Former Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu (D)
Via
the Shreveport Times, we learn that former U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu is sitting on six figures in cash from her failed 2014 re-election bid. Like many former members of Congress, she is planning to spend that cash getting former colleagues and pals re-elected in future elections.
Which is not unusual. But this is freaking unusual:
Landrieu said she also will contribute some leftover campaign money to Republicans.
"I'm not opposed to helping one or two of my Republican friends that have helped Louisiana—if they ask,"’ Landrieu said. "They haven't asked yet."’
She specifically named Rob Portman of Ohio, who is up for re-election next year, and Susan Collins of Maine, who is up in 2020.
Collins is a favorite of the "bipartisanship" fetishists, so her inclusion is not at all surprising. Given the fact that she has rarely been challenged in her Senate tenure, and isn't up for re-election for five years (when she may very well retire), her inclusion isn't terribly upsetting.
Rob Portman's inclusion, on the other hand, is not only upsetting—it is outrageous. Portman is up for re-election next year and is set to face a pivotal contest with former Gov. Ted Strickland, the probable Democratic nominee.
Landrieu publicly offering cash to Portman, even if it is a comparably insignificant $2,000 (the maximum she can transfer to Portman's campaign account), is a huge no-no on two different levels. Keep reading below for a closer look at this folly.
For one thing—and this cannot be emphasized enough—it is not her money. If the Landrieu family has great love for the Portmans and wants to donate some of its personal funds to his re-election, the political optics might suck, but there would be no legitimate complaint. It'd be their cash, after all.
But this is not Landrieu's personal wealth that is being dangled in front of the Ohio Republican. It is money that had been donated to her, the overwhelming bulk of which came from Democrats who hoped (alas, in vain) that her re-election could help save a very tenuous Democratic majority last year. One has to imagine that many of those who donated to her campaign would be less than thrilled to see Landrieu offering aid to a Republican who is now critical to maintaining GOP control of the Senate.
For another, Landrieu gives the vital appearance of bipartisan honor to a senator whose voting history is nowhere near middle-of-the-road. Every incumbent in a competitive race yearns for the ability to look like a bridge-builder, especially at a time when the popular conversation has little more than contempt for "politics as usual." Portman is no centrist, except perhaps when viewed through the lens of a deeply conservative GOP: His two decades-plus in DC confirm that. But a seal of approval in this case from Landrieu would give him an undeserved patina of bipartisanship and moderation, which could matter a great deal in a race as close as a prospective Portman-Strickland battle promises to be.
What Landrieu is proposing to do is utterly unacceptable, and even publicly proposing it in the first place is obnoxious and insulting in the extreme to her supporters. It's embarrassing that she doesn't appear to know any better, and what does it say about Landrieu that she now wants to help the party that brutally savaged her while turning her out of office last year? Nothing good, that's for sure.