district at the time he filed to run for re-election.

Democratic challenger Patti Cox of Shreveport filed suit in state court after the November 7 primary election charging that residency information McCrery listed in his qualifying papers filed with the Louisiana Secretary of State office were inaccurate. Cox charged that McCrery was not a resident of the district when he filed to run for re-election, having sold his home in Shreveport. McCrery apparently listed his district Congressional office in Shreveport as his residence.

The Shreveport Times reports in its Tuesday edition that McCrery filed papers with the U.S. District Court Clerk in Shreveport seeking to have Cox's suit dismissed. More after the break.

There's an outside chance that Republicans could lose a House seat in Louisiana due to a residency issue involving incumbent James McCrery, who had been in line to grab a committee chaimanship had the Democrats not won control of the House of Representatives.

McCrery, who has ties to the Abramoff scandal, won re-election with just 57 percent of the vote over two Democrats and another Republican. One of the Democrats, Patti Cox, filed suit in a Louisiana state court challenging whether McCrery provided accurate residency information in the papers he filed with the Louisiana Secretary of State when he qualified to seek re-election.

Cox's suit charges that McCrery listed the address of a home he had already sold as his in-district address when he qualified to run. The state court judge bumped the case over to federal court. More after the jump.