Posted on 12/09/2002 1:29:20 PM PST by TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!
NEW ORLEANS -- The Republican playbook for deposing Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana was fine-tuned in Washington and battle-tested with glorious results elsewhere in the South: Recruit a plausible challenger. Unleash attack ads skewering the Democrat on taxes and abortion. And for the grand finale, bring in President Bush to campaign at the Republican candidate's side.
But something went wrong in the Bayou State. Landrieu, who just a week ago seemed to fit the GOP blueprint's definition of a vulnerable incumbent, held off the challenge and won a convincing victory in a runoff election Saturday. She beat the Republican, elections commissioner Suzanne Haik Terrell, 52 percent to 48 percent.
Today, as Republicans licked their wounds, Democrats crowed at what amounted to one of their few bright spots in an otherwise disastrous political year. Some dubbed the winner -- whose triumph Saturday dwarfed her 5,788-vote margin of victory in 1996 -- "Landslide Landrieu."
Democratic operatives and political analysts said the Republicans were guilty of political hubris, believing in their own invincibility and therefore overplaying their hand by relying too heavily on negative advertising, and counting too much on Bush's electoral magic.
Bush's eleventh-hour visit, and the relentless barrage of advertising attacks on Landrieu, may even have backfired, analysts said, and were probably factors in generating a higher turnout in the core Democratic base of African Americans.
"The president's visit energized the conservative base, but it also energized the Democratic base," said Marc Morial, the Democratic former mayor of New Orleans.
At a morning news conference today in downtown New Orleans, Landrieu stressed the role of blacks in her victory. Standing beside U.S. Rep. William J. Jefferson, a New Orleans Democrat who is perhaps Louisiana's most influential black politician, Landrieu declared, "The soul of our party is the African American community, and they stood up.''
Analysts also credited Landrieu with running a more nimble campaign, one that took advantage of Louisiana's demographic and political peculiarities -- it is poorer, more progressive, more Catholic and more African American than some other Southern states. She benefited enormously by her close alliance with Sen. John Breaux, the state's hugely popular senior Democratic senator, who accompanied her in many campaign appearances throughout the month-long runoff. The Democrats' "Breaux factor" may partly have offset the Republicans' "Bush factor," some analysts said.
But Landrieu also took other lessons from the Republican victories on Nov. 5. Chief among them was the importance of devising some message, strategy or issue that would offset the president's formidable personal popularity with a local issue that played to the Democrats' advantage. In Landrieu's case, the issue was sugar.
The day after Bush's campaign visit to the state last Tuesday, Landrieu's campaign began airing an ad charging that the White House had struck a "secret deal" to double Mexican sugar imports to the United States. The imports would hurt Louisiana's 27,000 sugar farmers and the state's $1.7 billion sugar industry.
The ad hung on a slender thread of evidence: a single, unsourced article in the Mexican newspaper Reforma. The White House denied the existence of any such "deal" to flood the United States with cheap Mexican sugar. Nonetheless, the point seemed to hit home, dovetailing with Landrieu's message that she would put "Louisiana first" while Terrell -- by now appearing in television ads side by side with the president -- would be a rubber stamp for the administration who would disregard the state's interests.
"The momentum definitely shifted when we came out with the sugar issue," said Mitch Landrieu, a Democratic member of the state's House of Representatives who served as a key unofficial campaign operative for his older sister Mary. "It played directly into our theme and proved our point that a senator's supposed to be for Louisiana first and Suzie [Terrell] and George Bush are linked at the hip."
The sugar ad was critical in reassembling the Democratic coalition in Louisiana of working-class whites, especially farmers, and urban blacks, about 90 percent of whom are believed to support Landrieu. And it played on the populist traditions of a poor, small state whose more indigent residents have traditionally seen Washington and big business as hostile forces.
"It reinforced a suspicion in Louisiana that we're going to get it in the neck," said John Maginnis, a political analyst in Baton Rouge, La., and the publisher of a political newsletter. "It used an economic issue to reconnect rural whites and blacks."
Meanwhile, the Landrieu campaign's all-out push to maximize black turnout got an unexpected -- and unintended -- assist from the Republicans. The more the Republicans flooded the airwaves with ads attacking Landrieu as a liberal, the more it galvanized black support for her, and reinforced their resolve to vote, analysts said.
"It just got out of control," said Silas Lee, a sociologist at Xavier University in New Orleans. "African American voters wanted a more positive message."
In addition, workers in the Landrieu campaign cited what appeared to be unusually aggressive Republican efforts to dampen black turnout. They produced a flyer they said had been distributed in black public housing complexes in New Orleans, apparently designed to mislead black voters.
The flyer reads, in part: "Vote!!! Bad Weather? No problem!!! If the weather is uncomfortable on election day (Saturday December 7th) Remember you can wait and cast your ballot on Tuesday December 10th."
