WES PRUDEN: GOOD TIMES ROLL AGAIN ON THE BAYOU…LANDRIEU ABANDONED BY THE DEMS
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/10/pruden-good-times-roll-again-on-the-bayou/
The good times are about to roll again down on the Louisiana bayou. The good old boys gathered Monday to present a solid front against Mary L. Landrieu and her fading “clout.” Gallantry be damned. The only “big hand for the little lady” is the hand showing her to the door.
The stars of Louisiana politics rallied in Baton Rouge, burying hatchets and old jealousies and grievances, pretending to love one another. But pretense is enough. Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel who ran a respectable third as the Tea Party candidate, showed up to endorse Rep. Bill Cassidy, the Republican challenger. So did Gov. Bobby Jindal; the state’s other senator, David Vitter; and a clutch of down-ballot candidates and former officeholders.
The colonel’s 14 percent of the vote would be enough to push Mr. Cassidy over the top with votes to spare, and he seemed to make a point in his election-night concession speech of withholding an endorsement of Mr. Cassidy. He never spoke his name.
But the two men took their wives as wingmen on what the newspapers called “their double date” three days after Election Day, and by all accounts, both men were on their best behavior, and afterward said everything was all patched up. “Bill even helped me put a new bumper sticker on our truck,” the colonel said afterward. They appeared to know enough about machinery, and got the sticker on straight.
Then it was on to the real business at hand. Neither of the seats for Louisiana or Alaska are crucial to the arithmetic of the Republican takeover — sending Harry Reid to a cold shower is a done deal — but by defeating Mzz Landrieu and Mark Begich, the Republicans would get pickups No. 8 and No. 9. Dan Sullivan, the Republican challenger, is leading in Alaska, his victory delayed by counting the votes in the backwoods, which in Alaska are well and truly deep in the back.
Mzz Landrieu led the field in what everyone calls “the jungle primary,” where everyone with the yen and a filing fee (in U.S. dollars) can scratch their itch, with the two top candidates facing off on Dec. 6. But she’s the underdog despite clout, family cred and old-enough money, and she’s treated that way.
Mzz Landrieu is so far sticking to the clout message, working or not. Her first attack ad in the runoff campaign includes video footage of Mr. Cassidy, living up to a reputation of an intelligent man who is charisma-challenged, struggling through a speech to a Republican leadership conference last spring. As he stumbles on a word or two the narrator of the commercial asks, affecting incredulity, “We’d lose Mary Landrieu’s clout … for this?”
What everyone understands, however, is that after Nov. 4, the senator has no clout. Like Mr. Reid, she would only shoot blanks in the new Congress. She damaged herself badly four days before the jungle primary when she told NBC News — with a remark far more damaging than Bill Cassidy’s halting speeches — that she’s having to fight for her seat only because white folks in Louisiana don’t much like women and dark-skinned folks. Mzz Landrieu is running for a fourth term, and she looks like a white lady, and the governor in the Cassidy corner is a man of darker hue. So what is the white lady talking about?
Woody Jenkins, the man she defeated to take her seat 18 years ago, is working this time to exact revenge through Mr. Cassidy. Many in Louisiana think he was counted out when 100,000 votes from Orleans Parish appeared in the late counting just when Mr. Jenkins seemed be winning. “Why blame us for those late returns,” a Democratic operative said. “How could we know how many votes it would take until everybody else’s votes were in?”
Many things have changed since, but this is still Louisiana. Fraud and football are the state sports.
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