Roughly a year from Election Day, the 2016 presidential race has seen its fair share of scandals -- from Hillary Clinton using a personal email account while running the State Department to questions about Ben Caron’s life story -- that have engulfed campaigns and prompted feuds between the contenders and the media.
So there’s almost something refreshing about an old-school, political knife-fight centered on a prostitution scandal.
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Louisiana’s gubernatorial race between state Rep. John Bel Edwards (D) and Sen. David Vitter (R) has crossed into new territory about the kind of personal attacks candidates can launch against one another.
It started late last week when Edwards released a merciless ad charging that Vitter “answered a prostitute’s call minutes after he skipped a vote honoring 28 soldiers who gave their lives in defense of freedom.”
“David Vitter chose prostitutes over patriots,” the spot concludes, with an image of Vitter standing in front of the iconic white headstones at Arlington National Cemetery. “Now the choice is yours.”
In 2007, Vitter’s phone number appeared in the phone records of the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey, known as the “D.C. Madame,” who ran a prostitution ring in the nation’s capital.
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Vitter apologized for a “very serious sin” in the wake of that scandal, and one of his first ads in the current contest to replace presidential contender Bobby Jindal featured his wife, a clear attempt to put the indiscretion behind him.
But with less than two weeks left before Louisianans head to the polls, Vitter had no choice but to respond on Monday with an ad of his own to try to cauterize any damage inflicted by Edwards.
“Fifteen years ago, I failed my family but found forgiveness and love. I learned that our falls aren’t what define us, but rather how we get up, accept responsibility and earn redemption,” Vitter says in the new spot.
“Now, Louisiana has fallen on hard times: a budget crisis, low wages, failing schools. You know me, I’m a fighter. And as your governor, I’ll get up every day to fight for you for a much better, stronger Louisiana,” he says.
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Louisiana has become a Republican state, but Jindal’s unpopularity has made the race for Baton Rouge competitive.
Edwards and Vitter were the top two finishers in Louisiana’s “jungle” primary on October 24, meaning they got to move on to a run-off vote on November 21.
Recent polls show Edwards with a large lead over Vitter, but the new, bare-knuckled commercial shows the he isn’t taking anything for granted after last week when the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Kentucky proved all the pollsters wrong -- beating the Democrat and delivering the state house to the GOP for the first time in decades.
