John Kennedy, a lawyer from Madisonville, is Louisiana's state treasurer, a job that he has held since 2000. He is in his third term, recently elected without opposition in 2007. In that position, he manages and invests state finances.

Before working as treasurer, Kennedy was secretary of the Department of Revenue during the first term of former Republican Gov. Mike Foster, from 1996 to 2000.

He also worked as special counsel to former Gov. Buddy Roemer, who was in office for one term from 1988 to 1992.

Kennedy works as an adjunct professor at Louisiana State University Law School.

He and his wife, Becky, have one child.

John Kennedy has a long history in Louisiana politics, working for two governors, running for several statewide offices and serving as state treasurer for nearly a decade.

After serving two terms as treasurer as a Democrat, Kennedy switched to the Republican Party in August 2007 while running for re-election to his statewide office. Before the switch, Kennedy had grown at odds with the Democratic Party, getting into high-profile disagreements with the then-Democratic governor and one of the party's power brokers, then-Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom.

The party switch came with a shift in rhetoric. Kennedy ran for the U.S. Senate before, losing in 2004 to Republican David Vitter. At the time, Kennedy showed a populist bent, decrying President Bush's tax cuts as too beneficial for the wealthy and pushing a minimum wage hike. He endorsed Democratic U.S. Sen. John Kerry for president, a decision he now calls an awful mistake that bothered him immensely.

On the campaign trail in 2008, Kennedy pitches himself as a conservative reformer who will work against Washington politics. He talks of the need to secure the nation's border, the importance of continuing the war in Iraq and his solid support for U.S. Sen. John McCain to be the next president.

Besides treasurer and Senate, Kennedy has toyed with the idea of other political offices. He considered a run for governor in 2003 but changed his mind and decided to run for re-election as state treasurer instead. In 2007, he considered running for attorney general but again decided to seek re-election to his current post. Before becoming state treasurer, Kennedy had run for attorney general and lost.

Mary Landrieu was born in Arlington, Va., and lives in New Orleans. Her father was Moon Landrieu, mayor of New Orleans and secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Carter. She graduated from Ursuline Academy High School in 1973 and from Louisiana State University in 1977.

She spent 10 years in the real estate business, specializing in townhouse development. At age 23, she was elected to the Louisiana Legislature in 1979 and re-elected in 1983.

She was elected state treasurer in 1987, winning re-election without opposition in 1991. She ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1995.

Landrieu won a 1996 U.S. Senate race by little more than 12,000 votes over Republican Woody Jenkins and was elected to a second term in 2002 with 52 percent of the vote.

Landrieu and her husband, attorney Frank Snellings, have two children.

Twice elected to the Senate in close races, Mary Landrieu has faced the typical Southern Democrat's dilemma in her statewide campaigns: holding on to the traditional party base of blacks and liberals while reaching out to conservatives.

Hurricane Katrina has only complicated that balancing act, driving many members of the Democratic political base, low-income black voters, out of state.

Meanwhile, Democrats in the Senate have tried to bolster Landrieu's political profile by helping her win support for efforts to give Louisiana a bigger share of oil and gas revenue.

In an often nasty 2002 campaign, Landrieu noted that she had voted with President George W. Bush more than 70 percent of the time. However, she also said she wouldn't be a "rubber stamp" for the president a swipe at Republican challenger Suzanne Haik Terrell, for whom Bush campaigned.

Louisiana political consultant Roy Fletcher suggested Landrieu's tactic might not work.

"She can't attract white voters by getting on television and saying she supported the NAACP 92 percent of the time. How does she attract blacks by saying she voted with Bush over 70 percent of the time?"

But she won with 52 percent of the vote over Terrell close, but not nearly as close as her first Senate victory in 1996. That one was by a margin of less than 10,000 votes over conservative Republican Woody Jenkins and led Landrieu to jokingly refer to herself as "Landslide Landrieu."

Landrieu, an abortion rights-supporting Roman Catholic, also has managed to survive strong anti-abortion sentiment, including a statement from a retired archbishop who said before the 1996 election that voting for her would be a sin.

Landrieu replaced retiring Bennett Johnston as a result of the 1996 race and preserved a U.S. Senate seat Democrats have held since Reconstruction.

She was only 23 when she won her first elective office, a seat in the state House. Her oratorical abilities weren't impressive early on and she often was rhetorically trounced by more conservative and seasoned politicians in the House.

But she was a floor leader for fellow populist Gov. Edwin Edwards, helping push through his expanded programs for the poor.

Tempered during eight years in the state house, she won the state treasurer's job in 1987, moving more toward the middle and gaining support from a number of business executives.

She was unopposed for a second four-year term. She also took on her old benefactor, criticizing Edwards' administration at every turn and making a lasting enemy of the man considered the state's most powerful politician since Huey Long. Her timing was right, however, in that Edwards was fast becoming the most unpopular public figure since Long.

Most of Landrieu's detractors said she was successful simply because she came from one of New Orleans' most famous political families.

Keeping her support in the black community has not always been easy. Former congressman Cleo Fields, now a state senator and one of the most popular black officials in the state, made the runoff for governor in 1995, edging out Landrieu. Landrieu refused to endorse Fields in the runoff, so he gave only lip service support to her Senate runoff campaign against Jenkins.

Landrieu called herself a new Democrat, in tune with President Clinton's policies on issues from welfare to tax reform. She supported banning semiautomatic weapons. Landrieu also came out in favor of affirmative action, a balanced budget and the death penalty.

As a state legislator, she championed women's and children's issues such as tough child support laws and measures to protect abused women.

Landrieu serves on the Senate Appropriations; Energy and Natural Resources; Small Business; and Homeland Security and Government Affairs committees.

The liberal Americans for Democratic Action gave Landrieu's 2007 voting record a score of 80 percent; the American Conservative Union gave her 40 points out of a possible 100 for 2007.