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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (326641)	12/7/2002 4:16:50 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 769670

Louisiana Senate Race Comes Down to the Wire URL: foxnews.com Saturday, December 07, 2002 NEW ORLEANS, La. — The polls are now open in Louisiana, where Republican Suzanne Haik Terrell is trying to unseat incumbent Democratic Mary Landrieu in the race for a U.S. Senate seat. Landrieu got the most votes in November's general election but didn't get a clear majority, forcing today's runoff. If Terell, the state's elections commissioner and a former New Orleans City Council member, wins Saturday, it would give Republicans a 52-to-48 edge in the Senate and make her the first GOP senator from Louisiana since Reconstruction. A local elections official said voter turnout was low Saturday morning in Orleans Parish. Registrar of Voters Louis Keller said he was disappointed by the relatively small number of people who voted in New Orleans. But Keller says he expects the numbers to swell as the day goes on. With election eve polls showing a dead heat, Landrieu unleashed a new 11th hour attack on Terrell going into Saturday's runoff, charging that the Bush administration is hurting Louisiana's agriculture sector. With a sugar plant as a backdrop, she accused the Bush administration of negotiating trade deals with Mexico that will cost Louisiana sugar plantations thousands of jobs. "Not anybody, any policy, is going to destroy this industry while [Louisiana Democratic Sen.] John Breaux and I are in the Senate," Landrieu told supporters Friday. "She is very disappointed now with the Bush administration's decision to actually dump a billion pounds of sugar into Louisiana which hurts our sugar industry," said state Democratic Party Chairman Ben Jeffers. Administration officials insist that trade talks will not hurt Louisiana, but on the day when national unemployment numbers came out higher than expected, Landrieu was not backing off. The latest Mason-Dixon poll pegs the race at a statistical dead heat, with Landrieu leading 47-45, inside the margin of error. With the Republicans pushing hard for Terrell during this month long runoff, the race to many has become a referendum on the president and the GOP's midterm gains. Terrell said Louisiana needs to elect a Republican who will work with the president, instead of a Democrat like Landrieu, whom Terrell said will not. "Louisiana has a whole lot at stake in this election and we need a senator in the majority party who can bend the president's ear," Terrell said. Terrell has been a friend of the president's since she traveled to Austin, Texas in the late 1990s to convince the then-governor to run for president. She helped lead his successful Louisiana campaign. In 2002, Bush won the state by seven points. They have paid her back by having both President and former President Bush visit. Former first lady Barbara Bush also recorded a telephone plug for Terrell. Bush helped raise $1 million for Terrell this week alone. Analysts said the presidential visits could be worth two or three percentage points at the polls. Second lady Lynne Cheney was scheduled to stump for Terrell on Thursday, but Washington, D.C.'s snowstorm grounded her. On Friday, however, Karen Hughes, one of the president's most trusted confidants, accompanied Terrell on the campaign trail, and together they blasted Landrieu as a tax and spend liberal out of touch with the needs of Louisiana families and the economy. "Suzie's opponent has a lousy record frankly when it comes to supporting small business," Hughes said. On the flip side, Landrieu likes to show off her ties to the state and specifically asked national Democrats not to campaign for her. "My best relationship is with Louisiana elected officials," she said Nonetheless, members of the Congressional Black Caucus have been quietly flooding the state to energize carefully targeted groups of likely Landrieu voters. Seventy-five percent of blacks in the state support Landrieu, but only a fraction of black voters turned out in the November election. Many black voters have complained that she doesn't direct enough attention to them. Analysts say Landrieu needs a big turnout in heavily black areas like New Orleans if she is to win. Landrieu is also caught in the situation of having to choose whether to run from or embrace the president's policies. She has voted with the president 75 percent of the time, including voting for the president's tax cuts in 2001, but she continues to blast the administration for its record on the economy. "Sen. Landrieu has a very strong, good record in the Senate. She has voted independent, she has voted the wishes of the citizens here in Louisiana, which is important to us," Jeffers said. On Friday, Landrieu took note that with the resignations of Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and National Economic Council Director Larry Lindsey, the last thing the state needs is another Republican in the Senate to support what she argues is an ineffective economic agenda. Polls close at 8 p.m. Central time Saturday. Fox News' Carl Cameron and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (326641)	12/7/2002 5:47:23 PM
From: GROUND ZERO™	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

The word Creator in the Constitution refers to a power greater than man (call it whatever you like), and that power gave us our rights which no government can take away from us... this is what the Constitution represents and protects... GZ