David Vitter
In Louisiana, where politics is often a matter of tradition and going
along with established order and dominance by elderly politicians, the
boyish-looking David Vitter is an improbable officeholder. He was first
elected to political office as an outsider, and never really fit in
with his fellow public officials until recently. A graduate of Harvard
University and an attorney by profession, he first came to notice in
1991. That year, he ran for the Louisiana state House of
Representatives, in a district in Metarie, an affluent suburb of New
Orleans. He was seeking to succeed the highly controversial incumbent,
former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke, who ran for Governor that year. He
won in an upset and one of his first proposals was to limit the number
of terms a state lawmaker could serve in the legislature. This didn't
endear him to fellow legislators of either party. Nevertheless, he was
easily reelected in 1995. He still wasn't very high-profile until early
1999. After the 1998 Congressional elections, U.S. Representative Bob
Livingston, who was expected to be the next Speaker of the House,
suddenly announced that he would resign from Congress after facts about
his past were publicized by pornographic publisher Larry Flynt. A special
election was called for the Spring of 1999. The district, like his
legislative district, was heavily Republican, and he ran. Also running
was former Governor David Treen and his predecessor in the legislature,
David Duke. Treen was considered the heavy favorite, but Vitter won in a
surprise. In contrast to his state legislative service, Vitter kept a
low profile in Congress, although not the Congressional district. He
was also an effective fund-raiser. In 2004, U.S. Senator John Breaux, a
somewhat conservative Democrat, announced that he would retire, and
Vitter immediately announced his candidacy. After waging one of the
more effective campaigns of the year, he won by larger than expected.
He came to national attention recently with his attempts to help with
the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. He is up
for reelection in 2010.
