The United State Senate voted down the Save Mary Landrieu Act of 2014 by one vote last night. Senator Landrieu had hoped to persuade her constituents in Louisiana that she could bring home the pork owing to her seniority and her savvy in the ways of Washington. She would get a pipeline bill passed into law; one that had been languishing in Washington for some six years during which nobody seemed terribly aware of her clout. The pipeline vote, though, would surely show them.

Facing a runoff election in early December and behind at the polls, Senator Landrieu had done her frenetic best.  If she did not prove that she had clout in Washington, she showed the world how desperately she wanted to keep her job.  Her party had been repudiated in the recent elections.  Her President showed no particular inclination to sign her bill into law even if she could get it through the Senate.  And her party had cut off the flow of funds into her re-election campaign.