An interesting item came across the transom this morning: it seems that the Charlie Melancon For Senate campaign isn’t on TV with any ads today.

And upon a bit of investigation, they don’t appear to have any scheduled as of right now. Their last media buy ended last night and they’ve not renewed as yet.

Is Melancon out of money? As of September 30, the campaign reported some $2 million in cash on hand. He’s been on TV fairly heavily over the past couple of weeks, though for every ad Melancon has run two or three ads by his opponent, incumbent Republican David Vitter, have answered him.

The blackout didn’t go unnoticed by the Vitter campaign, which is now hard at work pushing the “implosion” angle on the Melancon campaign – particularly given the rather startling admission by Melancon himself that he’s down 17 points and “He  busted us” at a Democrat rally in Abita Springs on Saturday.

“Charlie Melancon’s decision to stop running their TV ads, as of this morning, shows his campaign is imploding and the wheels have come off. This is just another example of Charlie Melancon acting like Obama, spending the $2 million in his account since the October 1st finance report,” said Luke Bolar, Vitter’s spokesman. “What may be worse for Melancon is when he realizes he can’t get a bailout or a stimulus check to help his staggering campaign.”

“In one week, Melancon admits he’s fallen seventeen points in the polls, says that everything Sen. Vitter is saying is true, and now he’s pulled down TV ads,” added Bolar.

Meanwhile, Melancon campaigned in Baton Rouge Monday with former Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco, who opted not to run for re-election in 2007 amid horrendous approval numbers. Blanco, pilloried for a dysfunctional response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, launched into an attack on Vitter for what she said was a failure to help the state get federal aid.

“Our junior senator was always putting obstacles in our way,” Blanco said. Vitter cared more about appealing to national partisan politics than helping people from Louisiana, she said.

Federal disaster relief in the aftermath of Katrina totaled well over $100 billion.