Dirty Little Louisiana Secret Revealed
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December 9, 2002
All right, so what happened in Louisiana? Some are saying that the Democrats figured it out because they kept Clinton, Gore, Hillary, and Daschle away, and most of that's true. The Boston Globe has a story about the Louisiana race – all about how the Democrats are jazzed and unified now over this victory – and the AP credits Louisiana native Donna Brazile with getting out the vote for Landrieu, but the dirty little secret is found in Monday's New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Let me take you to Election Day. It's Saturday, about 11 o'clock in the morning, and they are panicking at Landrieu headquarters. Mary Landrieu is panicking, because the vote turnout in New Orleans is nowhere to be found. There is sheer panic because if Landrieu is to have a chance, she needs a huge New Orleans turnout, which translates to a huge black turnout, and it wasn't happening. But something happened. Something changed it. Voter turnout in New Orleans that afternoon and into the early evening erupted statewide. Something caused it – and that something was a phone call from Bill Clinton to State Senator Cleo Fields.
Here's a quote from the Times-Picayune story, "About 1 p.m., Kenner native and former Al Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile set up a conference call with Landrieu; state Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge; and former President Bill Clinton. In blunt terms, according to a member of the Landrieu campaign, Clinton told Fields, a onetime Landrieu nemesis, to step up his get-out-the-vote machinery in African-American neighborhoods and to do it fast."
We talked about Cleo Fields last week, when I told you that Fields, who did not help Landrieu in her primary race, probably got a Bob Torricelli phone call from Bill Clinton: "Hey, Cleo, baby, how you doing? Yeah, it's Bill here. Hey, Cleo we really need you on this pal. Remember how it was with Torricelli? I don't need to tell you the name Andrew Cuomo, both of those things ought to have significant meaning to you. Now, look, Cleo, I have this thing I want you to sign that says you're going to do something for Mary but we're either going to get your signature on it, Cleo, or you're going to be found in a field somewhere. It's just that simple, man. We really need it."
It turns out that did happen, but it didn't happen until Saturday afternoon. They had Cleo Fields turn up the get out the vote apparatus – and it worked. They didn't keep Clinton out of it. Clinton was involved privately, not publicly, but had Clinton not made that threatening phone call to Cleo Fields, then who knows what would have happened. However even though it won them this race, this is not a recipe for Democrat victories. They already have the black vote. They're losing white votes and union votes. That's the bigger picture for them – as you can hear more about in the audio link below.
This is a temporary victory for Democrats, but it's not a lesson for how they continue to win in the future. This election actually illustrates their weaknesses and vulnerabilities. They're already taking the wrong signs of victory from this. They're already feeling the wrong reasons for euphoria and happiness, and the things that they're going to now use to reinforce all their euphoria and happiness are things that aren't going to help them, particularly in the south and future elections. You wait and see.
Read the Article...
(The New Orleans Times-Picayune: Clinton call turns tide to Landrieu)
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/washington/index.ssf?/newsstory/senate09.html
Clinton call turns tide to Landrieu
Last-minute drive nets the support of black voters
12/09/02
By Bill Walsh and Bruce Alpert
Staff writers/The Times-Picayune
The mood inside Sen. Mary Landrieu's re-election campaign headquarters was glum by midafternoon Saturday. Checks of key precincts showed turnout among African-American voters wasn't nearly what the Democratic incumbent needed.
The monthlong national Republican blitz for challenger Suzanne Haik Terrell appeared to be working.
Then the Landrieu team made two critical on-the-fly tactical decisions. About 1 p.m., Kenner native and former Al Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile set up a conference call with Landrieu; state Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge; and former President Bill Clinton. In blunt terms, according to a member of the Landrieu campaign, Clinton told Fields, a onetime Landrieu nemesis, to step up his get-out-the-vote machinery in African-American neighborhoods and to do it fast.
About 4 p.m., the campaign also shifted the focus of its turnout efforts to eastern New Orleans and Gentilly, aides said. Landrieu raced to the area to canvass the heavily African-American precincts with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin; U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans; and a platoon of volunteers. They worked the streets until the polls closed at 8 p.m.
