Obama got only 3,500 less votes than Cazayoux

I've just added up the numbers (which are slightly off due to absentee counts not being by precinct, so in the split counties of Iberville, Ascension and Pointe Coupee, the numbers are slightly off) and Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in LA-6 (of course), with ~46,200 to her ~24,400

Don Cazayoux got 49,702

Obama actually got 3,500 more votes than Cazayoux in East Baton Rouge (37,179-33,634; where he got 70% of the vote versus Clinton); he only got 9,000 votes outside of East Baton Rouge, whereas Cazayoux, got 16,068.

East Baton Rouge [which contains the second-biggest city and capital of Louisiana, Baton Rouge] Parish is 45.7% black. The district as a whole is 35.5% black, and the district outside of East Baton Rouge is 18.6% black.

To recap (since apparently it's unclear):

1) Obama voters in Louisiana tended to overwhelmingly be black (crunching the exit poll numbers tells us that 75% of those voting for Obama were black.
2) In 45.7% black East Baton Rouge Parish, Barack Obama got 10% more votes in the Democratic primary than did Don Cazayoux in the 5/3/08 special election.
3) In 18.6% black non-East Baton Rouge parts of Louisiana's 6th district, Barack Obama got only a little more than half as many votes in the primary as Don Cazayoux did in the special election. In fact, Obama and Clinton combined got only a few more votes than did Cazayoux in non-East Baton Rouge LA-6.

Therefore, there is very strong evidence that black turnout tonight was pretty darn low, comparatively.

And yet they ran some strong ads attacking him for being too Obama-like, and he still won.

With Obama on the ticket black turnout in the general will be through the roof.

I guess that's good news for Obama not hurting down-ticket Democrats.

We'll see for certain on May 13th. If Travis Childers wins, Republicans may have to find a new tactic to use in their futile effort to win back the House.