Red-Hot Louisiana GOP Senate Race Coming Up

Prostitution, girl-friend beating, surprise candidate - Louisiana GOP politics has it all.

Although the Talking TV Heads already have ordained that first-term Republican Sen. David Vitter will beat Democrat Charlie Melancon in the Aug. 28 primary and in November, Vitter today faces his worst political nightmare.

That nightmare is Chet Traylor, the first Republican elected to Louisiana's Supreme Court since Reconstruction. Traylor made a last-minute decision to take on Vitter after a fresh scandal broke last week inside Vitter's support group.

That scandal involves an aide who had remained on Vitter's payroll after pleading guilty to charges stemming from a knife-wielding incident with an ex-girlfriend.

"In the weeks leading right up to the campaign, people just wanted an alternative," Traylor said in a prepared statement. Traylor is a 64-year-old Army veteran and former state trooper.

Traylor said unnamed conservatives urged him to enter the race, fearing that Vitter, hobbled by scandals old and new, could lose to a Democrat in the general election.

State GOP chairman Roger Villere still backs Vitter, a 49-year-old attorney, Rhodes Scholar and the state's first Republican senator in modern times. Other state Republicans also are standing with the incumbent.

In 2007, Vitter would confess only to a "serious sin" after his phone number turned up among records for a Washington prostitution ring. He denied later accusations that he was a customer of New Orleans prostitutes and again declined to answer questions.

Traylor has only started raising money and building name recognition even though he won election in a sprawling Supreme Court district in north Louisiana.

Cathy White, president of a 73-member Republican women's group, said members of the group like Vitter's opposition to President Barack Obama's policies.

Vitter has focused his attention on Melancon, repeatedly calling him a rubber stamp for Obama's initiatives, even though the conservative congressman often breaks with his party.

Vitter attracted attention this past week when he expressed support for conservative organizations challenging Obama's citizenship in court.

So-called birthers have challenged Obama's standing as president by arguing that he was not born in the United States. Hawaii officials have repeatedly confirmed the president's citizenship.

Will Justice Traylor unseat Vitter for the GOP nomination in Louisiana?

What do you think?

 

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