Black turnout propels win
In a race she won by 39,814 votes statewide, Landrieu carried Orleans Parish by a 4-to-1 margin with an stronger showing than she made in the Nov. 5 primary. Turnout among African-American voters was one of the major keys.
"Statewide, we turned the tide after 4:15 p.m.," Brazile said. "That's when it turned to our favor."
Conventional wisdom held that Landrieu's campaign was vulnerable in what looked to be a low-turnout election, but she won with a slightly smaller turnout than in the primary by incrementally improving her showing in major population centers across the state.
The highly touted Republican get-out-the-vote strategy, which had been so successful elsewhere with recorded phone messages from political celebrities, fell short.
The Landrieu victory, as well as the surprise win in Louisiana's GOP-heavy 5th Congressional District by Democrat Rodney Alexander, was a marked divergence from the Republican gains made in the House and Senate on Nov. 5. But Jennifer Duffy, an analyst with the Cook Political Report, said that doesn't necessarily mean the Louisiana runoff signaled a significant blow to Republicans or President Bush.
She said reports of a Bush juggernaut emerging from the Nov. 5 election were overblown and that just 35,000 votes in Missouri and Minnesota were the difference in Democrats controlling the Senate instead of the Republicans.
"Runoffs are really races that stand on their own," Duffy said. "Given that Louisiana hasn't had a Republican senator since Reconstruction, in a lot of ways the deck was stacked against them. They had the benefit of coming out of November with a lot of momentum, and that kept them in the game in the runoff."
Negative ads 'overkill'
The runoff seemed to illustrate both the potential and the limits of outside political money in state races.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee propelled Terrell, a relatively unknown lame-duck state elections commissioner, into the runoff by bankrolling a $4 million attack-ad campaign labeling Landrieu's new Capitol Hill home as a "Washington mansion" and saying she had "turned her back" on Louisiana. The surge intensified in the runoff as a parade of political stars swept into the state on Terrell's behalf, capped by the president's visit to Shreveport and New Orleans on Tuesday.
After Bush's visit Terrell moved up in the polls, and by midweek surveys showed the race was neck and neck. Rep. Chris John, D-Crowley, said that if Bush had made his campaign swing closer to the election, perhaps just 48 hours out, it might have given Terrell the edge.
But the Republican Party's assistance showed signs of diminishing returns. Terrell said she got complaints from supporters angry about the number of automated "robo calls" to their homes from special interest groups and Republican personalities, such as Iran-contra figure Oliver North, Gov. Foster and Barbara Bush, the wife of former President George Bush. Terrell said even she wasn't aware of everything done by others on her behalf.
Analysts say the negative tone of the Republican TV and radio ads, one of which featured a Clinton impersonator talking about how liberal Landrieu is, also took a toll.
"The negative ads gave her campaign the original boost," University of New Orleans political scientist and author Douglas Brinkley said. "But they overdid it. It was overkill."
'There's no excuse'
Republicans attributed Terrell's loss partly to a surprisingly poor showing by Republican House candidate Lee Fletcher in the 5th District, where 53 percent of the voters are registered Republicans. A week ago an independent poll showed Fletcher comfortably ahead of Alexander by 8 percentage points. But GOP voters failed to turn out Saturday in the high numbers that the party had hoped and undercut Terrell in an area where she was expected to be strong.
"There's no excuse for having lost the 5th District by any margin," said Chad Colby, a Republican National Committee spokesman who was in the state working for Terrell.
Landrieu strategists also think that in the 5th District, Landrieu managed to peel off some voters who had supported retiring Rep. John Cooksey, R-Monroe. Cooksey endorsed Terrell after finishing third in the primary, but he didn't have an active role in her campaign, saying he was angry about the negative campaign she ran in the primary.
