Fresh off wasting the last six months trying to bash Sen. David Vitter over nine-year-old sexual peccadilloes and misbehavior of campaign aides, Democrat challenger Charlie Melancon is finally shifting gears to campaign on the issues.

And now we see why Melancon opted for sleaze from the start.

From the Melancon campaign’s Facebook page today…

I support tax cuts for the middle class – But David Vitter supports tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans that make over $1 million, even though the average family in Louisiana makes $43,000.

A quick prediction – Melancon is going to end up getting absolutely hammered on this one when Vitter responds.

After all, Vitter isn’t opposed to restoring the Bush tax cuts for the middle class.  He’s been quite clear in saying all of the Bush tax cuts need to be reinstated at the end of this year. So has every other Republican.

Melancon’s message seems to indicate that raising taxes on job creators in the middle of a crappy economy is a good idea – and opposing such an idea affords one’s opponent a political opportunity.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe class warfare will be a hot seller in Louisiana in the Year Of The Tea Party.

But Melancon has said he opposes reinstating the Bush tax cuts because of budgetary concerns. Which is an identical position to that of the Obama administration.

This would be a viable argument, perhaps, but for the fact that Melancon voted for $800 billion in union payoffs and Democrat catnip last year, a so-called stimulus which didn’t stimulate squat.

Of course, the Facebook message in question, and the subsequent tweet his campaign also put out…

@DavidVitter just doesn’t get it. He thinks “virtually everyone is wealthy.”

…are of a piece with a fresh round of attacks on Vitter trying to make him out to be a fatcat and a tool of fatcats.

Of course, with the revelation that Melancon ranks fourth among sitting Congressmen in donations from lobbyists, the whole “my opponent has lots of rich friends” reeks a little. The fact he’s reeled in over $475,000 from rich lawyers and law firms stinks a bit, too.

Melancon isn’t poor, and he doesn’t hang around with poor people. Nobody thinks he’s out there fighting for the “little guy,” and nobody ever has thought that. Up until now, he’s styled himself (fraudulently) as a conservative Democrat – which to the left-wing crowd Melancon seems to be appealing today translates into a friendly relationship with the rich and the established.

So now it’s the Workers Of The World Unite push?

Please.

Maybe Vitter has unpaid parking tickets. That might be more Charlie’s speed than tax policy and economics.