The American Spectator

Washington Prowler

p> BAYOU SNAFU br> Two or three months ago Republicans in Louisiana thought they had a shot had knocking off Sen. Mary Landrieu due to the odd general election laws there: if a candidate doesn't get better than 50 percent, she's forced into a runoff with the second highest vote getter. Thinking that Landrieu was ripe to be taken down due to her low -- indeed, contested -- election numbers last time out, the state GOP recruited three candidates to run against her, including Rep. John Cooksey . But Cooksey hasn't done the job, and trails Landrieu badly in the polls. /p>

The Louisiana situation recently caught the attention of White House senior adviser Karl Rove, who was mulling whether or not it would be worth it to have current Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster throw his hat in the ring to take on Landrieu. All signs now are that it won't be. "It's not as easy a decision as you might think," a Republican National Committee staffer had said last week. "It's kind of late in the game to mount a campaign, we'd have to be pretty sure that Foster wasn't burning a bridge that might be open to him further down the road."

There is little or no chance that Foster would take on the other Bayou senator, John Breaux, who remains popular in state and with this White House. Louisiana wasn't thought to be a serious state in play six months ago, but as Republicans have watched Senate races tighten up in Texas and Tennessee (once thought safe for Republican re-election), and uncertainty in potential swing states like Minnesota and South Dakota, they know Landrieu's seat could loom large in the battle for Republican control of the Senate.

p> RAISING THE BARR br> Rep. Bob Barr is not letting the grass grow under his feet. Just a week after losing a bitterly fought Republican primary to the equally conservative Rep.

topics:
Bill Clinton, Law, NATO, Conservatism, Libertarianism