With two Democratic U.S. senators, both of them Catholics, the state remains what it has always been: a Deep South anomaly. The ethnic and religious mix is different here. And as Louisiana slips in national economic indicators, its poverty may be influencing voting behavior.
During the campaign, Landrieu shied away from direct attacks on the Bush administration, fearing the personal popularity of a president whose approval rating in Louisiana stands above 70 percent. At one point, she even touted her record of having voted with the White House three-quarters of the time.
But today, emboldened by victory, she dropped her reticence. "People in Louisiana have maybe had it harder than most. They can recognize injustice," she said. "Because we are a poor state, people really do depend on the government. They are very disappointed at what they are seeing coming out of the White House, and they just expressed that anger."
© Copyright 2002 Capitol Hill Blue
Most voters--never mind the type that vote Dim--would need elaborate explanations as to exactly who Trent Lott and Strom Thurmond are.
I just don't think most people have any inkling of what the Dems are screaming about, and two years from now it'll be forgotten anyway.
Ho-hum.
I'll give you this one. The Bush we all know and love. 43 has also screwed his pooch among California conservatives in 2004 over another of his brilliant domestic policies .. open boarders.
I'll bet 43 is glad there's an electoral college.
I don't know if there these MIAs voted in the Senate race or not until it's looked at on a precinct by precinct basis. But the Statewide Senate vote was only 319 voters larger than the primary vote. So those MIAs in the 5th CD either didn't vote at all or voted in some portion for the Senate race and left the CD race blank. My gut feeling is that they didn't show up period.... Thus the make up voters were from somewhere else within the state. Example, Orleans Parish had only a 6,200 vote increase in turnout this time over the primary. If they were conservative Republicans and didn't show then that is where the race was lost, imo.
If you spend sometime in a news career covering sports and then transition to political news, it gives you a unique perspective.
There are many similarities.
For example you will note in sport that a team will come up with a game plan that works in the first half. Then at half time the other team makes adjustments. And in the second half does a lot better. This year's senate election had a half time. It happens a lot in sports. We just saw it happen in elections.
It is obvious the Democrats made adjustments. It is also logical that the team that was wining team was winning earlier did not change tactics and the losing team did.
The tactic changes are obvious in both races this year. They were obvious if we start the game in 2000. In 2000 Clinton was kept on the sidelines and Gore went left. They even booed boy scouts at the Democratic convention and even courted naderites. Clinton was not welcome anywhere in 2000 and Bush won close one.
So this time the Bush camp went to a much harder game in the Senate races. Candidates that can win and successful tactics of negative spots and positive candidates won the senate back. For the Democrats the tactical change was great. Clinton and Gore were everywhere to take on Bush in the rematch. Clinton and Gore got their butts knocked on the floor by Dubya and company on November 5. Then with a 30 day time out the Democrats changed strategy again. In Louisiana there was no Clinton, no Gore, no Daschle, no more. It was the song Dubya when he is right and us only when he is wrong that Landrieu sang. Landrieu ran on I will do what is right regardless of party. It was a new centrist Democratic tactic.... They were the new kinder Gentler Democrats. No Dammit Daschle Hammit at all. ONe this is your last campaign sneaked out and that was all.
What that means is the democrats now have an example of how to win. IT IS CENTER CENTER CENTER. Did I mention Center? It was the white vote that elected Landriew. Terrell needed 66 percent of the white vote. She did not get it.
So what does this mean for 2004. Well not much. To get the Democratic nomination the Candidate will have to go to the left. It will be the left being left all over the TV. It will be Democrat trashing Democrat for not being left enough. How well will Al Sharpton run? Could the Sharper Al win Michigan and South Carolina? Could the convention be a real convention with no Democrat having it sewn up by the convention? Look at the 2004 start. It is possible that Gephardt could win Iowa. Kerry might win New Hampshire and Sharpton could win South Carolina and Michigan... holy Toledo... Say What Bat Man?
No matter what happens the candidate will have a leftist image. So they can only move a little toward the center in the campaign. And will the magic presence of Al Sharpton help the Democrats in the fall of 2004.
I don't think it looks all that good for the Democrats.
When a Democrat runs on the platform that they vote with President Bush 75 percent of the time and demands that all name Democrat names stay away, that says a lot.
Guess what I'm thinking ping.
I don't care what Lott said or what Clinton does. Blacks will not elect another president. Ever. Hispanics will decide many races, but not blacks, as their numbers and political flexibility continues to plummet.
I don't like him, and he should step down as MAJORITY LEADER, but not for this. He should have stepped down a long time ago for failing to promote more conservative policies effectively.
You mean like the NAACP sponsored ad depicting Dubya dragging a black man to his death behind a pick-up truck?
The NAACP ad mentioned was used in the 2000 election. Is it your opinion that this was a "positive message" in the mind of the African American voter?
What Double Standard? Where was it documented that the Republicans also gave out gift cards to servicemen? you are just making that up to defend democrats for stealing an election.
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