Posted on 11/19/2014 11:49:58 AM PST by abb
There’s a very simple way for her to get beyond the embarrassment of yesterday’s failed vote to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline, where 41 of her 54 Senate Democrat colleagues essentially flipped her the bird and voted against it despite being told ad nauseam that either they did so or they’d be consigning her to electoral demise in Louisiana’s Dec. 6 runoff.
The answer is to get out of the race, and concede it to Bill Cassidy. The sooner the better.
The fact is, the Keystone XL vote had very little to do with Landrieu’s electability. The idea that getting 60 votes to force approval of the pipeline – a meaningless number, since (1) the Obama administration would veto the bill anyway and (2) the Republican-dominated new Senate would pass the exact same bill in two months – was the key to returning Landrieu for another term flies in the face of electoral reality.
Landrieu, after all, only managed 42 percent of the vote in the primary, to Cassidy’s 41 percent. Exit polls show her support among white voters, the sizable majority of the electorate, at just 18 percent. She reeled in 94 percent of the black vote, and turned out enough of it that it represented about 30 percent of the voting electorate.
Is there really much reason to think those numbers will change in five weeks?
Landrieu can’t win the election by turning out the black vote. There isn’t enough of it to create a majority.
Blacks make up 31.5 percent of the registered voters in the state, and in 2012 turnout in that community was the highest it’s ever been as a percentage of the electorate; 31 percent.
With 18 percent of the white vote, Landrieu would need black voters to make up something like 42 percent of the electorate to get to 50 percent of the total vote. That’s not even remotely close to possible.
So how does Landrieu get above 18 percent of the white vote? If you have suggestions, she’s listening.
The fact is, there isn’t anything she can do. She has all of the liberal white voters in the state. They’re that 18 percent. The rest of Louisiana’s white voters are right-of-center in their political orientation. And Landrieu has alienated them on an emotional level by calling them racist and sexist, repeatedly.
Had she gotten a successful vote on Keystone XL that wouldn’t change anything. Those people don’t like her and they want her gone, plus everybody knows Cassidy is as big or bigger a booster of Keystone XL as Landrieu.
So as a draw for white voters, yesterday’s show was grossly overrated. One reason Landrieu couldn’t get to 60 votes is her Democrat colleagues knew it was a ruse, and a pointless ruse at that, and they weren’t going to upset the environmentalist loon donors who own them if it wouldn’t actually save her. In fact, many of them probably felt they were being marched off a cliff for no reason and resented the spectacle.
We already know Landrieu has been abandoned by the national Democrat money, and she’s already persona non grata with the Democrat leadership after having voted against Harry Reid being the minority leader (which is the best vote she’s made in years, but hardly in her interest). From the standpoint of Democrats in Washington she’s finished.
Back home, Landrieu is getting drawn and quartered on television as Republican PAC’s and Cassidy’s campaign are pouring millions of dollars onto the airwaves to attack her voting record and detachment from the people of the state. She doesn’t have the resources to fight that onslaught, and taking to the newspapers to whine about the content of those ads only increases their effect. And now that she’s lost her Keystone XL gambit, what’s her narrative? Nonstop petty attacks on Cassidy without even the money to fully blast them out? Race-baiting? Sexism?
What this adds up to is that Landrieu is going to take the worst beating of any incumbent senator in this cycle. She’s going to go out a loser like no other senator in Louisiana history.
The worst blowout of an incumbent in this cycle so far was the 56.5-39.5 clobbering Tom Cotton laid on Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor. A 17-point pounding is well within the margin of two polls making their way into the public eye in the past week; Magellan Strategies has Cassidy ahead 56-40, while Gravis Marketing has him beating Landrieu 59-38.
The real number could be as bad as Gravis has it.
If one takes the numbers from the exit polls and applies a typical December turnout model to them, in which the black vote sits at a typical number of around 27 percent, then Landrieu will end up with less than 39 percent of the vote.
Getting beat 61-39 would make her the worst incumbent Senate loser since 1978, when Maine Democrat William Hathaway was beaten by 22.7 points by William Cohen. And it would also make her the worst incumbent Senate loser in Louisiana history. There hasn’t been an incumbent beaten for a Senate seat from Louisiana since 1930, when Huey Long defeated Joseph Ransdell 57-43 in the Democrat primary.
So Landrieu is headed for a place in history – and not a good place.
The thing to do is to get out. Publicly. And declare why.
