Mitch McConnell shivs the right back. …Like, frankly, a boss.

Via my RedState colleague Joe Cunningham comes this heartwarming tale of the right boot applied to the right backside at just the right moment:

Republicans have promised Bill Cassidy a seat on the Senate’s energy committee if he defeats Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu in Louisiana’s runoff election next month, potentially undercutting one of her main arguments for re-election.

Landrieu has repeatedly touted the importance of her seat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in her campaign for a fourth term representing a state with a robust oil and gas industry.

While she will no longer serve as the committee’s chair in the GOP-led Senate in the next Congress, Landrieu has campaigned hard on her place as the committee’s senior Democrat — and Cassidy’s inability to get a seat on the panel as a freshman senator.

Joe’s impressed, as am I: Mary Landrieu has just crossed Mitch McConnell off of her Christmas card list. As I noted on Twitter (and Joe was kind enough to link to), this is the sort of thing that you can do when you have a couple of seats’ worth of margin: if Senate control hinged on this McConnell would be actually less likely to make this offer, because it would be seen as being desperate shenanigans.  As it is, it’s just shenanigans, which is a perfectly acceptable thing to do in the Senate and will thus pass without much notice.  Plus, it’s a pretty strong suggestion that McConnell likes our chances for flipping the seat (as do I).

More of this, please, Senator McConnell.

Lousiana Senate Chess: Bill Cassidy hires Timmy Teepell. For 2014?

Tuesday, the news came out: Rep. Bill Cassidy (R, LA) has hired Timmy Teepell for his 2012 re-election campaign.  If you’re wondering why I’m telling you this, this is why: Cassidy is a two-term Congressman who won almost 2/3rds of the vote in the last election (and did not get hurt by this round of redistricting) and Teepell is the guy behind Bobby Jindal’s 2011 re-election… well, ‘campaign’ is not exactly the right word.  ‘Kinetic strike from orbit‘ would be a good deal more accurate.  In other words, Teepell is not exactly needed for Cassidy’s 2012 race.

One of my colleagues – somebody who is much more knowledgeable about Louisiana politics than I am – concludes from all of this that this means that Gov. Bobby Jindal will not be running for the 2014 Senate seat against embattled incumbent Mary Landrieu, and that Rep. Cassidy will.  Hard to argue with the logic; snapping up Teepell early and giving him a chance to get used to Cassidy’s existing campaign team in what should be a pretty easy election campaign sounds like a good idea.  And it’s certainly true that Landrieu’s Senate seat – one of the last remaining bastions of Democratic power in Louisiana – is a glittering prize.  But it does leave one question: if Bobby Jindal doesn’t want to go from Governor to Senator, then where does he want to go?

Because let’s not pretend: Bobby Jindal’s a good guy and a good governor, but he’s also a politician… which means that he’s ambitious.

Moe Lane (crosspost)