Posted on 12/03/2002 1:37:43 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
EUNICE, La. -- This is the heart of Acadiana, a little town where folks tend to worship Catholic, vote Democratic and pepper their conversations with Cajun French.
It's friendly territory for Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, whose political rally here Monday played less than 24 hours before President Bush's scheduled arrival today to campaign for Landrieu's Republican runoff opponent, Suzanne Haik Terrell.
Landrieu delivered a feisty stump speech from a flatbed truck and even danced a bit to the strains of a local Zydeco band for the sole TV camera on hand.
But it's hard to compete with the hoopla of a presidential visit. Bush will be the major attraction today at a Terrell rally in Shreveport and fund-raiser in New Orleans.
"Even though that is a lot of star power, we feel like her momentum within the state is what really matters," said state Democratic Party Chairman Ben Jeffers. But even he concedes the second round of voting on Saturday could be a very close race.
An independent poll released late last week by Southern Media and Opinion Research of Baton Rouge showed Landrieu with 50 percent support among 600 "likely voters" statewide. Terrell drew 34 percent of the support in the survey, but almost 16 percent of those polled said they were undecided. Other polls have the race closer.
The Louisiana runoff is the last senatorial question mark remaining from the midterm elections on Nov. 5. Landrieu drew 46 percent of the vote against eight other candidates. Under Louisiana's election rules, a candidate needed to win 50 percent in the November race, which included all candidates from all parties, to avoid a runoff with the second-place finisher.
Terrell, the state's election commissioner, drew 27 percent and two other Republican candidates drew a combined 24 percent of the vote.
It's been a bitter race, even by Louisiana standards, fueled by negative advertising funded by the National Republican Senatorial Campaign and personal attacks between the two women. State political leaders have been less than enthusiastic about both runoff candidates.
Republican Gov. Mike Foster was so turned off by the advertising directed against Landrieu that he threatened to endorse her. He endorsed Terrell only under pressure from President Bush.
Former U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, who wields significant influence among black voters who are the state's Democratic base, endorsed Landrieu only after repeated pleadings from state Democratic Chairman Jeffers. Fields has said he lumps Landrieu in with other white Democrats who he said take black voters for granted.
Landrieu has drawn hard feelings from Fields and other black leaders because of the support she has expressed for Bush and his programs. Landrieu's centrist views and support for a popular president (she says she's voted his way 74 percent of the time in the Senate) may endear her to white voters, but not to the blacks who make up 30 percent of the Louisiana electorate.
The GOP had Landrieu in its sights even before the runoff. With control of the Senate at stake, the GOP ran several strong candidates from different parts of the state on Nov. 5 to split the vote.
"Let's face it -- the Republican strategy in the primary worked," Jeffers said.
The Republican Party regained control of the Senate in the Nov. 5 balloting, but a Terrell victory would give the party 52 seats -- a cushion the party obviously wants.
"What if someone dies, or retires?" asked Loyola University political analyst Ed Renwick. "The closeness is still very important."
So the GOP has been parading the heavy hitters through the state since early November -- including Vice President Dick Cheney, incoming Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and former President Bush, who campaigned for Terrell on Monday in Monroe.
The biggest name Landrieu has in her stable is Louisiana's popular senior U.S. senator, Democrat John Breaux.
Renwick, too, expects a very close race that he says will likely be decided on the strength of black voter turnout and whether either candidate makes a serious mistake in the next few days.
Terrell and Landrieu were scheduled to meet for their fifth debate Monday night.
The debates have been vitriolic, and the race has distilled to vinegar in the weeks since the two women made the runoff.
Terrell has attacked Landrieu as a liberal in the mold of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who will be ineffective in representing Louisiana as a member of the minority party. Landrieu counters that as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Appropriations Committee, she has a powerful seat at the table that Terrell will not.
But the real source of animosity between the two boils down to home and religion.
"I'm 100 percent pro-life," Terrell said in a debate Nov. 23. "As a practicing Catholic, I did not leave my faith, as did Mary Landrieu."
Landrieu has voted varying degrees of support for abortion rights throughout her political career, but said she was stunned that Terrell would attack her commitment to Catholicism.
"I do not promote abortion," Landrieu said at the Eunice rally on Monday. "I promote adoption. My children are adopted. Please don't let anyone tell you I've lost my faith or lost my focus."
But the GOP advertising that really gets Landrieu's goat is the one that attacks her decision to buy a home in Washington, D.C. -- a million-dollar townhouse that the ad suggests shows she's lost touch with her constituents.
Landrieu said she bought the house so she could raise her children in the city where she works -- just as many men in the Senate have.
Some elaboration is in order if Ms Cobb wants to toss this into her story.
What, no visit from the ex bent-one from the north? Afterall, he was the country's first black president, and Landrieu came in on his landslide victory of 96. Maybe she's just forgotten to ask him to come in and stump for her? Maybe not?
Now that the election is long "over", the troops can be focused on one objective (and it might be a straw in Terry's hat if he could at least get a final victory this year).
dem victory in LA would be spun by the media as the beginning of the comeback -- big Mo piling up on their side
If that happens, I can see McAuliff on every Sunday Morning Talk Show in full gloat. I don't wanna think about it.
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