Replies

"I think we might have knocked off Meztenbaum, Riegle, and Deconcini. The later two were damaged by the Keating Five, and Meztenbaum had low approval ratings by 1994 (His son-in-law wasn't helped by his familial relation to the senator)."

Possibly so, but not necessarily a guarantee. They all might've pulled off close reelections, all of which would've only moved us up to the mid to high 40s. I still can't believe OH Democrats were stupid enough to run Joel Hyatt, a little snot-nose with no election experience. Although perhaps not the best choice, ex-Gov. Dick Celeste might've made it a closer race. Ditto Bruce Babbitt in AZ to replace DeConcini, although with his ties to the Clinton cabinet, that probably would've doomed him.

"But Mitchell's seat wouldn't have budged with him running again."

Quite so, ditto that of OK's David Boren, who stepped down before his term expired.

"If Vitter steps down, our SecState Jay Dardenne could run for the seat. He probably should have run against Landrieu instead of Kennedy."

I'm more than a little pissed at the undermining of Kennedy. Here the party took the time to get this guy to switch parties and cultivate him to run, and then they yank the rug out from under him and all these RINO piggies feeding at the trough go running to Sen. Brownroots to cover her. Her election in the first place was a fraud and it should've been at the top of the party agenda to bounce her ass back to New Orleans. I swear it's almost as if this party REALLY doesn't even want to win office. I really think the biggest enemy of the Republican party isn't the media, isn't the Democrats, it's the Republican party itself.

Yeah, the RINO-endorsements of Landrieu were particularly horrible this time, from the Jeff Parish sheriff to the parish president of St. Tammany. Kennedy himself wasn't the perfect candidate, unfortunately his 04 run as a Dem did come back to haunt him when Mary painted him as "confused." I'm afraid Kennedy holding Mary to 52%-46% was actually well ahead of what he might have done, he wasn't close in most polls, but he was riding the McCain wave and probably picked up a lot of votes. But that just points up a lot of missed opportunties, they could have focused heavily in north LA, which was sure to (and did) reject the chosen one overwhelmingly, and pick up a big margin up there to overcome N.O. and the pork-lovers down here. (As it was, Kennedy did win the Alexandria area, which Landrieu won last time if I remember right) I think Kennedy just didn't have a powerful enough message other than, "I'm the conservative, she's the big-spending liberal."

But hey, we still gave it a go down here (plus we got the Baker seat back!). Unlike say, Arkansas, South Dakota, Montana, and Iowa, where the GOP just conceded them all. Meanwhile, the Dems are winning states like Oregon and North Carolina with virtual nobodies...