Posted on 11/22/2014 5:26:34 PM PST by jazusamo
Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D) campaign in the Louisiana Senate runoff election has fallen flat.
The endangered Democrat’s “Hail Mary” effort to convince the Senate to approve the Keystone pipeline failed, undercutting her argument that she should be returned to the Senate for her clout.
She's fallen back on an advertising strategy that seeks to portray her GOP opponent, Rep. Bill Cassidy (La.), as bumbling and incompetent. But nearly three weeks into their final faceoff, it is Cassidy who is ahead in the polls, and Democrats who are worried that Landrieu’s efforts are falling short.
“It didn’t work before, and if all you have is Cassidy bumbling in a speech, then you’re reaching,” said Danny Ford, a Democratic lobbyist and former party official in the state. “If they had something else on him they would have played it already.”
Bernie Pinsonat, an independent pollster and political consultant in Louisiana, called the ads “goofy” and said that they do nothing to alter the narrative in the state that Cassidy is bulldozing his way to the finish line.
While another Democratic operative close to the race argued that Cassidy remains a relative unknown who can still be defined by the ads, nearly three weeks into their final faceoff, strategists say it’s the Republican who is running the more effective campaign.
Cassidy, who split the GOP vote on Nov. 4 with Tea Party candidate Rob Maness, has steadily built gains with conservatives since the first round.
Maness has embraced his one-time rival, starting a snowball affect of Republican support.
Conservatives like Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, and the Tea Party Express, who backed Maness in the general election, have became vocal proponents of Cassidy.
Other Republicans who stayed out of the race during the general election, like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), soon followed.
Paul headlined the first “unity rally” in Louisiana for Cassidy about a week after Election Day. Democrats initially dismissed the events as an example of Republicans air-mailing in the bigwigs for an unconvincing show of support, but the events have caught on and become must-attend events for party heavyweights.
In addition to Paul, Palin and Jindal, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson, Sen. John McCain (R-Az.), and Dr. Ben Carson have all participated. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) will do so in the near future.
“The energy between the two campaigns doesn’t even compare,” Ford said.
Democrats argue that coming to the events want to see the visiting GOP stars, not Cassidy, and that they will stay home on Election Day.
But the Landrieu campaign doesn’t have anything close to the kind of party unity that Cassidy enjoys. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has abandoned her, pulling the money it had allotted for ads on television in Louisiana. She’s massively outgunned on the airwaves.
“The DCC pulled out, [Senate majority leader Harry] Reid isn’t putting any money in, and she has a huge disadvantage on advertising,” Ford said. “There’s also not a lot of money coming in for the House races that are in runoffs. The Democrats have pulled out, I don’t see how she comes back unless Cassidy does something really stupid.”
Democratic leaders from Louisiana will participate this weekend in “Meet Me At the Polls” events across the state, but it’s a far cry from Cassidy’s unity rallies.
Landrieu will be campaigning in the state, as will her brother, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu (D), but only two of Landrieu’s Washington allies will be making the trip – Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.).
The Landrieu campaign also has a Dec. 1 fundraiser that will be headlined by musician Stevie Wonder.
Still, Cassidy continues to rise in the polls. A handful of surveys from mostly conservative outlets have been released since Election Day, and they all show Cassidy with a double-digit lead. Pinsonat says he believes Cassidy is up by at least 10 points.
Democrats are pinning their hopes on Landrieu’s past record of pulling out victories in close runoff election.
“Nobody doubts how difficult this could be,” a Democratic operative said. “But the fact is Sen. Landrieu has done this twice before, so we’re relying on that history and our grass roots operations across the state…I’m optimistic. I go talk to voters and people are really fired up by onslaught of negative ads directed at her.”
She was given a good mauling by her fellow democrat senators then hung out to dry.
Her pipeline ploy failed because The Party doesn’t need her in Washington now and they consider her only 95% reliable. If the Republicans were up to 50 and needed one more to obviate the VP’s tiebreak vote the Democrats would be spending a hundred million dollars and sending in a crew of Chicago vote techs to ensure her win.
They should really hammer her no matter how bad her polls seem to be. The NO vote is every bit as crooked as in Chicago or Baltimore. If she wins a judge should rule that the NO vote count must be limited to the number of registered voters in NO and count the Dem votes first.
December 6th.
Can't F Wait
Don't count your chickens.The NO vote count will be 100% for Landrieu and the other 30% for Cassidy.
Hail, Mary, full of gas.....no smoking within 25 feet.
No doubt about it. She turned on 0bama, the Rats and the enviros and her seat doesn’t mean squat.
Maybe she will write an expose about The Party stabbing her in the back and three people will buy it. Everyone else will look at the lavish ads and snicker.
HOORAY Lousiana!
C’mon 2016
Depopulate demons, deceivers, democrats, collectivists, conmen, conwomen, criminals, socialists, scumbags, totalitarians, rinos and punks from the body politic.
It’s easy to…
live - free - republic
(and you don’t even need purple ink on your finger)
So Mary, how did THAT work out for come election night, you MOron.
Democrat voters need to be reminded to go to the polls early on December 7.
Bye Mary...I think MSNBC has a low rated show slot waiting for you...
She got creamed in D.C. Hopefully she will get another creaming Dec 6.
I hope that Cassidy is running anti amnesty commercials. I am sure even the New Orleans AA know its bad for AA.
A huge loss will chasten the dems about backing Obama.
Bloody Mary?
LOL
I didn’t see that coming
Dec. 6...IIRC.
In a very ominous sign for Mary Landrieu, most of the voters when I voted were white with only a few blacks.
That is important as Landrieu only pulled 18% of the white vote on November 4th.
Another bad sign for Landrieu is the fact that the voting place was pretty well packed at 10:30 when I went.
There were probably about 100+ people in line. The voting went very fast, however, it took me about 40 minutes to vote.
There are only 5 of the 8 days to vote in the early voting for December 6th. The early voting places are closed on Sunday, November 23rd, Thanksgiving day, and the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday). Additionally, there is only one place in each Parish (Louisiana's version of a county) to vote.
The NRA are running an effective TV ad (Louisiana is very found of hunting and guns). Additionally, besides the National Republican Committee running ads as well as Cassidy's campaign, there are two other groups running TV ads. THESE ADS HAVE RECENTLY CHANGED, BRINGING A SET OF BRAND NEW TV ADS TO THE CAMPAIGN JUST BEFORE EARLY VOTING BEGAN.
Probably, besides capturing most of the black vote, I imagine Mary Landrieu can count on the drugee's and tree hugging environmentalists for votes.
For early voting today, it was about 95% white voters.
Additionally, there were long lines at the polling place when I went -- a quick moving line of about 100 people or more.
Some people left because it took about 40 minutes to vote. But that was only a few people who did that.
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