Turning Up the Heat
As the GOP dispatches its heavy-hitters to campaign in Louisiana’s Senate runoff, the Democratic incumbent has no superstars of her own to call on
By Eleanor Clift
msnbc.com
Nov. 29 — It’s a first for Louisiana and the south: two women in a nasty fight for a the Senate. Defending her seat is Democrat Mary Landrieu, the scion of a legendary political family whose father, Moon Landrieu, served as mayor of New Orleans. On the Republican side is Suzanne Terrell, a little-known state official who came from nowhere to garner 27 percent of the vote against Landrieu’s 46 percent on Nov. 5.
THE GOP HAD recruited Terrell, among others, to enter the race in order to deny Landrieu 50 percent of the vote. Under Louisiana law, that forced her into a runoff. The strategy worked, and the Dec. 7 election could add another seat to the Republicans’ single-seat majority in the Senate.
It doesn’t seem enough of a gain to warrant such a fierce battle, but in the almost evenly divided Senate every seat counts towards the leverage each party needs for important committee assignments. With a change in power, Democrats will lose seats and junior members are the first casualties. In an effort to boost Landrieu, whose campaign is lagging, Democratic leader Tom Daschle promises to keep her on the plum Appropriations Committee even though, as a relative newcomer to the Senate, she should be among the first to get a pink slip.
Republicans have ridiculed Daschle’s attempt to bolster Landrieu. If their candidate is elected, they say, she’ll have a direct pipeline to the Senate leadership and the White House. How can the Democrats compete with that?
The Louisiana race is a microcosm of the November election, with the Republicans bringing in all of their heavy artillery. Vice President Dick Cheney, former President George Bush, and communications guru Karen Hughes all are campaigning for Terrell. President George W. Bush will also barnstorm the state. “This is a base versus base election, and he energizes the party faithful in a way that nobody else can,” says a White House aide.
Who can Landrieu recruit to rally the Democratic faithful? Not Al Gore, not Bill Clinton and not Jesse Jackson. The party has no stars that it can deploy without fear of doing more harm than good. During the Reagan years, Jackson was credited with registering enough minority voters in the South to return the Senate to Democratic hands, but white Southern Democrats today tiptoe around the race issue for fear of alienating white rural voters. Clinton will record phone messages urging Democrats to vote, but he won’t appear in the state. And it’s not clear anybody wants to see poor Gore.
So Landrieu is pretty much on her own. She’s relying on Donna Brazile, Gore’s former campaign manager, to produce a miracle with her mastery of the ground game. But the job is a tough one even for Brazile, a Democratic loyalist and an African-American with roots in the South. Landrieu is not strong in the black community. She has spent most of her six years in the Senate making sure she doesn’t come across as too liberal. She votes with Bush three-quarters of the time and supported his tax cut, which mostly rewards upper-income voters. Her one major break with the White House was over John Ashcroft’s confirmation as attorney general; she opposed him for the job.
She is enough of a Bush loyalist to cause Rep. Cleo Fields, a black state represenative in Lousianna, to joke that “one Republican Party is enough; two is almost unconstitutional.” Yet Landrieu has little maneuvering room in a state where the opposition circulates flyers picturing her hugging Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi, derided as a liberal in an area where that description is an epithet. If Landrieu moves right, she alienates her African-American base; if she moves left, she loses white suburban voters.
For all the concessions Landrieu has made to Bush, he hasn’t cut her any slack. The Republicans are pouring so many resources into the state to defeat her that Democrat John Breaux, the senior senator, calls it “the second Louisiana Purchase.” One Republican campaign aide likened the race to Bush versus Gore, with Landrieu as Gore, the career politician who can’t imagine why the voters don’t appreciate her. After one debate, Landrieu was so angered by Terrell’s attacks that she blurted out, “This will be your last campaign.” What Landrieu meant, a spokesman later explained, was that after waging such a negative campaign, Terrell could no longer be a viable candidate.
That was a huge mistake on Landrieu’s part. It’s too late to revert to polite, southern belle politics. Landrieu has a tendency to take partisan attacks personally. She looked so pained during much of the debate that a Republican onlooker was reminded of former President Bush looking at his watch during a debate with Clinton, hoping the misery would soon end. The New Orleans Times Picayune headlined its Web story on the debate, “Catfight.”
Terrell has little experience and is less qualified, but that seems to suit voters skeptical about government. They love the fact that she’s been working to abolish her job as state elections commissioner. She projects the same quality Bush did as a candidate, that there are more important things in life than getting elected. One measure of the GOP’s confidence about the race is they’ve stopped bashing Landrieu for living in a “mansion” on Capitol Hill, which in reality is one of the city’s overpriced row houses and nowhere near as posh as Terrell’s home in a gated New Orleans community.
A new ad spot features Terrell’s three teenage daughters talking about how much their mother has done for them, and what she will now do for the voters. GOP media consultant Alex Castellanos can hardly believe it himself. “I’m doing a working mom spot, and I’m an old Latin chauvinist,” he chuckles. “The world has changed.” Women, once they enter the ring, bring as much ferocity to the fight as men. Landrieu seems surprised. She shouldn’t be.
© 2002 Newsweek, |
