At a mexican restaurant in a shopping centre in Baton Rouge, Louisiana's state capital, Bill Cassidy, a congressman, is awkwardly serving burritos. White-haired, and wearing a comically large name-badge, he shakes hands-asking diners first for their order and then for their vote. It is not easy work. One smartly-dressed old lady speaks to him enthusiastically for a minute or two-before admitting that in 63 years of living in America she has never bothered to apply for citizenship, and so cannot vote. Mr Cassidy, a Republican, is hoping to snatch a Senate seat from Mary Landrieu, the Democratic incumbent, who was first elected in 1996. That year Bill Clinton took Louisiana, but since then the state has turned strongly Republican. Ms' Landrieu has hung on through luck, grit and local loyalty: her father was a notable mayor of New Orleans, and her brother is mayor now. But this year, with a deeply unpopular Democrat in the White House, she is struggling.
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