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Louisiana set to fill remaining Senate seatLatest polls show Landrieu, Terrell in dead heat
By John Mercurio
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The neck-and-neck Senate battle in Louisiana is looking more like a popularity contest than a political campaign these days. Republican Suzanne Haik Terrell hopes to win Saturday's runoff election by surrounding herself with every GOP luminary she can find, while embattled incumbent Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu fights a lonely campaign for survival, shunning party leaders whose fate could not be more closely tied to her own. Terrell, the state elections commissioner, who wants to be the first Republican senator from Louisiana since Reconstruction, has hosted President Bush, former President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, Sen.-elect Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, to name a few. A Terrell win would give the Republicans a 52-48 majority in the Senate and a final victory in the GOP takeover of the Senate in the November 5 midterm election. For her part, Landrieu has appeared with her colleague, Louisiana Sen. John Breaux, but no other leaders of the national Democratic Party.
Republicans haven't let Landrieu's strategy stop from them linking her to Democrats unpopular in the Bayou State. Terrell -- who described herself in one debate as "100 percent pro-life" -- recently released a radio ad featuring a voice impersonating former President Clinton praising Landrieu for voting for taxpayer-financed abortions, needles for drug addicts and the closing of a vital military base. Landrieu supported allowing federally-financed abortions, saying poor women should not be excluded from the right to an abortion. She voted to let Washington D.C. use locally collected tax revenue for a needle-exchange program to stem the spread of AIDS, saying it should be handled as a local issue. Landrieu, who became a member of the Armed Services Committee in 1999, has supported military base closings, but never for bases in Louisiana. Democrats have responded with a new ad that hits Terrell for remaining silent on the Bush administration's plan to increase sugar imports from Mexico, a move that could hurt Louisiana's sugar farmers. Voter turnout could be keyLandrieu, whose party continues to hold most local and state offices, has tried to frame the Senate race as a local affair. "The president can come in here, and the president's father can come in here and say this election is about helping George Bush. But with all due respect, it's not about helping a president, it's about helping Louisiana," Landrieu said during a campaign stop in Layfayette on Thursday. But with recent polls showing the race a statistical dead heat, both parties agree that the winner will be the candidate who succeeds in getting her supporters to vote in the Saturday election, when no other race will be on the ballot. Landrieu, who dramatically out polled Terrell on November 5 among black voters, needs a massive turnout among African-American voters while Terrell is relying on white conservatives for her victory. Working on Terrell's behalf, Republicans are touting their well-tested "72-hour task force" plan. They credit the strategy for the spectacular GOP rout last month in Georgia, where Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes and Sen. Max Cleland were defeated. The effort was run by Georgia GOP Chairman Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition, who has been working in Louisiana this week for Terrell.
Labor unions are working hard to boost turnout for Landrieu, who also has focused on roughly 1,200 precincts where voters twice backed Clinton for president and supported Al Gore in 2000. The senator has narrowed her aim to precincts in which Democratic turnout was lower than expected in the November 5 primary. At least a dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus are traveling in Louisiana this week. In a sign of how much she fears alienating white voters, the senator has not joined them in public appearances because it could alienate moderate white Democrats, according to Democratic strategists. "If people vote, Mary wins -- and if people don't vote or vote in lower numbers, Mary doesn't win. It's just that simple," Breaux said Thursday during the campaign stop with Landrieu in Lafayette. But at least one African-American Democrat is worried. State Sen. Cleo Fields, a former congressman who put aside his storied rivalry with Landrieu last month to endorse her re-election campaign, said he's still not seeing much enthusiasm among black voters. "I don't see the fire I was hoping to see by now," Fields told the New Orleans (Louisiana) Times-Picayune this week.
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