David Sarasohn: Vitter’s foibles a head start on 2008

Normally, having 18 candidates busily running for president a year early – a situation causing New Hampshire residents to seek asylum in Canada – is as much political entertainment as anyone could reasonably ask in this sinful world.

So Sen. David Vitter, R-La., just comes under the heading of a bonus.

The senator, who has built a political career as the kind of family values model you find only in Louisiana, recently had the awkward experience of having his phone number appear in the files of an alleged D.C. prostitution operator.

This is always an embarrassing moment for a politician, although some have been known to seize it and explain that they were conducting a secret investigation and would shortly be presenting their findings. Vitter decided to go the alternate route, and Monday he held the standard press conference with his wife, announcing that God had forgiven him.

The Almighty had no comment.

After a Tuesday meeting of Republican senators, Orrin Hatch, of Utah said, “I’m a great believer in redemption,” but nobody wanted to discuss the legal issues. Susan Collins, of Maine, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune, “I’m not an expert in prostitution law, I’m pleased to say.”

Reporters are still looking for a senator who will say he is.

This is the moment, of course, when politicians – especially those who have been caught – intone solemnly that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And indeed we have.

On the other hand, not all of us have repeatedly offered ourselves as an example to our moral inferiors.

As a state legislator, Vitter warned that unless Congress removed President Clinton, “his leadership will only further drain any sense of values left to our political culture.” In fact, he thundered, “President Clinton should be impeached and removed from office because he is morally unfit to govern.”

According to ABC’s Jake Tapper, Vitter recently sent a letter to his Senate colleagues “urging them to support abstinence education, to teach teenagers, quote, ‘that saving sex until marriage and remaining faithful afterwards is the best choice for health and happiness.’ “

And be especially careful how you use the phone.

Even before last week, Vitter was busily contributing to the liveliness of the political season. Seeking a president of similar moral values, he had become Southern chairman for the White House campaign of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who ended his second marriage by telling reporters he wanted a divorce before mentioning it to his wife.

Currently, Giuliani’s numbers are dropping, which could leave an opening for the eagerly waiting former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who once declared that President Clinton’s behavior was so immoral that Gingrich would mention it in every speech – at the same time he was occasionally slipping off for an extramarital affair with a congressional staffer who would become his third wife.

You see why Republicans are called a party.

One of the leading Democratic candidates, of course, has also had some issues with her marriage. You may have heard about it.

We have reached this point with half a year still to go before anybody even votes for anybody. It looks like a stretch of almost nonstop surprises and diversions, meaning the New Hampshire folks may never be able to return from Canada.

So far, voters have learned at least one thing, a useful strategy when a candidate declares himself the standard of family values and moral certainties:

Hide the phones.