WASHINGTON — Facing increasingly long odds in her run-off race, Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu got the one thing she wanted: a vote on the Keystone pipeline.
But some Senate Democrats say the vote is a lost cause — Keystone won't make a difference in her race, they say, and the timing is terrible. Even some red-state Democrats who lost re-election say they don't think a Keystone vote earlier this year would have helped them.
"I like Mary a lot," said one Democratic senator voting against the bill. "I don't think this is going to help her, though, and it's a lot of theater for something I don't think is really going to make a big difference in her campaign."
Landrieu is down in the polls against Rep. Bill Cassidy, and the vote on Keystone in the Senate is a last-ditch attempt to give her campaign a boost after Democrats suffered significant losses on election night. The outcome remains unclear — it seems unlikely the measure will have the 60 votes it needs to pass, although it's likely Senate Republicans will take the measure up again when they control the chamber.
Moderate red-state Democrats had been pushing for a vote on approval of the pipeline for a while now, and those who lost said on Tuesday a vote prior to Election Day wouldn't have changed the outcome for them.
"People knew my position. I've been very clear about it for years now. I don't think I can say that [it would have made a difference]," said Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor.
Sen. Mark Begich, who only conceded his loss on Monday, told BuzzFeed News that people in Alaska "knew I supported" Keystone's approval.
"It wouldn't have mattered in our election," he said.
Even if the vote would make a difference in Landrieu's increasingly unlikely re-election bid or others' bids, one former Senate Democratic leadership aide questioned the timing. Why now?
"It could have actually been used … I'm not saying it would have made a difference in all of these states but the vote could have been used more strategically, earlier in the year for moderates to show their independence," the former aide said. "It doesn't help anybody now. It might help Keystone, but it's too late to help Landrieu at this point."
"It's like, really? Now, after all this bloodshed? Now we're gonna have the vote?" the aide said.
Keystone has not been brought to a full Senate vote until now.
And it's unclear what President Obama will do with the bill, even if Landrieu does manage to find the 60th vote to get the pipeline approved.
The administration has indicated the bill would likely be vetoed, in deference to the administration's federal approval process being run by the State Department. Asked on Tuesday if the White House was leaving options open not to veto Keystone, press secretary Josh Earnest said, "I don't want to leave you with that impression" but did not offer veto threats.
But in general, administration officials have emphasized the "process."
On a White House climate change conference call Monday, senior Obama adviser John Podesta ignored a question asked by BuzzFeed News about Democratic strategy in Louisiana. Podesta has recused himself from advising Obama on Keystone due to his past public opposition to the program. On the call, he reiterated Obama's comments about the Keystone vote during his recent trip through Asia.
"I would just repeat what he said, which is that we ought to take the time to let the process play out, the analysis come in," Podesta said, "and that, as you know, is not finished as a result of the litigation that is going on in Nebraska … until that occurs, as he noted, no decision should be made."
In recent days, activist groups have started mobilizing on the issue. On Monday, an anti-pipeline group in Nebraska started asked supporters to send $4 for a wooden "veto pen" the group promises to send boxes of to Obama after the Senate vote.
The prospect of the pipeline, while approved of by a narrow majority of Americans, is deeply unpopular with environmental groups and many Democrats.
Several Senate progressives are vocally opposing Landrieu's bill: Barbara Boxer took to the Senate floor on Tuesday morning to say that the "XL" in Keystone XL stands for "extra lethal." Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who also strongly opposes the pipeline, said on Monday that "one vote on Keystone wouldn't have made a difference" in any race because "the fossil fuel interests that support the Republican Party would be relentlessly attacking Democrats anyway."
Sen. Joe Manchin, who has long pushed for the pipeline approval and is a close ally of Landrieu, said he was unsure if a vote would have changed anything for his red-state colleagues who lost, but he was very clear to give the credit to Landrieu for getting Reid to allow a vote.
"It should have been done earlier," he said. "I would have liked it to have been done … we shouldn't be playing this political football right now. But Mary Landrieu has been pushing this for years, and it would have never come to the floor had it not been for her. If Mary had gotten 51%, she would be pushing just as hard today."