As much as I delighted in seeing David Vitter pick up a serious primary challenger, I can’t say that I expected former Supreme Court Justice Chet Traylor to go right after Vitter’s personal scandals. Thank heavens I appear to be wrong.
Stephen Largen reports in the Monroe News-Star, the largest paper in the northeastern part of the state where Traylor hails from, that the Traylor campaign admits there’s little difference between the two Republicans politically and it all comes down to Vitter’s personal foibles:
Early indications are that Republican U.S. Senate candidate Chet Traylor of Monroe intends to run a campaign against incumbent U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-Metairie, that centers on Vitter’s personal foibles and not ideological contrasts.
Traylor and his returning campaign manager, sweet potato kingpin Lev Dawson of Richland Parish, said political differences played only a minimal role in the decision to challenge Vitter (Traylor said one difference is that he opposes any effort to cap BP’s liability related to the Gulf oil spill, which Vitter has proposed).
“I don’t think there’s a difference politically,” said Dawson, who managed Traylor’s successful 1996 state Supreme Court campaign.
“We have reason to fear that (U.S. Rep. Charlie) Melancon, the Democrat, can bring out more of Vitter’s problems. There may be other scandals they are saving for the general election. We fear that if he (Vitter) wins, we may end up with a Democratic senator.”
If you can’t believe a “sweet potato kingpin,” then who can you believe?
