David Vitter, in his 1999 campaign to win Louisiana's 1st Congressional District, did so by turning inward.
Facing eight opponents, he did not canvass every nook of the sprawling constituency. Instead, he concentrated on his base, the Metairie voters he had represented as a state lawmaker, said Jim St. Raymond, a political consultant who helped orchestrate Vitter's victory.
"The emphasis in his race was increasing turnout in his own district that he represents best," St. Raymond said.
It worked. Vitter not only won the 1999 special election, he was re-elected in 2000 and 2002 before moving on to the U.S. Senate in 2004, when Bobby Jindal succeeded him in the House.
The idea that Vitter won the 1999 special election by increasing the turnout of his base is a very charitable view of recent history.
Here's another view: David Vitter managed to beat David Duke and get into the runoff with Dave "clean" Treen in the special election to replace the disgraced Bob Livingston. (What's ole Bob doing these days, anyway?) After meeting with Treen and pledging not to pull any dirty tricks, Vitter found himself down in the polls with only a week to go. Vitter had made a secret pact with David Duke to sabotage Treen. Duke had agreed to publicly give Treen his (toxic) "endorsement", while secretly telling Duke "backers" to ignore his false praise of Treen and vote for Vitter. This nasty little maneuver was coordinated with a devious, two-pronged mail campaign. On the same day that the black community received mailers from Vitter saying racist David Duke was supporting Treen, the white community received mailers decrying Treen's support for affirmative action. These dirty tactics helped to depress voter turnout in the runoff (the primaries had about 145k voters turn out, while the runoff only had 122k) and Vitter narrowly won the election 51/49% over Treen.
Vitty-cent wasn't elected by "turning inward", or concentrating on his "base". He broke his promise and went "dirty". He cleverly used David Duke to "smear" Treen, and depress turnout for his opponent.
All the while, of course, Vitty was seeing prostitutes, and continued to do so after being sworn in as a U.S. Representative.
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Quotes from the indispensable 2004 Salon story:
"So many forces were against us. So many powers that be," Vitter said in his 1999 victory speech. "They had the politicians. We had the people. They've had the past, but we are the future."
and
In 1999, none of Vitter's future House colleagues showed up at his victory party, and few of his fellow state legislators did. "Vitter has such problems with people -- not just fringe politicians, but legitimate, honest politicians in the legislature who just can't stand him," Republican lawyer Rob Couhig, one of the candidates Vitter defeated for Livingston's congressional seat, told the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call at the time.
Labels: "Race", Cons, Duke, Elections and Campaigns, Vitty-cent