The I-Love-George Contest

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For Democrats, the recent trouncing at the polls has triggered a lot of soul-searching. Has the party been too centrist, too wimpy, too afraid to challenge President Bush? Some presidential hopefuls are now vying to move as far from Bush as possible: Al Gore uses words like horrible and immoral to characterize his policies.

But talking tough is not an option in Louisiana, where there's a close battle going on, a runoff (required when no one tops 50%) on Dec. 7 between the top two finishers: incumbent Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu and state election commissioner Suzanne Terrell. The Republicans' strategy: show how close Terrell is to Bush. The Democrats' approach: pretty much the same. That's right, despite the new tough talk from the party's presidential wannabes, the Democrats' best strategy right now is to narrow the gap with Bush, maybe pretend there's no daylight at all.

And so Landrieu, running for a second term, trumpets the fact that she has voted with the President a generous 74% of the time! But by that criterion, she could be in trouble: Terrell says she will vote for Bush 100% of the time.

With the Senate already comfortably Republican, you might think this rump race would be no big deal. You would be wrong. Although Bush warned Republicans not to gloat over taking the Senate, he didn't say anything about not rubbing it in with one more win. Senator Mitch McConnell, the G.O.P. campaign chairman, refers to the contest as "war." He's pouring as much as $10 million into the state to help Terrell, who had been a relative unknown until Election Day, when she finished ahead of the early favorite, Representative John Cooksey. He was abandoned by the national party after describing a Muslim as wearing "a diaper on his head."

Terrell, a longtime friend of Dubya's who co-ran his presidential campaign in Louisiana, is for shrinking government (she voted to eliminate her own job) and favors making Bush's tax cut permanent and then some: she would roll back the tax on wealthy Social Security recipients. She admires neither Washington values nor Washingtonspeak. When Terrell didn't know the answer to one of Tim Russert's questions during a head-to-head debate on Meet the Press, she admitted she didn't know, explaining afterward that she didn't want to be "overprepared and seem robotic." In a state with a strong preference for characters, Terrell sticks to her talking points and doesn't worry about charisma. Terrell supporter and Republican Congressman Billy Tauzin, himself a character, says, "Every now and then, even in a state that likes rascals, Louisiana elects someone serious."