Hail Mary Turned Into Fail Mary for Landrieu's Keystone Pipeline XL Vote

Instead of a Hail Mary we watched a Fail Mary come about as the U.S. Senate denied passage of the Keystone Pipeline XL by one vote Tuesday afternoon.  One vote.  

Safe to say that Rep Bill Cassidy can now begin measuring the room for furniture arrangement as he will be the next Senator from the great state of Louisiana.  It is high time that the Bayou State be relieved of the burden of Senator Mary Landrieu.  She has been on the taxpayer's payroll for one decade too many.  Soon she will be free to accept a nice cushy lobbyist job in Washington, D.C. like the rest the career politicians once they fall out of favor with the voters back home.

Mary Landrieu told voters that she had to be re-elected because she has seniority in the Senate.  She said she has power and is chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.  She has been unable to convince Senate Majority Harry Reid to bring the Keystone Pipeline XL vote to the floor all these years the bill has languished on his desk, but never mind that. 

To be fair, Landrieu is one of the more conservative Democrats left in Washington, D.C.  but she's still a Democrat and she votes for their agenda.  At crucial times, she goes with the more liberal faction of the party - she voted in favor of Obamacare after a promise of receiving increased taxpayer money for Medicaid in Louisiana - so under pressure she truly votes in her own best interest, not for what the people of Louisiana are telling her.  

So, because Rep Cassidy is up over Landrieu in the polls in their run-off race, the Democrats in Washington, D.C. decided Landrieu's re-election chances would improve if a vote on the Keystone Pipeline XL finally happened.  With a strong message sent from President Obama that he would not sign the bill into law, but in fact veto it, many Democrats felt more secure in voting yes.  Americans strongly favor the pipeline but anti fossil fuel billionaire Tom Steyer has bought the support of many Democrats in office as he pushes his climate change alarmist agenda.  Democrats abandoned Landrieu and the vote failed.

The vote will happen again in the Senate.  In January, when a new Congress convenes - this one with a strong Republican majority in both the House and Senate - the vote will be brought up and pass.  This vote could have happened several months ago or it could have just waited until January but it proceeded Tuesday as a Hail Mary for Landrieu's campaign.  She lost.

Rep Bill Cassidy brought the most recent Keystone Pipeline XL bill to a vote in the House and it passed.  He will continue to campaign for the Senate seat as the victor of this battle between the two chambers of Congress.  The American people wait.

Landrieu has conducted a dismal campaign to date laden with mistakes.  Her last resort has been to go negative against Cassidy.  Now the Washington Post calls the Keystone Pipeline XL vote her final indignity.  Ouch.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) has participated in a keg stand. She has run this desperate ad. She lost an energy committee chairmanship that she often touted, when the GOP took the Senate on Nov. 4. She has clashed -- in front of reporters -- with a leader of her party. That same party basicallyabandoned her in her runoff campaign for a fourth term.But on Tuesday, she suffered the biggest indignity of her 2014 campaign, and possibly of her political career.Landrieu, reduced to a relatively pointless gambit to demonstrate her clout in Washington, failed to secure the 60 votes required to move forward with the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. She came up one vote shy.This was basically Landrieu's final play. With no party funding for her campaign, she has been drubbed on the airwaves -- as in, exponentially so. And even before that, few gave her much hope in her runoff with Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.).

.Bye girl, bye.