Katrina, Karl Rove, Racism, Republicans

What's the connection between the Bush Administration's disengaged or incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina and Louisiana's Treasurer switching his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican?

As Sojourner wrote in the comments:

Landrieu's voter base (New Orleans) has been shattered due to Katrina, and Bush's failure to carry through on his promises.

All you really need to know is that:

Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effort ...

So the Rove recruit, John Kennedy (painful to use that name here) flips parties in preparation for a Senate run against Mary Landrieu.

What did Karl Rove see? The chance to isolate the poor, especially blacks who were bedrock Democratic voters. What was the result? Poor blacks streaming out of a disaster zone.

What do we see now? Thousands of those poor have not been able to return. If they're anywhere it's stranded in FEMA refugee camps in Texas. No threat of their voting there, huh Karl?

It goes all the way back to Richard Nixon and the Southern strategy. Ugly ugly stuff.