Embattled U.S. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana attracted two last-minute primary challengers shortly before Friday’s filing deadline. Former Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Chet D. Traylor, who served on the state’s highest court for a dozen years before his retirement in the spring of 2009, unexpectedly filed for Vitter’s U.S. Senate seat moments before the 5 p.m. filing deadline on Friday.
Traylor said that he had been deluged by phone calls urging him to run.
Franklin physician Nick Accardo filed for the Republican primary earlier in the day. Accardo, who ran for Congress and the U.S. Senate several times in the 1990s — garnering 28,250 votes, or 24 percent, as an independent candidate against conservative Democratic House member Billy Tauzin in 1994 — denounced Vitter as an ineffective lawmaker.
“We need someone the rest of the Congress holds in better esteem,” the 55-year-old orthopedic surgeon told the Baton Rouge Advocate while qualifying on Friday. “We need some grown-ups.”
Though he holds a commanding lead against his likely Democratic opponent, Rep. Charlie Melancon, a three-term congressman from Napoleonville, polls have long suggested that Vitter could be vulnerable to a strong challenger in the August 28 Republican primary because of a series of highly-publicized scandals during his first term, including an embarrassing admission that he had solicited a prostitute in 2007.
The scandal-plagued freshman Senator has been under fire more recently for allegedly keeping a legislative aide on his staff long after he pled guilty to attacking his girlfriend with a knife in 2008. According to Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo, Brent Furer, who has had several brushes with the law, was retained on Vitter’s staff in the role of legislative assistant for women’s issues until his recent resignation.
In qualifying for the primary ballot earlier last week, Vitter vigorously denied that Furer was ever tasked with working on women’s issues.
Vitter, who reportedly raised more than $1 million in the second quarter and boasts $5.5 million in cash on hand, continues to hold a double-digit lead against Melancon, his presumptive Democratic opponent, but his biggest challenge is likely to come in the August 28 primary — an unexpected primary battle in which his ample war chest could be substantially drained.
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