According to TPM Reader JH, the Vitter breakthrough is more significant than even I understood …
I think your analysis on David Vitter is spot on but you dont realize how transformation this is.
That David Vitter maintains a 20 point lead over Charlie Melancon is a significant moment in our nation’s politics. Just as only Nixon could have gone to China and only Clinton could have reformed welfare, so too can only a family-values, conservative break down that barrier preventing politicians from openly cavorting with prostitutes.
Snark aside, this is a state where its politician’s dalliances are the stuff of legend — paging Edwin Edwards (look Jerry Falwell is from Baton Rogue — it’s not just pols). It seems to me that the difference is that whereas other straying politicians have been recognized as cads whose popularity was based on their populism, Vitter has wrapped himself in the mantle of the religious right — embodying Christian virtue as part of his political platform.
Vitter’s actions make mincemeat of those beliefs. We all fall short of our ideals. What is interesting is that the religious right doesn’t seem to much care about Vitter’s misdeeds.
I lived in LA for a bit but don’t understand its politics one bit.
