“Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.”  - Archibald Wheeler

Timing is everything in politics. An unfortunate statement or happening at an inopportune moment can reduce a well-run campaign to rubble.

Former Sen. Phil Gramm, widely regarded as John McCain’s chief economic advisor, recently stabbed the presidential candidate in the back with little more than his big mouth. Gramm , with seeming conviction, made an unbelievably naive statement describing the wretched state of the national economy as a mental picture Americans have, rather than an actual, serious problem.

Gramm  has his head in the sand making such a remark in times of economic turmoil. McCain, himself considered a economic Neanderthal, should dump Gramm and find someone knowledgeable and interested in the welfare of the American people. Is it too late to rid the candidate of the likes of Phil Gramm and wash away the odor of Gramm’s fundamentally imbecile remarks about the economy, thus saving McCain on election day? Time will tell.

In Louisiana, State Treasurer John Kennedy last year picked the wrong time to change party affiliation from the ascending Democratic Party to the plummeting fortunes of the Republican Party.

Why did Kennedy, a natural born Democrat, choose to change parties at the very time Republican politics have tanked across the nation and are losing ground in Louisiana? Maybe he took a calculated risk, expecting to get lucky and sneak off with Sen. Mary Landrieu’s supposedly vulnerable Senate seat.

Kennedy apparently does not realize that Landrieu can run on her record during the Katrina/Rita aftermath and blow him and any other challenger out of the race. Like Bobby Jindal, who parlayed his activist fight for the state in the hurricane aftermath into the governor’s office, Landrieu also held her own when FEMA was a fraud, Bush would not come to New Orleans and Brownie was a stinker. Voters saw no Blanco style meltdowns from Landrieu, no ineffectual David Vitter type blathering and outright ineffectiveness in Washington. Landrieu has performed solidly since the hurricanes, and her record as a moderate Democrat, coupled with the most seniority of any elected Louisiana official in Washington, give her a strong campaign position.

If Landrieu has a weakness, according to conventional wisdom, it is the loss of her voter stronghold in New Orleans due to the Katrina exodus.

However, with just months to go before the fall election, the U.S. Census Bureau announced last week that New Orleans is now the fastest growing city in the United States. Talk about timing. Growing populations mean more registered voters, and, unfortunately for Kennedy, in New Orleans that translates to more votes for incumbent Landrieu.

Louisiana’s other senator, Vitter, is politically dead, though in his case it is time rather than timing that will determine his fate – the time being 2010, the earliest date voters can boot him out of office. Vitter hammered another nail in his own political coffin last week when he began proceedings with the Federal Election Commission that will allow him to pay off a couple hundred thousand dollars in legal and publicity expenses from his campaign fund after his phone number came up on the call girl business list of the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey.

The junior senator from Louisiana’s waning popularity comes at a bad time for Kennedy. Astute voters this fall will be considering the overall effect of the loss of Vitter’s seniority in the Senate if he resigns or is defeated in 2010. If Kennedy were to defeat Landrieu and Vitter is then defeated, Louisiana would end up with a total of two years seniority in the Senate in 2010, the bullwhip equivalent of a steamed noodle.

Reelected, Landrieu alone would give the state 12 years of seniority in the Senate.
Time, thanks to Vitter’s incredible shrinking image,  has made the seniority of Louisiana’s senators a bigger than usual issue in the fall election, and her dozen year in office could sway voters to Landrieu. When the polls close, party jumper Kennedy may end up wishing he had remained a Democrat, and chosen to campaign against a true dead duck, Republican Vitter, in 2010 - which would prove once again that timing is everything in politics.