Landrieu wary of Obama; Kennedy courts McCain
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Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu and Republican challenger John Kennedy are taking different stands when it comes to campaigning with their party presidential nominees in Louisiana.
Landrieu said Monday that she would welcome time to hunt for votes with Barack Obama, who is expected to land his party’s presidential nomination in Denver this week, but questions how likely that is.
“Should he come to the state I will be campaigning with him. But Louisiana is not a battleground state,” said Landrieu, who is in Denver.
“His visits will be very limited, if at all,” she added.
Kennedy said he is eager to share the state stage with U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who is expected to win the GOP presidential nomination next week in St. Paul, Minn.
“For me, this is easy to campaign with him and for him,” Kennedy said.
Meanwhile, three political experts said that, in general, Landrieu has less to gain from being linked to Obama in Louisiana because of his liberal voting record and state and national party differences.
Pearson Cross, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, said it is a “loser” for the Democratic Party contender for the U.S. Senate in Louisiana to be associated with the party’s presidential nominee.
“Louisiana is a conservative state with a kind of shifting majority between parties depending on the election,” Cross said.
“But McCain is probably much closer to the ideological center of the state than Obama,” he said.
Kirby Goidel, professor of mass communication and political science at LSU, made the same point.
“I think the national party is to the left of the state party,” Goidel said of Democrats.
“And so I think that it creates potential problems if she is identified with the national party,” he said.
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