The candidates were asked if Vitter’s scandal remained relevant today. David Vitter is a leading contender in the governor’s race – with a campaign built on conservative values. While never confessing to breaking the law, the married father of four admitted to a “very serious sin”.
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He did not resign, but rather hunkered down for months.
He hunkered down, shored up his conservative base and handily won re-election in 2010. In 2010, he handily won re-election.
It’s the seventh TV debate in the race ahead of Saturday’s election. An independent PAC is running ads reminding voters of it, and his rivals for governor regularly allude to it. Or more to the point, Dardenne and Angelle have been attacking Vitter, while Vitter has been attacking them in relatively equal measure. “That makes me appealing to young people”.
Edwards said, “The last time we elected a governor who routinely didn’t come to debates and let people learn more about him and his positions on the issues, we elected Bobby Jindal”.
Vitter has chosen to deflect all talk of the scandal. And so the likely Republican, who in 2010 beat Charlie Melancon by a 57-38 margin to earn re-election even with all the revelations about his marital infidelities fresh in voters’ minds, will enter the runoff battered, bruised, and largely unpopular. GOP U.S. Rep. Robert Livingston resigned in 1998 after admitting to infidelity.
After the debate, Angelle said he had watched the videos posted to www.theamericanzombie.com and finds them embarrassing to the state, whether true or not.
Vitter calls it a $34,000 taxpayer-subsidized extravagance, while Dardenne says the trip was part of his role as Lt. Governor promoting the state’s culture and tourism industry and that it secured oodles of Belgian and French tourists for the state. He’s skipped most of the TV debates because, his opponents say, he is trying to avoid those questions.
“Sen. Vitter can run”. It’s not going to go away. “It’s a stain on Louisiana”, Dardenne said at a Monday debate Vitter didn’t attend.
Angelle pointed to Vitter’s own words in a 1990s column written by Vitter condemning former President Bill Clinton for Clinton’s affair. Vitter, a shadow that if it continues, will follow Louisiana.
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Stockley says if there is going to be a surprise on election day, he wouldn’t be shocked if Republican Scott Angelle overtook Vitter for second place and made it to the November 21st runoff with Edwards.
