Would his lopsided loss Saturday to a little-known Democratic state representative – John Bel Edwards, of Amite – after a campaign that focused on his character flaws have made Vitter unelectable?
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Gov.-elect John Bel Edwards, the first Democrat elected to statewide office in Louisiana since 2008, carried over the theme of his campaign in his first press conference Sunday following Saturday’s election. He also announced that he would not seek a third term in the U.S. Senate. Edwards was the leading vote getter in the primary with 40 percent. When Vitter declared, he immediately became the race’s frontrunner with what seemed a clear path to victory – but as his nearly 20-year-old prostitution scandal came into play again and many Republican officials endorsed Edwards, the wheels came off the Vitter campaign.
Edwards named outgoing state Sen.
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu may be the state’s best-known elected official, other than Edwards, but he may heed the defeat of his sister, Mary, by Republican Bill Cassidy in her 2014 bid for a third Senate term as a lesson in what happens to a Democrat against a Republican who unifies the party.
But Vitter was hit with repeated attacks for a 2007 prostitution scandal in which he apologized for a “serious sin” after he was linked through phone records to Washington’s “D.C. Madam”.
Each runoff contender sought to tie his opponent to an unpopular figure in Louisiana: Edwards claimed Vitter would represent a “Jindal third term”, while Vitter tagged Edwards as an “Obama liberal”.
During the last two weeks of the campaign, Vitter’s campaign ads portrayed him in a more sympathetic light. with one featuring the senator showing contrition for the scandal and another with Vitter and wife Wendy’s son Jack speaking up for his dad.
Vitter endured a three-way battle among Republicans in Louisiana’s late October all-party primary to make it into Saturday’s runoff election. “I had decided when I decided to make this race with (wife) Wendy that I wanted to pursue new challenges outside the Senate no matter what”.
“Fifteen years ago, I faced my darkest day in life when I had to look my kids in the eye and tell them how badly I’d failed my family”, Vitter said during his closing statement Monday night. Edwards, who often took pains to emphasize his record as a pro-gun-right, anti-abortion legislator, proved them wrong and pulled off “one of the biggest political upsets in the state’s history”. “Republicans couldn’t have had a worse candidate. So I think the people of Louisiana spoke tonight and spoke with a loud voice”. Vitter was a deeply flawed candidate who was unable to overcome both his own personal baggage and Bobby Jindal’s disastrous management of the state to carve out a path to victory. Two other Republicans on the statewide ballot beat their Democratic challengers handily, each drawing 100,000 more Republican votes than Vitter did, according to the secretary of state’s website. Landry and other Caldwell critics who ran attack ads against him called it a “Buddy system”.
Edwards is allied with two of the state’s traditional Democratic power centers: the teachers unions and the trial lawyers.
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Already damaged by the various vice allegations, Mr Vitter ended the primary 14 points behind Mr Edwards. “I will always be honest”, John Bel Edwards said.
