Well, maybe GOP Sen. David Vitter really is worried that he won't take one of the top two spots in the Oct. 24 Louisiana gubernatorial jungle primary. Vitter's super PAC has been airing a few negative spots against his intra-party rivals, Lt. Jay Dardenne and Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle, but Vitter and his allies turned the dial up to 11 over the weekend.
Vitter's campaign is out with two new negative ads. Vitter portrays Dardenne as a liberal, arguing he voted for abortion and to raise taxes. The spot also accuses Dardenne of voting against keeping undocumented immigrants from coming into Louisiana. Vitter's anti-Angelle spot links the public service commissioner to Obama: The narrator points out that Angelle used to be a Democrat (he formally switched parties in late 2010), and argues that he raised taxes and voted "to expand the Obamaphone program, to give people on welfare free cell phones and free internet that you paid for."
Vitter's super PAC Louisiana Future Fund is also out with another negative commercial. Unlike past ads that targeted both Dardenne and Angelle at once, this one just focuses on Angelle and blames him for not doing enough to stop a sinkhole that ended up displacing 100 families. Vitter does have one new commercial that doesn't mention his foes, where he calls for changes in Louisiana's welfare programs. None of these ads mention state Rep. John Bel Edwards, who looks positioned to consolidate the Democratic vote in October and advance to the November runoff.
Vitter and his super PAC have far more money than any of his rivals, but the senator doesn't have the airwaves to himself. Angelle's ad praises him for opposing the Obama administration's drilling moratorium after the 2010 Gulf Coast oil spill. Some recent polls show Angelle threatening Vitter's spot in the runoff. While other polls show both Angelle and Dardenne very far behind Vitter and Edwards, Vitter's new wave of negative spots suggests that he's worried about both Republicans.