This article highlights why Mary Landrieu’s political career is all but officially over:
In the last six years, Landrieu lost ground to Republicans in every Louisiana parish. In 2008, she defeated Republican John Kennedy by 121,111 votes statewide. This time, Cassidy and third-place finisher Rob Maness, a tea-party favorite who has since endorsed the congressman, combined to lead Landrieu by 186,207 votes, a net swing of 307,318.
Get out the marmalade. Sen. Landrieu is toast. Seriously, I’d be surprised if this election isn’t called within half an hour of the polls closing. This isn’t a nailbiter. It’s a blowout.
President Barack Obama may not be on Louisiana’s Senate runoff ballot, but it’s clear his widespread unpopularity in the state stands as Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s biggest hurdle to a fourth term.
There’s no question that President Obama has buried a ton of Democrats this cycle. Still, it isn’t fair to say it’s all his fault. If Mary Landrieu or Mark Pryor or Mark Udall or Mark Begich had shown a spine in voting against Obamacare and the Obama-Reid-Pelosi agenda, they might’ve had a better shot at winning. When they didn’t stand up for the voters, the voters punished them.
President Obama’s agenda has set the Democratic Party back mightily. When President Obama was sworn in, there were 257 Democrats in the House and 60 Democrats in the Senate. When this congress is sworn into office, there will be 186 Democrats in the House, 46 in the Senate.
President Obama was the pied piper but Senate Democrats followed his tune into this electoral grave.
Gary:
Technical correction to your comment. There were only 58 democrats in the Senate when Obama was sworn in since Franken hadn’t yet won his recount and Arlen hadn’t yet switched parties. There were 60 in spirit, but only 58 official democrats in the Senate.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Gary:
A thought to try to highlight the dramatic reversal could be this.
Find out the margin that McCain won LA by and add that to Mary’s victory margin. Since this shows just how many people Mary had convinced that didn’t like Obama that she will protect their interests. McCain I think won LA by at least 100,000 votes.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN