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.