Landrieu could give a concession speech which sets down a marker for a potential rebirth of her party out of the ashes Obama and the Hard Left are reducing it to. If she truly is the centrist she claims to be, she could give a speech outlining all the ways Obama and the Hard Left have pulled the Democrat Party out of the American mainstream and made politicians like her, Pryor, Kay Hagan and others uncompetitive in red states. She could in so doing create some space for her friend Hillary Clinton to run as a center-left candidate for president in 2016, and open a discussion Democrats need to have about how far left they can go without killing themselves.
And she could help to divorce the Louisiana Democrat Party from the national Democrat Party, which has to happen if they’re to survive in this state in the future. Obama and the national Democrats are absolute poison with Louisiana voters, and the local party has been following the national example to a far larger extent under Karen Carter Peterson’s leadership than wisdom would sanction. Landrieu could concede the race and call attention to this fact, perhaps providing some leadership for more centrist elements to retake that party, and that could improve the brand enough to make it a viable base for her brother Mitch to run for governor next year – or perhaps for Mary to return in 2016 as a candidate for the Senate seat that would open up should David Vitter win the governor’s mansion.
That’s what’s available to her if she gets out and spares herself what’s coming.
But if she doesn’t, she stares political oblivion in the face. She becomes a historical footnote, or maybe a hashtag. #Landrieued as a term for taking a soul-crushing defeat probably isn’t how Mary wants to be remembered.
Get out, Mary. Do it today.
I do not think she will withdraw from the race. Her ego will not let her.
I think she has a better chance of regrouping the LA party IF she loses big, and puts blame on Obama and company...
Either way, not good, but no one likes a quitter.
She should stay in until the end. Our side might not get the vote out.
She already has a good track record of winning in runoffs.
We have to get as many people out to vote for Cassidy as possible.
Otherwise the Dems will win this one.
Think of the mess Porky Landrieu could create if she declared today that she is changing her party registration and loyalty from democrat to republican !!!
The rats will give up on a Senate seat when pigs fly over the frozen wastes of hell. It’s like pulling teeth getting them to quit.
But don’t let me dissuade you Mary, or Mayo, or Fast Eddie, it’s waste of money having this runoff.
I believe she will lose whatever she does. But, I would like to see her change her allegiance for the current term and any future terms to the Republican party to show her displeasure of the Democrats.
Wow. That was brutal!
And I enjoyed every single word of it.
After this election, Landrieu will be politically radioactive here in Louisiana, much like Kathleen “MeMaw” Blanco’s legacy after Katrina.
No one will pay her a bit of attention any more.
Let the recall vote stand. Get out to vote en masse and send Mary down with a huge defeat and another message to DC. Make sure Louisiana patriots cast their votes. Take nothing for granted.
I don’t know why the MSM was so focused on 60 votes with respects to Keystone.
Of course Soetoro would veto it in a heartbeat.
67 votes are what is needed to get anything passed Soetoro for the next two years.
Create space for her friend Hillary so her friend Hillary can pretend to be something called a "center-left" Democrat? Why are so many Democrats infatuated with Hillary? They can't all be that stupid -- can they?
Landrieu has two options: drop out now or go down in flames
With what Obama is going to do on immigration, I don’t think that Landrieu will get even 35%. Maybe THAT will send a message to the Jackass Party about backing this traitorous SOB.
Isn't her brother Mitch mayor of New Orleans? Does he have any national ambitions?
Yes and maybe. Mitch, like any Louisiana politician, wants to be governor. Right now, he’s the highest polling Democrat in the state, but he still trails Vitter, who announced last January for governor. Recall that Mitch was Lt. Governor while Blanco was governor, and during the Katrina catastrophe.
The election is in the fall of 2015.
It is my considered opinion that Mary’s impending butt-whipping may rub off on Mitch.
Two things.
First, I WANT her to lose. And lose BIG. It would mean that all of the big Katrina demagogues were either humiliated out of office (Blanco) or in jail (Nagan and that other guy).
Second, blacks represent 31.5% of total registered voters and made up 31% of overall 2014 voters ... What % of black registered voters actually turned out and voted? It had to be a seriously high number ...
she is a member of the political class in louisiana
its suck off the taxpayers or go hungry - that family has zero talent except to hold office
gonna be fun to watch that pudge bucket starve
This reminds of that scene in “Aiplane!” where they line up to slap the hysterical woman.
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