Picking up Louisiana has the additional benefit to the Republicans of giving them a two seat edge on every Committee
washingtonpost.com
Bush Goes for 'Icing' in Louisiana
GOP Pours Cash Into Senate Race Viewed as '04 Test
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 4, 2002; Page A01
SHREVEPORT, La., Dec. 3 -- Republican cash, ads and officials are deluging Louisiana for a postscript to the midterm elections that one party official is audaciously calling "Operation Icing on the Cake."
Republicans, riding on President Bush's popularity, won back control of the Senate last month, but one Senate race still remains unresolved. In Louisiana, Republicans are spending more than $5 million to test Bush's momentum by trying to unseat freshman Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) in a runoff election Saturday.
A day after his father campaigned in the state, the president appeared twice today with state elections commissioner Suzanne Haik Terrell, whose victory would make her the first Republican senator to serve from Louisiana since 1883. Terrell pulled even in polls this week, and Bush hailed her as "the kind of person with whom I can work to get something done for Louisiana."
"Send a good, strong message that Louisiana is wise in electing candidates," he said in a rodeo hall at the state fairgrounds here, adding that it "makes sense" for the state to have a senator in the majority party.
Besides raising $1.3 million for Terrell today, Bush has given her campaign rare access to his database of national donors, which one official called the most valuable mailing list in politics. Terrell, who was a major fundraiser for Bush's campaign, said as she stood with him at a reception in New Orleans that the state needs "a senator that can bend the president's ear." She would increase the GOP's strength in the Senate to 52 seats next year, giving the White House a cushion on legislative proposals opposed by a moderate Republican or two.
The runoff has given Bush's party a chance to refine its political tactics in preparation for 2004. Republicans are convinced their southern success in presidential races can be extended down the ballot, and this race will serve as a test. Republicans have been making progress in Louisiana since 1979, when David C. Treen was elected the state's first GOP governor since Reconstruction. Bush carried Louisiana by 8 percentage points. The current governor, Mike Foster, is a Republican.
"The tidal wave is coming," one Republican operative bragged. Terrell, 48, is casting Landrieu, 47, as a liberal politician, too liberal for the state, despite her votes to support Bush on his tax cut, the war and other crucial issues.
Landrieu's leading supporters in the black community argue that the GOP is guilty of overkill that will backfire. "The boys from D.C. are pounding their chests and trying to run over people," said state Sen. Melvin "Kip" Holden, a Democrat from Baton Rouge. "We've bowed down for too long now."
Landrieu held a commanding lead over Terrell in polls just a week ago, but a University of New Orleans poll released this week had them statistically tied at 44percent for Landrieu and 43percent for Terrell.
Terrell's camp is buoyant, with one young official promising to give Landrieu "a good ole Louisiana whippin' " on Saturday.
Democratic officials acknowledge that the poll numbers are discouraging for an incumbent. Analysts said many African American voters, always lukewarm on Landrieu, are downcast after last month's results and may stay home. Landrieu is banking on her family's deep roots in the state. Her father, former New Orleans mayor Moon Landrieu, worked churches in the city for her on Sunday.
The senator is making an issue of the invasion of what her campaign calls a "Republican machine," warning at a debate Monday about an effort by national Republicans "to own this seat." At campaign stops, she portrays herself as battling an army of outsiders.
"I've got all these people from out of state comin' in and trying to convince people in Louisiana that they need someone else to represent them," Landrieu said Sunday at Piccadilly Cafeteria before tucking into a bowl of étouffée.
Landrieu was forced into the runoff because she fell short of the 50 percent vote required by Louisiana law. Terrell was backed all fall by ads from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which was aiming for a runoff. Landrieu received 46 percent of the vote and Terrell led among Republicans, with 27 percent.
The runoff offers a microcosm of the vertically integrated politics that Bush's senior adviser, Karl C. Rove, practiced so successfully in the midterm elections. The White House and the national party recruited Terrell and then helped fund her race and devise her message. The NRSC made and paid for ads on her behalf, including one that concludes, "There's something about Mary Landrieu. Louisiana's most liberal senator. Ever."
Now, the party is spending $500,000 to deploy a fine-tuned incarnation of the "72-hour Task Force" rolled out in November, which is designed to emulate the labor unions' turnout efforts for Democrats. The GOP has identified Terrell's potential voters and the issues that motivate them, and will help turn those voters out on Saturday by reminding them about those issues with mail, calls and visits to the front door. Bush has recorded a message for automated phone calls.
The national party is also backing her with a mix of rallies and fundraisers featuring Vice President Cheney, Lynne V. Cheney, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel R. Martinez, White House official Mary J. Matalin, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (Miss.) and Sen.-elect Elizabeth Dole (N.C.).
"We tried to get the pope," one Republican official joked, noting the state's heavy Catholic population. "That's the only other thing we could have done."
National Republicans are running Terrell's campaign from Washington and the state party office, where the walls are plastered with color-coded maps with labels such as "Margin Goals" and "Turnout Priorities." Among the experienced operatives who have flown in to help run the show is Blaise Hazelwood, the Republican National Committee political director.
The result is that Terrell's tiny headquarters in Baton Rouge is oddly quiet. With so much of her strategy dependent on television, she made only one appearance this weekend, a departure from the frenzied pace that usually marks the final days of a statewide campaign.
Democrats also are spending roughly $5 million here and consultants for Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.) are helping Landrieu's campaign behind the scenes after she fired much of her staff from the Nov. 5 election. Donna Brazile, a New Orleans native who managed Vice President Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign, is offering get-out-the-vote advice.
Landrieu calculated that public appearances by national Democrats would hurt her in this conservative state so she travels mostly on her own, appearing on the field to thunderous applause on Saturday at the Bayou Classic, the Super Bowl of black college football.
Before the Nov. 5 election, Landrieu emphasized her support for Bush, turning off many of her traditional supporters. Since then, she has tried to make amends by moving toward the center. Now, her campaign brochures and ads say she "puts Louisiana first," and she countered the president's visit by holding a town-hall meeting with dock workers she says were laid off because of administration policies.
Landrieu accuses Terrell of being a rubber stamp for Bush, leaving the Republican in the unusual position of having to distance herself, ever so slightly, from a popular president. "I will tell you what," Terrell said Monday. "He will know when Suzie Terrell doesn't agree." At her side, the president's father, George H.W. Bush, smiled. |
