The politics of terrorism

Landrieu had her own issues with Bush. A Democratic hawk, she strongly supported him on Iraq, and called for even higher levels of defense spending than Bush did. She had voted for the Bush tax cut. In an early ad, she boasted of how often she had backed the president.

But the Republicans' campaign against Landrieu confirmed that for Democrats in the House or Senate, it did not matter how they voted or what they said or how patriotic they were. The Bush machine would do all it could to defeat them anyway. A lesson was learned: there was no percentage in making nice with an administration willing to politicize security issues in pursuit of a long-term Republican majority.

Landrieu's victory only hardened her attitude toward Bush. "For Democrats who were trying to work with the president on national security issues and support a more hawkish stand than might seem natural for a Democrat, this president discounts it, ignores it and acts as if it's not relevant," she said after the election. "Any time the country is poised for war and about to engage on behalf of the security of the country, it's very important that the president make that the priority and make everything else come in second. Unfortunately, the president has done exactly the opposite of that."

Yes, Landrieu lamented, the country was deeply polarized along partisan lines. "Unfortunately, the president has earned this polarization," she said. "It hasn't just happened. He pushed it to happen."

Landrieu's victory in the runoff was a counterpoint to Cleland's defeat. If the overall message of the 2002 election was that timidity loses, the message of Landrieu's runoff victory was that toughness wins. Bush threw everything except poisoned gumbo into the fight to defeat her. She hit back where it hurt, on the economy, and threw sugar in the president's eyes. She told the voters in a pro-Bush state that they had a choice between a Bush rubber-stamp and an independent voice. Independence beat Bush.

Landrieu had an advantage over all other Democrats running for the Senate in 2002. Under Louisiana's unusual election system, an open primary is held on Election Day, and if no candidate wins a majority, a runoff is held in December. This gave Landrieu time to digest the meaning of the November results. She defeated her Republican opponent, Suzanne Haik Terrell, because in a single month, she and her campaign changed course.

The Republican Party deluged the state with cash to support fierce attack ads against Landrieu. Even Republicans thought the tone and quantity of the spots bred a backlash. Rep. John Cooksey, a Republican who lost out to Terrell in the first round of voting, told The Advocate of Baton Rouge that Louisiana voters rebelled against "outside money and influence telling them how to vote."

Al Quinlan, Landrieu's pollster, noted the change in tone between the two rounds of voting: "We ran a much more aggressive, tougher race" after realizing that the campaign "had to be sharper, had to be more focused on economic issues." It was easier for Landrieu to push economics because the homeland security issue disappeared between the two rounds of voting. Congress gave Bush the homeland security bill he wanted in a lame duck session after the November election. You could tell how much Republicans longed to keep the issue alive -- and how important it had been to their takeover of the Senate -- when Karen Hughes, Bush's former top aide, came to the state and criticized Landrieu for "taking a whole year to decide that she ought to work with President Bush to protect our homeland."

It didn't work, and Quinlan argued that the attacks on Landrieu for failing to support Bush on everything only reinforced her declaration of independence. It also helped bring Democrats to the polls, especially African-Americans, who had not voted in large numbers in the first round. In the runoff, Landrieu sought black votes with a new energy, and her victory speech played off on an old civil rights saying. "My feet are tired, but my soul is inspired," she declared. Yet even as Landrieu was reassuring African-Americans, she did better among white voters than she had six years earlier. Jobs and political independence proved to be themes that could reach across racial and ideological lines.

Mary Landrieu's lesson, which her party took to heart, was that losers allow their opponents to set the terms of the competition. Winners change the terms and fight back. Democrats took a long time to learn that. The tone of 2003 and 2004, the rise of Howard Dean, the toughening of the response of Democrats such as John Kerry and John Edwards to Bush -- all reflected lessons learned the hard way.

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