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Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has finally answered a questioned asked of him for months: Will he endorse embattled Republican Sen. David Vitter's reelection bid?

The answer is no.

"Voters can make up their own minds," the Louisiana governor and fellow Republican told local television station WDSU.

Jindal added he doesn't like to get involved in federal races, though the station reports he has backed federal-office seekers in the past.

Vitter easily defeated his primary challenger in late August and currently enjoys a double-digit lead over Democratic Rep. Charlie Melancon. His comfortable lead comes despite reports in 2007 he was involved with a Washington, DC escort and revelations earlier this year a high-ranking staffer was permitted to stay on the job after facing domestic abuse charges. The aide, Brent Furer, resigned his post in June.

A spokesman for Vitter was not immediately available for comment.

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Republican lawmakers see plenty of good in the tea party, but they also see reasons to worry. The movement, which has ignited passion among conservative voters and pushed big government to the forefront of the 2010 election debate, has also stirred quite a bit of controversy. Voters who don't want to privatize Social Security or withdraw from the United Nations could begin to see the tea party and the Republican Party as one and the same.

Some Republicans worry that tea-party candidates are settling too comfortably into their roles as unruly insurgents and could prove hard to manage if they get elected. Former Senate majority leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), now a D.C. lobbyist, warned that a robust bloc of rabble-rousers spells further Senate dysfunction. "We don't need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples," Lott said in an interview. "As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them."


Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah), who failed to survive his party's nominating process after running afoul of local tea-party activists, told a local Associated Press reporter last week that the GOP had jeopardized its chance to win Senate seats in Republican-leaning states such as Nevada and Kentucky and potentially in Colorado, where tea-party favorite Ken Buck has surged ahead of Lt. Gov. Jane Norton in their primary battle.

Bennett warned that such candidates are stealing attention from top GOP recruits such as Mike Castle in Delaware and John Hoeven in North Dakota, both of whom are favored to win seats held by Democrats. Nor are they helping the Republican Party to resolve its deeper identity problems, he said.

"That's my concern, that at the moment there is not a cohesive Republican strategy of this is what we're going to do," Bennett told the AP. "And certainly among the tea-party types there's clearly no strategy of this is what we're going to do."

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