Mary Landrieu's last stand?

BATON ROUGE, La.

— A one-woman political machine, Mary Landrieu is methodical.

After 18 years in the United States Senate and a lifetime in Louisiana politics, not even 100,000 mostly drunken revelers at a recent Louisiana State University football tailgate could shake Landrieu from her routine. She stuck to her talking points and paid close attention to details others might overlook — even as chaos erupted around her — right down to the brand of the single beer she nursed over the course of the day’s protracted, chaotic photo-op: Abita, a local brew.

One of the first tailgates she visited here on a September Saturday was hosted by her brother, Martin, a New Orleans-based attorney. It was here, a friendly oasis in a vast sea of purple and yellow tents and trailers, that the embattled Democratic senator gathered nearly two dozen volunteers donning “I’m With Mary” shirts and stickers, in a circle around her. Landrieu, acting like she was her own field director, split the larger group in half, dispatching one team to follow a staffer and another to follow her.

“Ask people to wear a sticker. Not everyone's going to be a supporter, but be friendly!” Landrieu said, mapping out the ground her team would cover over the next three hours.

Given recent polls showing her neck and neck with her Republican opponent, Rep. Bill Cassidy, she was not wrong in her assessment of the friendliness of the terrain. Over the next few hours, she would be booed to her face — and would seek out and shake the hands of her hecklers. She would assist a young Tigers fan as he did a keg-stand in front of a D.C.-based photographer. And she would ask hundreds of Louisianans for their votes. The few reporters who followed her sometimes had to run to keep up as she rushed from tent to tent, glad-handing Tigers football fans.

In the sweltering heat and humidity of the bayou, she was a natural. But it might not matter.

Several Republican and Democratic aides and consultants, both in Louisiana and Washington, believe Landrieu is the best retail politician of all of the vulnerable Democratic senators up for re-election in 2014, and yet also perhaps the one most likely to lose.

“This is the worst environment she’s ever faced as a candidate, but you never want to underestimate Mary Landrieu, she’s a great politician.” – Timmy Teepell

"This is the worst environment she’s ever faced as a candidate, but you never want to underestimate Mary Landrieu. She’s a great politician,” said Timmy Teepell, a former top aide to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and current GOP political consultant.

Cassidy should take heed. In seeking to criticize Landrieu at the tailgate, he inadvertently put his finger on a quality of hers that helped her seemingly create order from the booze-infused chaos — an environment he struggled to navigate himself.

“The senator never does anything that’s unstructured,” Cassidy told Yahoo News at the LSU rally. “Isn’t that interesting? Never any place unstructured.” He was responding to a question about Landrieu’s recent demand that he agree to three scheduled debates, which he has refused to do. But he apparently was unaware that Landrieu had been to the LSU tailgate bash before him.

“Like, do you think she would walk around like this?” Cassidy continued, as he wandered around the perimeter of Tiger Stadium, minutes before kickoff, seeking hands to shake. “She’ll have people come to her, but spend time parading through? No.”

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Six years ago, the dominant question surrounding Landrieu’s re-election fight was whether an exodus of African-American voters from the New Orleans area after Hurricane Katrina would cut too deeply into her base. As it was, the state had been trending red for decades. But Louisiana political observers also noted there had been exceptions to the trend, and joked that it really should be characterized as red-unless-your-name-is-Landrieu.

In 2008, Landrieu beat her Republican opponent in Orleans Parish — the heavily populated, 60-percent-African-American urban center of Louisiana — by nearly 100,000 votes. She won the statewide race by approximately 120,000 votes, capturing the votes of just more than 52 percent of the overall electorate.

The coming race could be even harder to predict, in part because of the state’s unique “jungle primary” system, where a December run-off is automatically triggered if no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote in November. 

A third candidate in the first round, conservative Col. Rob Maness, is expected to inspire Tea Party conservatives who might otherwise stay home to vote. While Maness like would take votes away from Cassidy, his bid also raises the threshold for outright victory by any candidate by increasing overall conservative interest and participation.

The worst-case scenario for Landrieu is if the Louisiana race—still up in the air after other contests around the country are decided in November—becomes the decisive election in determining the Senate majority. Outside groups likely will spend millions of dollars between November and December to ensure Landrieu’s defeat, and they would almost surely cast the race as a symbolic battle between Cassidy and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. The New York Times this week projected that there is a 12 percent chance that a Louisiana run-off determines Senate control.

An election that is no longer about Landrieu or Cassidy but instead a proxy for the two parties puts the race in large part out of the control of the candidates themselves, removing the advantage Landrieu could have with independents because of her name and history.

Yet if Democrats maintain the senate majority in November, even without conclusive results in Louisiana, then the case Landrieu has been making — that her overall seniority and position as Senate Energy Committee Chairwoman bring money and jobs back home — could become even stronger. Even a swing to a Republican majority in the Senate could help Landrieu by taking some of the anti-Democratic zeal out of her contest.

"Politicians who violate the public trust don't get to set the terms… don’t get to stonewall. The only way voters can truly hold [Landrieu] accountable is to hand her a pink slip this fall.” – Republican National
Committee Chairman Reince Priebus

Interestingly, energy lobbying groups, which tend to favor Republicans, are paying close attention to the rest of the Senate map before deciding if — and how — to play in Louisiana. So far they’ve largely resisted pouring money into the race because, as one lobbying source put it, the “nightmare scenario” for energy interests is that Democrats narrowly hold the Senate majority but drilling-friendly Landrieu gets ousted. Next in line for the Energy gavel, based on informal Senate seniority protocol, would be Democrat Maria Cantwell of Washington, who has long opposed domestic drilling.

