By writing off Landrieu, Dems are writing off the South

The political world officially wrote off Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) this week after the vote to approve the Keystone XL pipeline failed by one vote to reach a filibuster majority. Landrieu’s reelection in a Dec. 6 runoff election is, at this point, looking improbable, to put it nicely. She had insisted on the vote in order to show her constituents that while she will no longer be chair of the Senate Energy Committee, since Democrats will lose their majority in the 114th Congress, she still continues to yield influence in the chamber nonetheless. Oh well. Landrieu couldn’t convince just one more Democrat to help her out, even though President Obama was likely to veto the thing anyway. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) spoke the brutal truth when the vote failed and said, “I think the question is, would the Republicans leave somebody hanging like that on their side?”

{mosads}Just days after the Nov. 4 election swept Republicans to the majority in the Senate and to a larger majority in the House of Representatives, national Democrats dumped Landrieu, pulling money out and refusing to help win her runoff against Rep. Bill Cassidy (R). And perhaps from a financial standpoint, standing by Landrieu in a losing election is a waste of money. But not helping her is tantamount to kissing the South goodbye. What’s more, every seat Democrats lose this year is another one they have to win back two years from now if they want the majority back in 2016. Another race will cost money then too. The collective loss of moderate Democrats like Landrieu and Sens. Kay Hagan in North Carolina and Mark Pryor in Arkansas, Sen. Mark Begich in Alaska and retiring Sen. Tim Johnson in South Dakota not only lessens the ability of the party to attract moderate and independent voters, it is shutting down whole regions of the country where Democrats can no longer win.

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