It was called “Operation Icing On The Cake.”
Republicans were riding high after taking back the Senate in a wave election.
But there was one more Democrat to beat — Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who faced a run-off election to determine her political fate.
That was in 2002.
Now, 12 years and two Senate terms later, Landrieu is again fighting for her political life in similar circumstances, a run-off against steep odds in the aftermath of a GOP wave.
She must overcome Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy, whose internal campaign polling shows him with a 16-point advantage. Landrieu has just three weeks to close that gap before voters head to the polls Dec. 6.
National Democrats appear to have given up on her. The senator’s campaign has been deserted by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which earlier this month canceled $2.1 million in television reservations for advertising in Louisiana. Landrieu’s campaign announced Monday its first spending on television since Election Day, totaling more than $300,000 — but, to date, roughly 96 percent of television advertising has been pro-Cassidy.
Still, her campaign points to Landrieu’s previous run-off victories in 1996 and 2002 as proof that she can escape electoral death once more.
“She’s done it before and she’ll do it again,” Ryan Berni, Landrieu’s campaign manager, wrote after Election Day in a memo titled “How And Why Mary Can Win.”
“In both of her previous runoff elections, Republicans candidates combined to take a majority of the votes cast in the jungle primary, and each time she improved her votes among white and black voters,” Berni added. “In 2002, in particular, Republicans had a big win and President Bush was at his peak approval ratings, yet Mary found a way to pull through.”
For a former adversary, Landrieu’s come-from-behind victory in that election is still fresh.
“I don’t count her out,” said Suzanne Haik Terrell, the Republican nominee in 2002. “There are people already picking out furniture, but I don’t ever count out the Landrieus.”
Terrell, who at the time was commissioner of elections and the first Republican woman ever elected to statewide office in Louisiana, was the favorite to win after she emerged from the competitive jungle primary to face Landrieu in the run-off.
Like Cassidy today, Terrell had the full weight of the national GOP behind her. The NRSC would spend more than $5 million on the run-off.
President George W. Bush, still immensely popular after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, traveled to Louisiana to campaign with Terrell.
But the state was historically favorable to Democrats and had only just begun to trend Republican. No Republican had held a Senate seat since the 19th century. In New Orleans especially, where Landrieu’s father, Moon, had served as mayor, the Landrieu name carried great weight.
It was New Orleans that would boost Landrieu to victory. Voter turnout was lower in Republican areas during the run-off than it had been in the general election, but it rose in Orleans Parish.
Around 7 p.m., Terrell recalls, Fox News called the race for her and asked her to appear on air. She wouldn’t do it; she wasn’t counting Landrieu out.
In the end, Landrieu won the race 52 percent to 48 percent.
The result buoyed Democrats and stunned Republicans who had hoped for icing on their election cake.
But 2002 was no 2014.
“The Landrieu race was the committee’s Plan B for winning the majority, just like it probably was this go-around,” said Chris LaCivita, a Republican operative who served at the time as the NRSC’s political director. “We attacked Mary Landrieu for a lot of the same things in 2002 that she is being successfully attacked for currently. The difference is how unpopular the current president’s policies are.”
Another key difference will be New Orleans itself, which has changed starkly since Hurricane Katrina. The population in Orleans Parish, which was key to Landrieu’s victory in 2002, was 19 percent lower last year than it was before Katrina.
Meanwhile, the metropolitan area’s major political organizations, known for bringing black voters to the polls, either no longer exist or are weaker. Former Rep. William Jefferson, who once commanded an impressive political network, was convicted in 2009 of corruption. And the Louisiana Independent Federation of Electors, or LIFE, founded by former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, is still active but not back to full strength.
“These were turnout operations that were like a military operation,” Terrell recalled. “A lot of those groups are not as strong or no longer exist.”
Landrieu has this year attempted to resuscitate her re-election bid by bringing the Keystone XL pipeline to a vote in the Senate, a policy she has long supported and touted on the campaign trail. Should she corral the 60 votes needed to bring the measure to the Senate floor, it could be approved Tuesday.
But such an eleventh hour vote probably will not snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Republicans are eager for one more scalp. “Quite frankly, it was frustrating. How could Mary Landrieu hang on?” asked LaCivita, adding, “It’s nice to see her chickens coming home to roost.”
