Tide or Typhoon: Are the Republicans Hip, or just an Anomaly?

Atlanta, GA – The Republicans are still riding high on the fact that they just did was statistically likely: beat up the lame duck president’s party during the midterms. And some are calling it a Republican wave.

It was. But what kind? Was it just like the running in of the tide, where different waves are always coming in and going out just as quickly, or more like the typhoon, which hits the beaches, and might, for a moment, look like any other wave, except for the fact that it keeps on coming. Marching up the beach in a surge of white water, it overruns everything in front of it, and keeps on going, far inland.

In Louisiana, we might get some clues. There, Democratic Senator Landrieu won a plurality (more votes than anyone else, but less than 51%) on election night, over a month ago. But the laws of her state demand that, if no candidate gets a majority, then there is a runoff. That will happen tomorrow.

In the state, there were no primaries, so Landrieu was facing a slew of opponents, many of them conservative, keeping the Republican Frontrunner down, she did come out ahead. But not for long.

Without everyone else to take votes from him, Cassidy, her main opponent, began to rise swiftly in the polls as the election runoff, scheduled for Saturday, came closer.

Landrieu became in miniature, a picture of the Democratic Party themselves. Abandoning her party’s hardline principles, she ran to offer a bill in the senate that would allow the Keystone XL pipeline to be built. Cassidy, over in the house where he currently works, rushed to do the same thing. Cassidy’s bill passed, Landrieu’s did not.

Her apparent last hope running out, everyone has now abandoned her. The Democrats from across the country that were so eager to help in November have disappeared here in December. She is left to run out this final race alone.

The numbers against her are telling. The last of the Democrat White Voters in the Deep South are dwindling. The last hope of the Democrats is that Landrieu win, and prove they have still “got it.”

But it is not likely. If she were to, it would be a harbinger that the Republican win in November was just an anomaly. A statistical blip, a bit like when country wide internet usage goes down over the weekend. But instead everything points to a Landrieu loss, and, for now at least, the Republicans are on top. The numbers we saw before were accurate. The white support for the Democrats is still falling apart. Even if 95% of blacks in Louisiana were to vote Democrat on Saturday, Landrieu would still not be put over the top.

Admittedly, it is a bit early to say that the Democrats are out. Landrieu has not lost yet. The Republicans are not yet at 54 seats in the senate. But the odds for her are certainly going downhill right now. She trails Cassidy now by around 24% in the polls. And there is a 95% chance, by the numbers, that she will lose.

That is bad news for the Liberals. If Landrieu loses, from the Carolinas to Texas, not a single legislative chamber, US Senate seat, or governor’s mansion will be theirs. Merry Christmas Democrats.

Andrew C. Abbott