David Vitter, the Republican US Senator from Louisiana, is high on Democrats' list of targets for 2010, when he faces re-election. Vitter, in case you've forgotten, turned up in the phone book of the "D.C. Madam" in 2007, leading him to confess to "very serious sin."
But before the Democrats get to him, Vitter must traverse the Republican primary, in which he is expected to be challenged from the right -- quite possibly by Christian Conservative honcho Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. Perkins has tried a Senate run before.
So Vitter has embarked on a rather blatant crusade to become the most conservativy conservative a Louisiana GOP primary voter could hope for. Today, that meant being the only member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to vote against confirming Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
Earlier this week he filed a slew of bills for the new session, nearly all hopelessly moot in a 59-41 Democratic Senate; they target every conservative hot-button topic he could swing a legislative stick at. Message: this is a guy on the right side of the moral-decrepitude divide, hot hooker sex notwithstanding.
Some samples from the 35-bill pile:
--A resolution supporting the Constitutionality of the death penalty for the rape of a child.
--A resolution supporting prayer at school board meetings.
--A Constitutional amendment to term-limit members of Congress to 12 years.
--A Constitutional amendment to prohibit the desecration of the American flag.
--Preventing illegal immigrants from obtaining credit cards.
--Prohibiting family
planning grants from being awarded to any entity that performs abortions.
--Requiring high schools to provide student names and information to military recruiters.
--Preventing the federal government from imposing the "locally prevailing wage" requirement on federally funded construction projects.
--Reducing financial assistance to Mexico for each illegal border crossing.
--Requiring drug testing for welfare applicants.
--Requiring physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
--Tax credit for stem cell research that avoids death or danger to human embryos.
--Tax breaks and other benefits for home schooling.
--Repealing automatic pay raises for members of Congress.
--Prohibiting former Guantanamo detainees from entering the United States.
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