Exposing Landrieu

The Bitter End

“ Mary Landrieu’s last stand. Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu is flailing in the political current. The three-term Democratic senator is a Hubert Humphrey liberal masked as a John Breaux left-centrist, submerged in a national party that’s now left of George McGovern, in a state where political winds are blowing starboard. And she’s anchored by weight of her own choosing. Landrieu didn’t have to ignore opinion polls and vote for Obamacare, but she did. She didn’t have to vote for radical Obama nominees like Debo Adegbile, pro bono legal advocate for cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, but she did. It was her own choice to vote against repealing the medical device tax and to vote increasingly pro-abortion in a pro-life state. She started her Senate career somewhat left of her Louisiana mentors Breaux and Bennett Johnston, and moved even further left. Breaux’s lifetime American Conservative Union rating was 45, Johnston’s 41; Landrieu’s is 20. This is a real concern: Sportsmen are seen as a largely Republican constituency, and the runoff takes place on Louisiana’s last duck-hunting weekend and the first day of deer hunting. Cassidy’s campaign must keep hunters from assuming they don’t need to vote because his victory is “in the bag.” It’s no wonder Landrieu is all but written off for reelection. No candidate won a majority in Louisiana’s nonpartisan primary held Election Day, so the two top candidates face a runoff December 6. Polls show Republican Bill Cassidy, a doctor and three-term congressman, with a double-digit lead. But Landrieu still fights—hard. Even on Election Day, addressing a media scrum after casting her own vote, she ripped into Cassidy: for his votes on disaster relief, for refusing to debate enough, for opposing “equal pay.” Despite a relentlessly negative campaign—which has drawn copious criticism from local and national press—the Landrieu effort maintains an energy that, in the Louisiana political tradition, has an appealingly entertaining vibe. That energy emanates from Landrieu herself, who for 35 years of public life has tried to outwork everybody around her. Now, stitching together a biracial conglomeration of mini-coalitions in every working-class small town, her campaign might be the nation’s last of its kind: old-style Southern populism, with a dusting of Cajun spice. [Full] 7454 Phantom or Ilegal Votes I like Quin Hillyer's ability to spin a good yarn while cutting  to the bone of things, so its not mere schadenfreude that leads me to recommend The Bitter End . There is a little schadenfreude though. In 1996, despite trailing in all the polls she defeated  "Woody" Jenkins for her Senate seat.  The "radical magazine" Reader's Digest covered it in "They're Stealing the Election."   I also remember Loretta Sánchez taking Bob Dornan's seat that year, in an election rife with "undocumented" votes.  A precursor of things to come. ”