THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Saturday will be the day of reckoning in the race for Governor of Louisiana. Aside from the question Why? any one would want to be governor of that sinkhole, it looks like the Republican candidate, Diaper Dave Vitter, has pissed off enough people to go from shoo-in to probable loser.

Republicans and Democrats say they see Mr. Edwards’s wide margin narrowing as the election approaches, as the inexorable pull of Louisiana’s Republican gravity kicks in.

But Mr. Vitter’s bare-knuckle style has already had its costs, which are readily apparent in the aftermath of his primary victory. The battle among Mr. Vitter and two other Republicans in the race — Scott Angelle, a public service commissioner, and Jay Dardenne, the lieutenant governor — grew nastier as the primary neared, with Mr. Vitter accusing his Republican opponents of recklessly squandering public money and the opponents calling Mr. Vitter a liar. After the vote, Mr. Dardenne endorsed Mr. Edwards; Mr. Angelle has stayed conspicuously silent.

Mr. Vitter’s supporters acknowledge the lingering harm of that primary. They talk up his endorsements from business and industry groups but say that support has been overshadowed by the bitter Republican infighting.

“The Republicans just beat the heck out of each other,” said State Representative Lance Harris, a Republican and Vitter supporter. “A lot of the negativism just turned voters off.”

But there are old acrimonies that run deeper, as evident from the split in Mr. Vitter’s support in Jefferson Parish, the suburban bastion of Republicanism just west of New Orleans. The parish is where Mr. Vitter entered politics as a young state legislator not shy about picking fights or leveling charges of ethical failings among his colleagues.

“He repeatedly refers to everybody in the Legislature as being corrupt,” said Daniel R. Martiny, a Jefferson Parish Republican and the majority leader in the State Senate.

Not only has this reputation endangered Mr. Vitter’s bid for governor, but it could also be a problem were he to lose and want to keep his seat in the United States Senate, where he has few close colleagues. With Senate Republicans holding a precarious four-seat majority and next year’s Senate races favoring Democrats, leading Republican strategists in Washington have quietly begun putting out word that they have little appetite to spend money rehabilitating Mr. Vitter’s image when another Republican candidate could hold the seat with little investment.

Politics may be a blood sport leading up to election day but the smart ones who lasted always knew how to mend fences afterwards.