In July, the Chamber of Commerce reportedly flirted with endorsing Landrieu, and reports indicated part of the thinking was that conservatives have opposed some pro-business and energy legislation, but another factor in such a move is clearly her seniority on the energy panel and the much more liberal views of her potential replacements.

If the Louisiana race does go to a runoff, however, energy money will be just a small part of a flood of outside funding into the state. It likely could be a redux of a runoff earlier this summer in neighboring Mississippi, where establishment and conservative Republican groups poured money into a race between incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran and his tea party challenger Chris McDaniels. In that race, outside groups spent more than $3.3 million in the three weeks between the first Election Day and the runoff, according to data compiled in June by the Brennan Center.

But at a more fundamental level, beyond the influx of money and the campaign maneuvers, the election will be about Washington — what the nation’s capital gives to you, as a candidate and a state, and how it taints you. Landrieu will emphasize the giving.

Before the tailgate on Saturday, she visited Lake Charles to assist a volunteer project sponsored by Citgo and the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, planting grass on a 5-mile stretch of shore. Though the appearance was officially billed as commemorating the nine-year anniversary of Hurricane Rita, its political purpose was to remind Southwest Louisianans that she had helped to secure $1.18 billion to rebuild the region since it was hit.

In this regard, Landrieu is unabashed about her place in Washington, D.C.

And yet, being “of D.C.” is also a critical talking point in the campaign against her. Landrieu owns a $2.5 million house in Washington, while being a co-owner of her parents’ home in New Orleans. And Cassidy and other Republicans haven’t let voters forget it.

They’ve also hit her for the improper use of private planes. Landrieu this month repaid the federal government more than $33,000 for chartered flights she took on taxpayer-funded trips that also included campaign stops. “Politicians who violate the public trust don't get to set the terms ... don’t get to stonewall,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a call with reporters on Sept. 17.“The only way voters can truly hold her accountable is to hand her a pink slip this fall.”

When asked by Yahoo News at an event in Monroe, Louisiana, whether she heard complaints or queries from potential voters about her Washington residence, or about the reimbursed flights, Landrieu was dismissive.

“I do not. I hear from people thanking me for my support [for] some of these issues that I’ve mentioned, fighting for quality educational opportunities, thanking me for investments that I’ve helped to make in the Monroe Airport,” she said, before noting that the flights were a “mistake” and now properly reimbursed. “I don’t blame, though, Bill Cassidy and his team for wanting to talk about that, because his record is so weak on actually delivering projects and winning for the people of Louisiana that he doesn’t have much else to talk about.”

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Landrieu is one of the few vulnerable Democrats in 2014 who were not swept in on the Obama-driven, Democratic wave of 2008, making her experience in Washington both a weakness and a strength. The trick for the three-term senator is to tout her congressional credentials while also distancing herself from an unpopular Congress. Cassidy, meanwhile, is in the position of trying to paint Landrieu as an out-of-touch Washingtonian while also being a sitting member of Congress. When he approaches native Louisianans, he introduces himself as

“Bill Cassidy, the guy running against Mary Landrieu” and never, at least at the LSU tailgate, as “Congressman Bill Cassidy,” even though the university is in his district.

When told by Yahoo News that Landrieu had been tailgating in Baton Rouge hours before his appeance — after he declared she’d never do such a thing — Cassidy walked away, looking awkwardly for the next target for a football-pun-laden campaign “push card” he told everyone was “humorous” or “tongue-in-cheek” or “kinda funny.” It was so close to kickoff when Cassidy arrived that fans were already dispersing and several young people with whom he spoke seemed too intoxicated to be able to remember the exchanges, clearly slurring their promises of support. There was no real organization, no big entourage, and Cassidy sometimes seemed uncomfortable approaching people.

But he’s not without weapons.

"She does side a lot with the president, so that’s kind of my reservation: [Landrieu] can do a lot for Louisiana but she sided with the president, so I don’t know what I’m going to do.” – Baton Rouge resident
Melissa Thompson

One of them is Barack Obama. Cassidy often talks with voters about how Landrieu has supported Obama’s legislative initiatives approximately 95 percent of the time, and how her support of the national health care law is enough to oust her — in his professional opinion as a surgeon.

“The real question is how she can win,” Cassidy said as he walked on the beer-sticky pavement. “Right now, she supports Barack Obama 97 percent of the time. ... We’re not even sure she lives in the state, and I mean that literally and symbolically.”

At the tailgate, it’s only with reporters that Cassidy volunteers information about his record as a member of Congress. He mentions a kerfuffle from earlier this year, when House and Senate leaders were in a race to move competing flood insurance bills to the floor: the House version stewarded by Cassidy, the Senate’s by Landrieu. At the time, Republicans viewed moving the Cassidy bill as a way to undercut the senator’s credibility — if she couldn’t get a bill done first how could she make the case that her seniority made her more effective? In the end, the legislation was based on Cassidy’s framework but also incorporated points raised by Senate Democrats.

“It’s kind of humorous if you listen to her speak when I’m not around. She takes credit for it,” Cassidy said.

As for voters, it seems that many are torn between what Landrieu can do and what Obama has done.

Melissa Thompson, a 20-something who lives and works in Baton Rouge, just moved back home to Louisiana from Arkansas and said that even though she was a registered Republican in the Razorback State, she is still undecided on this Senate race.

“I know that she’s done a lot of great things for the state of Louisiana and she’s got a lot of power,” Thompson said of Landrieu, moments after greeting her at the tailgate, as Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” blasted in the background. “She does side a lot with the president, so that’s kind of my reservation: She can do a lot for Louisiana but she sided with the president, so I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated which Landrieu brother hosted a tailgate at LSU. It was Martin, not Mitch.

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