Landrieu continues to embarrass herself, turn state voters off

National Democrats over the past decade have adopted issue preferences and rhetoric to match which has made them the minority party in this country. Now, with the help of their Louisiana stooge Sen. Mary Landrieu, they appear bound to do the same to the party in Louisiana.

Landrieu has continued a laughable offensive to try to salvage state Democrats’ poor planning and execution of hurricane emergency policies. Her first effort was to attempt to argue that the federal government, Pres. George W. Bush in particular, had carelessly underfunded flood protection measures relative to New Orleans. But she was made to look stupid when it was revealed that the Bush Administration had sent more money to the state for these projects than did his Democrat predecessor, the Louisiana got more such money than any other state, that the Democrat-run state itself asked to divert monies from projects that would have made New Orleans safer (but not impregnable to flooding), and that Landrieu herself had used her influence to enable the diversion of money that could have been used on those projects.

So now she’s trying to blame the federal government’s, and by implication the Bush Administration’s, response to the disaster – an effort already revealed to have been compromised by the poor planning and lack of order courtesy of local and state actions. Why does she continue to embarrass herself on a national scale?

Part of it is national Democrats desperately looking for some kind of issue to use against Bush and the Republicans for a host of purposes – 2006 midterm Congressional elections, to stop the change of composition of the U.S. Supreme Court away from justices favoring the liberal agenda, and perhaps others. Since national Democrats repeatedly have had the electorate defeat their bankrupted, both in philosophy and in practice, agenda, they’ll grasp at any straw.

But Landrieu also no doubt is looking towards her 2008 reelection bid. Already perhaps the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate, she’s looking to throw some red meat to the moonbat Left in Louisiana, whose support she must have to survive in office. Especially now that the Green Party, among others, can have its candidates appear on ballots with its label, this would make it harder to win outright the primary or to count on them voting for her in the general election runoff.

Because, as her Senate colleague Barack Obama demonstrated, Democrats also are trying to bring (as they do on practically every issue) race into the debate, this attack additionally attempts to shore up her credentials with the voting bloc most abused by state Democrats, blacks. However, Landrieu and her handlers don’t seem to understand that this tactic may well backfire.

The bloc to which she appealed in the wake of Katrina may in significant numbers already have fled the state never to return, leaving disproportionately those who do not participate much in politics. And far more remaining will be others sickened by the hypocrisy and opportunism of her attacks who might otherwise have voted for her.

Of course, the Left has shown repeatedly that it does not get it, that using its emotional arguments bereft of any real facts or logic (because it loses on both accounts) cannot win. Despite that, Landrieu has been able to salvage two close Senate elections. But as she digs a hole deeper and deeper with this rhetoric, three-in-a-row looks less and less likely.