David Vitter might soon have more free time to try on diapers

(Salon) I wrote a few weeks ago that Louisiana, a solidly red state, was primed for Democratic victories thanks in part to Bobby Jindal’s tragic tenure. While the initial results of this weekend’s election were mixed, it appears the political winds are indeed shifting. This is especially true of the gubernatorial race, which pitted frontrunner David Vitter against two other Republicans as well as the Democratic candidate, John Bel Edwards.

Louisiana employs a peculiar election system known as a jungle primary, which means all candidates, regardless of party affiliation, compete on a single ballot. If no one gets a majority, the top two candidates compete in a runoff election. On Saturday, Edwards carried 40 percent of the vote to Vitter’s 23 percent (almost a complete reversal of the polling data from a year ago). This means the Edwards will face Vitter in a runoff next month. And Edwards, depending on whom you ask, is now the favorite.

For months, David Vitter was the prohibitive frontrunner. He has name recognition, political clout, a plethora of cash, and a state whose demographics increasingly favor conservative Republicans. But this is a unique political climate. Jindal, one of the worst governors in the history of the state, has made toxic everything he touched, including the Republican brand. Running as a Republican gubernatorial candidate after Jindal was always going to be tricky. In addition to that, Vitter, as James Carville told Salon recently, is “one of the most flawed candidates in American politics.”

Calling Vitter “flawed” borders on charitable, in my view. The man’s political resume is shot through with sin. There’s the famous D.C. Madam Scandal of 2007, which exposed Vitter’s extramarital peccadillos with sex workers (an unfortunate finding for a family values conservative). Miraculously, Vitter managed to recover from this and was poised to win the governorship. But things have spiraled out of control for Vitter in the last month so, with one fiasco after another, and now his entire campaign has cratered. ......................(more)

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/26/david_vitter_lurches_toward_a_humiliating_defeat_a_record_of_scandal_and_hypocrisy_finally_catches_up_to_him/