   Heidi Heitkamp Mary Landrieu's loss and the end of ticket
splitting  Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's defeat in the Dec. 6
runoff certainly was no surprise. If anything, it seemed
inevitable since the evening of Nov. 4, when it became clear a
Republican rout was underway and Democrats would lose control of
the Senate. But the veteran Democrat's defeat is another
reminder we have entered a period of parliamentary elections,
where the parties stand for starkly different ideological
agendas and where ticket-splitting, which follows from
individual evaluations apart from party, is relatively rare. In
the end, the "Landrieu brand" in Louisiana did not matter any
more than the Pryor brand mattered in Arkansas or the Begich
brand mattered in...