Voices were raised, fingers were pointed and accusations were traded Tuesday as the two men in the November 21 runoff questioned each other directly.
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“I thought Vitter won the first half of the debate and Edwards won the second half of the debate”.
In the final minutes of the debate, Vitter and Edwards talked over each other in an angry exchange about campaign tactics.
Edwards called Vitter a “liar” and “cheater”.
After a massive fundraising effort, Vitter started the election cycle as the favorite to follow term-limited Gov. Bobby Jindal into office in January.
“It’s a very full, robust record of bipartisan accomplishments”, he said.
Edwards was also repeatedly linked to President Barack Obama during the debate. “You’re living by the lawyers code, trying to parse words, and create technicalities that don’t exist”, Vitter said.
“If you think the president poses the biggest threat to the state of Louisiana, then you need to stay in Washington and deal with it”, Edwards said. “He’s talking on and on about this for political reasons”, Vitter said.
“I learned that our falls aren’t what define us but rather how we get up, accept responsibility and earn redemption”, Vitter says, as the ad next shows him eating dinner with his family. He’s probably going to push him into making a mistake. Vitter spent much of his time touting himself as the school choice candidate – the person who supports charter schools and school vouchers without reservation.
Until the end of the Louisiana Public Broadcasting event, the two candidates largely avoided issues like negative ads, private investigators and Vitter’s prostitution scandal, which have nearly overwhelmed the governor’s race in recent weeks. Vitter has surprisingly lagged behind Edwards in the polls, after a blistering, attack-heavy primary campaign in which he battled two GOP opponents and voters were reminded of his years-old prostitution scandal.
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Edwards – cognizant of the fact that Louisiana hasn’t voted for a Democrat statewide in years – has been downplaying in his Democratic Party ties on the campaign trail and pushing a message of bipartisanship.
