With all the focus on the Dem takeover of the Virginia Senate last week, there's been far less attention to the danger that the GOP will pick up a chamber in post-Katrina Louisiana in next Saturday's runoffs. Now, even a lot of Lousiana Dems are pretty conservative, but there's at least one race that the netroots types should be watching, right in the heart of New Orleans itself.

Community activist Deborah Langhoff (D) faces off against one-session incumbent Nick Lorusso (R). Lorusso was elected in a March 2007 special election runoff, after winning only 89 more votes than Langhoff in the hastily-called special primary. I actually met Deborah when I spoke at a grassroots Louisiana conference last Spring and she was everything you'd want in a progressive candidate.

When I visited, Deborah gave me a personal tour of New Orleans, far beyond the French Quarter to the blocks after blocks of empty houses in not only the Ninth Ward but other parts of the city, a few FEMA trailers highlighting the few souls trying to homestead their devastated blocks. She was obviously passionate about fighting to reclaim her home city and had built her own support through her wide-ranging community work, most importantly during post-Katrina reconstruction.

Langhoff is highlighting her opponent's close ties with the insurance industry (including representing adjustors in several cases against Katrina victims), so it would be nice to have a New Orleans representative there on behalf of the residents, not the insurance companies.

Check out her website to see an example of how progressive candidates are working to hold on in Louisiana, from insurance relief to advocating expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit to arguing for municipal broadband services to replace the devasted infrastructure. And if you can give her some help, that's obviously all to the good as well.