In 1987, Italian voters elected a foreign porn star to
parliament. Anna Ilona “Cicciolina” Staller
received 20,000 votes, the second highest number for a Radical
Party candidate. Only party leader Marco Pannella got more votes.
Cicciolina campaigned on a platform that included the right to
sex in prison, decriminalization of drugs, and opposition to all
forms of violence, (though you were free to slap her on the rump
if you liked). Considering the history of Italian politics,
Cicciolina’s election was probably a step forward.
Americans have yet to elect a porn star to Congress, but they may
get their chance soon. Adult film starlet Stormy Daniels has formed a 2010
Senate Exploratory Committee to determine whether she should run
for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Republican David
Vitter. And while her proposed run may be just a publicity stunt
— not unlike porn star Mary Carey’s run for California governor
in 2004 — the surprisingly well-spoken Daniels has been no bimbo
on her so-called “listening tour.” In fact, her pre-campaign
spiel, delivered in a confident, if slightly breathless
tone, sounds like it came right out of an Obama script: bring
home the troops. Revise the income tax system. Stop child porn.
She demurs when asked about Vitter’s transgressions, knowing that
her mere presence says enough.
Some conservatives have not hesitated to ride to Vitter’s
defense. Many are willing to overlook the junior senator’s
blatant hypocrisy in lauding family values while cheating on his
wife with high-priced hookers secured by the infamous D.C. Madam
Deborah Palfrey. (Palfrey, you may remember, hanged herself a
year ago, after her conviction for various prostitution-related
offenses.) Many of these same supporters earlier closed their
eyes when Vitter dropped out of the 2002 governor’s race after a
newspaper accused him of fornicating with at least one New
Orleans’ call girl.
The adultery, lies and whoremongering aside, Vitter has solid
conservative credentials. He is pro-life, pro-gun rights and
opposed to gambling, same-sex marriage, funding for abortion
providers, the United Nations, and amnesty for illegal aliens.
Vitter is also the first Republican U.S. Senator from Louisiana
since Reconstruction, so do not expect the Republican Party to go
out of its way to draft a candidate for a primary challenge.
In fact, Vitter has raised his national profile in recent months,
becoming a leading critic of Obama’s bailout plans. Ms. Daniel’s
entrance on the scene and the attendant publicity will likely
cause Vitter to go underground again. Going underground, however,
will not mothball Vitter’s fundraising machine, which has already
raised $2.5 million. (He needed $7 million to win the seat back
in 2004.) Ultimately, pundits argue, any real opposition will
come in the GOP primaries, perhaps from Louisiana Secretary of
State Jay Dardenne, who is considering a challenge. “I’m
continuing to get a lot of encouragement from a lot of people,”
Dardenne told the newspaper Roll Call recently. “I have
not decided to run, nor have I ruled out the possibility that I
may run.” But other high-profile would-be challengers, like
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and former Rep.
John Cooksey, have already pulled their names from the ring.
Traditional Protestantism, of course, teaches that man is a weak,
imperfect, sinful creature, and that includes married U.S.
senators with degrees from Oxford and Harvard who pays whores to
dress them up in diapers. Despite its French heritage, Louisiana
is overwhelmingly Protestant (60 percent), and as long as Vitter
is repentant he is likely good to go for another term.
Still it is not out of the question that Vitter may face a
challenge from Ms. Daniels. Since Minnesotans elected a
professional wrestler govenor all bets have been off when it
comes to novelty candidates. Besides, we are talking about
Louisiana. Louisianans had no problem with three-term governor
Earl “Last of the red hot poppas” Long despite his affair with
the stripper Blaze Starr. And morals and mores have loosened
quite a bit since the late 1950s. So has America’s attitude
toward porn stars.
It used to be an article of faith that there was nothing more
pitiful than a porn star. Suicide rates were notoriously high
among female adult stars. These were women who were, as the
saying went, already dead on the inside. The outside could be
painted up, enlarged, lifted, medicated, drugged, but the inside
was a ruin that could not be salvaged. I am not so sure that is
still the case. Today amateur Internet porn “stars” must number
in the millions, if not billions. The sad fact is you probably
know someone who has made an amateur porn video, and not just for
his or her personal use, but has posted it online for all the
world to see. Porn does not neccearily diminish one in a lot of
people’s eyes, at least no more than adultry, lying,
whoremongering, or racketeering.
Back in the 1980s P.J. O’Rourke wrote A Parliament of
Whores, which detailed how politicians have been
prostituting themselves in Washington for centuries. Perhaps it
is time to give the real professionals a chance.