Colby also attributed the Landrieu victory to her late barrage of TV ads coinciding with the president's visit. The ads said Bush had cut a secret deal with Mexico to double sugar imports. Although the White House and the U.S. Trade Representative's Office denied any deal had been inked, the ads raised questions in the state's substantial sugar industry. It was an ad that underscored Landrieu's campaign message that independence in a senator is an important attribute and her accusations that Terrell would be a "rubber stamp" for the president.
'Thank God for sugar'
According to Brinkley, the ads also reached out to an important constituent group, blue-collar workers, that had been skeptical of her candidacy in the primary, when she touted her support for Bush policies.
The Landrieu team also said the sugar campaign sweetened her appeal.
"Thank God for sugar," Brazile said. "It stalled Suzie's momentum at a critical time."
Landrieu supporters say Landrieu would likely have been swamped by the Republican wave had it not been for the efforts of her colleague, Sen. John Breaux.
Even as Republican radio ads touted his effectiveness as a senator, the popular conservative Democrat rarely left Landrieu's side during the last week of the runoff. Landrieu supporters think having Breaux stand beside her helped deflect criticism that she was a closet liberal.
The Landrieu campaign showed signs of desperation toward the end. Strapped for cash, the campaign stopped taking daily tracking polls. Instead workers relied on leaks from the Republicans to figure out where Landrieu stood in public opinion.
Despite good weather, voter turnout Saturday was marginally lower, at 44.4 percent, than during the rainy primary election, when 45.2 percent of the state's 2.8 million voters went to the polls. Parish-by-parish returns show Landrieu won by incrementally improving her performance in heavily African-American areas across the state. In majority-black Orleans Parish, her home base, she got 11.5 percent more votes than she got in the primary. In East Baton Rouge Parish, the base of Fields' political operation, she surged by 14 percent.
But Landrieu also improved in some areas where Republicans had hoped to contain her vote. Although she lost Jefferson Parish, where she enjoyed the support of Republican Parish President Tim Coulon, Landrieu picked up 7,878 votes in the past four weeks, a boost of 16.3 percent.
Terrell for governor?
The Terrell campaign was not without its benefits. A supporter interrupted Terrell's concession speech at Le Meridien Hotel on Saturday night with a shout of "Suzie for governor!" -- an outburst that drew the loudest applause of the night.
Terrell declined to speculate on her political future but also wouldn't rule out a run next year, when Gov. Foster, a Republican, is barred by term limits from seeking re-election. If nothing else, her Senate campaign gave her broad name recognition and the heightened stature of having been vigorously supported by a popular Republican president.
"I have to figure out which way the wind takes us," Terrell said. "In my experience the people of Louisiana put you where you need to go."
Among other things, the Landrieu victory may have helped ease the long-standing animosity between her and Fields. He criticized her in the primary for what he said was her embrace of Bush and for taking African-American voters for granted.
But on the morning after the election, he said he was heartened in the runoff by her willingness to fight a popular president when she believes his policies aren't in the best interests of the state. The change of heart paid off for Landrieu. His decision to shift his African-American turnout apparatus into high gear on election day helped put her over the top.
"All that talk about support for the president turned my stomach," Fields said. "To her credit, she changed all that in the runoff and worked hard to distinguish herself from the Republicans and really reached out to African-American voters. If she keeps up that attitude, only God knows what she can do."
. . . . . . .
Bill Walsh can be reached at
bill.walsh@newhouse.com or (202) 383-7817. Bruce Alpert can be reached at
bruce.alpert@newhouse.com or (202) 383-7861.
12/09/02© The Times-Picayune. Used with permission.
Listen to Rush...
(…read and analyze the Times-Picayune coverage of the Clinton call to Fields)
(…take a caller who says black folks need Democrats to find the polls)
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_120902/content/truth_detector.guest.html
Of course, it did help to have FBI poll watchers fanned out all over the country to suspect voting places. I'm sure that will continue.....as long as President Bush and John Ashcroft are in office.
The notions of freedom and democracy and rule of law have apparently become too quaint for post-clinton America.
When the Republican candidate doesn't even ask for a recount -- honest Americans are the losers.
