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Landrieu On The Path to Beating Bush

The national press is just starting to cover this (well, Howie Kurtz isn't) with a CQ Politics Reporter Thursday evening having a story up on the WA Post's website, Landrieu Supporters Raising Cane With Terrell Over Sugar Issue, but in Louisiana, the story is hot; or rather, sweet, for Landrieu supporters.

The biggest problem of the 2002 November elections was that Democrats did not stand up to Bush-- letting him define the election dynamics. There was one standout, and that was Johnson in SD. Johnson, with the help of Daschle's war team, was able to argue effectively that Bush was not on the side of farmers and their families, but on the side of the multinational corporations. The week after the election, Landrieu fired her Bush-fellated advisors, and hired Daschle's team. Now, it's paying dividends.

Landrieu called the imports a "secret Mexican sugar deal," says WBRZ out of New Orleans, and further from The Advertiser in Southern Louisiana:

Landrieu blasts Bush sugar policy

Landrieu campaigned in Shreveport and Monroe, and accused President Bush of covering up an agreement the administration made with the Mexican government to allow the import of 1 billion pounds of Mexican sugar. Landrieu said the imports would hurt Louisiana's sugar farmers, and blamed Terrell for not pushing Bush to halt them.

Landrieu Turns on Bush

As the President campaigned in New Orleans for Terrell, Landrieu continued to attack him for allegedly covering up a plan to allow the U.S. to import of about 1 billion pounds of Mexican sugar, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Landrieu links Terrell to 'bad' farm policy

A vote for her opponent, says Ms Landrieu, is a vote for the destruction of working class Louisiana. The sugar issue "is a prime example of how some, but not all, of the president's policies are harmful to the state of Louisiana," she said. "Not only am I not going to vote with him on this, but I am going to fight him every step of the way."

Landrieu said Terrell is aligned with "Washington, D.C., insiders who are out to end thousands of Louisiana jobs."

The Republicans are trying to make the issue go away by: a) claiming it doesn't exist ('alledged' according to NewsMax); b) blaming it on Clinton (lol); or c) saying that Terrell has a better shot at reversing it than Landrieu would, because she's a Republican.

Nevermind that the premise of c undermines the statement of a, or that b is a funny lie; isn't that very similar to what Thune tried in SD?

Terrell explained that sugar proposal would be part of the North American Free Trade Agreement which passed with the full backing of the Clinton administration, and that no one should be surprised. "Senator Landrieu knew this was coming" Terrell said. "She shouldn't have made it . . . a Mary-come-lately issue."

You can see why the Republicans have limited Terrell's speaking activities-- and that's from NewsMax editing. The issue is putting the Republicans on the defensive:

Gov. Mike Foster, on his weekly call-in radio program, was asked by a listener if a deal was made with Mexico. He said he talked to Bush when he visited the state. Foster said importing sugar from Mexico is not a Bush administration policy, but could be part of deal made by low-level bureaucrats. Foster said he hopes a deal with Mexico doesn't come to light after the election because it would hurt Louisiana and the Republican Party.

Landrieu is campaigning more like Johnson than Cleland. Landrieu responds to hardball with hardball, something that Cleland did not do (it was elementary to blast the chickenhawk Chambliss):

The Terrell campaign sought to play the "Hillary card" in a radio spot. In the ad, a raspy male Southern voice identifies himself as "Bubba," but is clearly supposed to sound like former President Clinton.

"Mary Landrieu is so liberal, she might be closer to Hillary than I am," Bubba yucks in what Louisiana Democrats assert is clever innuendo suggesting that Landrieu may be in a personal relationship with Hillary Clinton. (The Republicans insist that the reference is to the two senators' closeness on issues.)

Landrieu is also playing hardball in the media. One of her television ads shows the grainy, distended face of her rival.

"What do we really know about Suzie?" a voice asks, not directly mentioning Terrell's Lebanese heritage but suggesting she may be a foreign agent: "A paid lobbyist for a foreign drug company while on the New Orleans City Council."

If Landrieu's GOTV effort emulates Johnson's, getting out the Democratic voters in-kind to the Republicans, she's going to beat Bush (who is in DC all day today). Polls will open at 7:00 am ET and close at 9:00 p.m. ET tomorrow.

If not, and Terrell wins in Louisiana, the Republican President from Texas and the Majority Leader from Mississippi will have led the Dixiecons back to their Southern-rooted promise land-- unfortunately, in making the political climate like the 1950's, they are dragging the rest of the nation backwards with them:

Here is what Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, said yesterday at Senator Strom Thurmond's birthday party, according to ABCNEWS' O'Keefe. "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had of followed our lead we wouldn't of had all these problems over all these years, either."

There is, as you might recall, an election in the Bayou tomorrow, where African-American turnout is crucial to the chances of Democratic incumbent Landrieu. Maybe Lott was being jocular. But a plain reading of what he said did generate some anger:

Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights told ABCNEWS' Douglass: "This was an offensive and blatant attempt to rewrite the history of the last 50 years" … "Thurmond ran for president as a Dixiecrat, a segregationist. He gave the longest filibuster in history to try to stop passage of the Civil Rights Act. In his statement today, Lott also embraced those dubious achievements." In his statement today, Lott also embraced those dubious achievements." ..'Lott betrayed his role as the Majority Leader of all Americans."

Donna Brazile, the Democrats' turnout czarina in Louisiana right now, was also said to be outraged.

But there is no mention of Lott's comments in the Louisiana papers we checked . Interesting how advocacy by, say, National Right To Life makes the front page in Louisiana, while liberal interest groups can't break through. A measure of the political climate in Louisiana, perhaps.

ABC's The Note speculates that it's a measure of the Louisiana climate that the pro-segretation comments by Lott yesterday were not able to arrive onto the LA papers; but likewise, it's a measure of the DC political climate that Landrieu's successful attack of Bush's sugar dump on the LA farmers doesn't cut make it onto their own pages today... but it made the news in Scotland:

There have been problems, too, with the state’s sugar-cane industry, as Mr Bush aims to double Mexican sugar imports to the US, driving down sugar prices just as Louisiana’s cane farmers struggle to recover from recent losses due to storms.

But in DC? Problems? No, just cover-ups, a complicit media, and Republicans re-writing history.

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