Back in October of 2004, Salon Magazine published an expose on David Vitter that was largely ignored. Mary Jacoby uncovered a seamy, and unflattering picture of this "Family Values" Republican that voters remained largely unaware of, because the principles in the case refused to go public.
UPDATE: Glen Greenwald sums it up.
I am going to quote liberally from the piece, given it's age, and historical nature.
There is a house in New Orleans
Rumors involving a prostitute and a secret alliance with neo-Nazi David Duke trail the Republican Senate candidate in Louisiana.
A family-values far-right conservative named David Vitter appears headed for victory on Tuesday in the U.S. Senate race in Louisiana. Sharp-edged and uncompromising, but enormously talented at self-promotion, the three-term Republican representative from suburban New Orleans has rocketed to prominence over the last decade despite opposition from the state's Republican power brokers.
Privately aghast at his rise, the state's GOP leaders have all but fallen in line now, afraid to cross the man who may be their next senator. In interviews with Salon over several days, many Louisiana Republicans expressed anguish that a Vitter victory next week could mark the end of the state's unique tradition of moderate, bipartisan politics. This, of course, is exactly what Vitter's breed of brash, Newt Gingrich-style Republicans believe a deeply polarized country needs -- conservatives who disdain common-sense compromise in pursuit of ideological purity. And so Louisiana Republicans are deeply unhappy that the 43-year-old lawyer, known for running slashing negative campaigns with under-the-radar help from white supremacist David Duke, is on track to become the first GOP U.S. senator from Louisiana in more than 100 years.
It was Vitter who filed the ethics complaint against then Governor Edwin Edwards, in a carefully wrought plan to land the Governor's Mansion for himself.
He was also, apparently deeply in the grasp of the Abramoff Gang. Note, this was written long befor Jack was indicted and the BLM exploded in scandel.
In 2002, Vitter criticized his fellow Republican, Gov. Mike Foster, for supporting the expansion of a casino operated near the Texas border by the Jena Band of Choctaws. Coming to Vitter's aid was an advocacy group called the Committee Against Gambling Expansion, which mailed out campaign fliers on Vitter's behalf and allowed Vitter to use its name in phone calls to supporters.
Then, pleading ignorance, this vicious infighter and very bright man, denied any knowledge of his active role in the casino scam.
It turned out that the advocacy group was not run by "Louisiana folks with the Christian community," as Vitter told the Times-Picayune he had initially thought. Rather, it was a sophisticated front group set up by a Washington lobbyist, who is now under federal investigation for his activities, on behalf of a rival tribe that was trying to block competition. Vitter has said he had no idea the Committee Against Gambling Expansion was actually representing casino interests.
It gets more interesting. When Vitter made his Gubenatorial run some of the fellow Republicans he had stomped, fought back. A supporter of Treen blurted out on a radio show that he thought Vitter had an extra-marital affair.
The Louisiana Weekly newspaper followed up. Bruno [the Treen supporter who made the claim] told the paper that a young woman had contacted the Treen campaign in 1999 because she was upset that Vitter was portraying himself as a family-values conservative and trotting out his wife and children for campaign photo ops.
Reluctant to go public with her claims, having secured a new life for herself in another state, the former prostitute left the proposed expose without a firm base to forward charges of sexual improprioty. But knowledeg of the coming expose had its effect.
...Shortly before the Louisiana Weekly was set to publish its story, Vitter dropped out of the governor's race, saying he needed to deal with marital problems.
He claimed he was in marital counseling and that required his full attention.
Amid Vitter's denials and the reluctance of his accuser to go public, no newspapers in Louisiana reported on the allegations.
When Sen. Breaux announced his retirement last December, Vitter jumped into the race to succeed the conservative Democrat. The far-right and confrontational Vitter was the opposite of Breaux, who had been a consensus-builder in Washington with close relationships with Republicans.
A history of sexual escapades, involvement with the Abrahmof casino scam, and involvement with David Duke. This presents a pretty picture of Republican corruption at the Duke Cunningham level. Family Values, my ass...
It is worth going to the Salon archives and reviewing this story. The MSM is trying to play this as just another naughty little incident. Vitter is, however, merely showing a long established pattern of deceit, graft, racism, and lying to his constituents that should not be allowed to pass as a "one of".