As the electoral environment for
Landrieu continues to deteriorate with the clock ticking towards the day of
reckoning for her reelection attempt, depressing her chances to succeed in that
quest, incumbent Landrieu has gotten increasingly strident in demanding that
the race leader, Republican Rep. Bill
Cassidy, engage her in debates. These “debates” aren’t really that, but
question-and-answer forums that provide little opportunity for detailed answers
but many chances to commit gaffes.
For that reason, front-running
candidates minimize their participation in these because they have the most
to lose by making a mistake, the exact same reason those behind want more of
them. Not surprisingly, Cassidy
has committed to just a pair, one to be in Shreveport and broadcast over
public television stations, and the other in Baton Rouge to be broadcast over a
consortium of commercial television stations. He has turned down other
attempted empanels, including one in New Orleans.
Mutually-agreed site selections
alone are telling. Cassidy would be challenged most in New Orleans, a hostile
place for Republicans and Landrieu’s home
base outside of Washington, D.C. Yet Landrieu, in search of trying to get
Cassidy into as many appearances as possible, consented to Cassidy’s home area
of Baton Rouge (although because of state government’s influence and that a
sponsor of it is Louisiana State University’s Manship School, which puts its
location in confines friendly and trendy to the political left, it’s not nearly
as hostile to Landrieu as New Orleans is to Cassidy). Shreveport seems to favor
neither major candidate.
Naturally, Landrieu
has criticized Cassidy over his selectivity, saying that if Cassidy is “not
strong enough” to debate more often, then he’d be too weak as a senator.
Setting aside the fact that voters in the Sixth Congressional District on three
occasions thought him powerful enough to represent them in the U.S. House, this
attitude represents a reversal from her opinion about debates in her last
contest.
Then, she seemed perfectly
satisfied to have two
televised statewide debates with Republican opponent state Treasurer John Kennedy. She wasn’t badgering for
more, even as Kennedy
wanted more and these televised. So maybe in the past six years she’s been
strengthened from being “not strong enough” then?
No, because back then from
Oct. 2007, out of 13 polls, she had lead Kennedy in the last twelve
straight by an average of over 10 points, with the last four especially wildly
overestimating her support as she ended up winning by 7 points. The story is very
different in 2014: in heads-up matches to date, Cassidy has led in six,
Landrieu one, with one tie. She’s in trouble, she knows it, she needs help, and
a very cost-effective way to get it is to try to set up Cassidy to maximize the
chances that he makes verbal mistakes that could help her.
Recognize that Landrieu’s
born-again enthusiasm for debating stems from political calculations, nothing
more. In contrasting her conversion to Cassidy’s cautious approach on the
matter, it really says little about his abilities to represent the state but
far more about her penchant for hypocrisy and the lack of trustworthiness of
her as a representative of the people which that implies.
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