Anne Northup is scared

What else would explain her being absent at the airport?!?

When Vice President Dick Cheney arrives in Louisville for a fundraiser on Monday, a familiar face won't be there to greet him.

U.S. Rep. Anne Northup, R-Ky., who is in a re-election fight with Democrat John Yarmuth, wasn't scheduled to be at the airport and her staff says she wasn't advised Cheney would be in town.

Northup's campaign manager, Patrick Neely, said he was unaware that Cheney was landing in the 3rd Congressional District until a reporter told him.

"We were not told the vice president was coming to Louisville," Neely said. "We were never called."[...]

Given that U.S. Sen. John Kerry, a Democrat, carried the 3rd District in the 2004 presidential race and Bush remains unpopular in the area, Republicans may think keeping Northup away from Cheney is better than putting them together, said Michael Baranowski, a political scientist at Northern Kentucky University.

"Considering President Bush's approval rating in the district, I don't think Anne Northup is all that eager to be seen arm in arm with his VP," Baranowski said.

Eastern Kentucky University political scientist Kendra Stewart agreed, to a point.

"This vice president does have a reputation for doing as he pleases, regardless of the political implications or public reaction," Stewart said.

Yarmuth's campaign manager, Jason Burke, said Northup's planned absence is "a little surprising," given her long-standing support for the president and the fact that she votes with the administration most of the time.

"Just not showing up at the airport doesn't change that," Burke said.

Anne Northup knows that she is in the race of her life.