The Coonass King and the Guru
Gold, Victor
the country. We can do better." Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, a liberal chest-thumper, says Bush better not try to "Hortonize" him. He'll hit back. "You wait and see," he told reporters. Speaking of...
...Meaning, the Cajuns have elected one of their own as governor—"coonass" being a jocund if not especially endearing pejorative for descendants of the Acadians who settled the bayou region in the early 1800s...
...But the Louisiana of Edwards's third term was hit hard by a lingering oil and gas recession that depleted the treasury and gave the state one of the highest per capita unemployment rates in the country...
...Speaking of dividing people on racial grounds and stirring hate, how about this...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1991 15...
...Indeed, Edwards's victory in 1983 was a triumph of style over substance, coming at the expense of an incumbent, David Treen, who had run the governor's office as a wholly serious enterprise...
...actually, a free-for-all in which candidates for governor—Democrats, Republicans, independents—vie for votes...
...This includes the sainted Longs, Huey and Earl, who were given to lying to bayou audiences about their "Catholic grandparents...
...And as the only candidate in the race acceptable to prochoicers, he'll probably even out on the abortion issue, since it's unlikely the pro-life vote—now split among three lesser candidates—will flock in large numbers to high-kicking Edwin Edwards...
...Fashion, style—the singular quality, as Huey's biographer T. Harry Williams saw it, that sets Louisiana's tradition of political corruption apart from that of other states...
...That Edwards qualifies as a Coonass on his mother's side—yet has the surname, appearance, and Pentecostal credentials of an Anglo—has helped him bridge the gap between the state's Protestant north and Catholic south like no Louisiana politician before him...
...Like Holloway and Duke, she couldn't...
...Didn't Huey Long once greet the German consul general in his pajamas...
...On the other hand, there's Roemer's unpredictability to consider...
...The good times rolled in the 1970s for Louisiana's oil- and gas-based economy...
...With recession-ridden Louisiana hungry for foreign investment, you'd think the governor's office would roll out the red carpet when Japanese consul general Yasuhiro Hamada called from New Orleans . . . but wait, let Hamada himself tell the story: His secretary said "Come tomorrow...
...He trashed Bush for vetoing the Civil Rights Act in 1990 and said the Bush era has brought about "the worst racial climate in forty years...
...With dull reflexes and a pauper's budget, can the Coonass King succeed in expanding his base—Louisiana's black vote—to get his revenge...
...Victor Gold is The American Spectator's national correspondent REVENGE OF THE COONASS KING starring Edwin Edwards/Buddy Roemer with David Duke/Clyde Holloway and a Cast of Thousands (PG-13) The Coonass King is, of course, Edwards, who after his upset win over Bennett Johnston in the 1971 governor's race leaped on a table to crow, "The Coon-asses have done it...
...Not to forget the Incredible Blue Jeans Incident...
...We no longer speak honestly about race in America...
...But he has also brought chaos with his leadership style and his inept and often inconsiderate dealings with legislators...
...So Jackson "was entitled to have the fullness of the moment without being subjected to the sort of nit-picking standard we were all applying to each other...
...In a state where Edwards once raised $13 million for a re-election campaign, a $5,000-percontributor cap has old-time finance chairmen jabbering into their absinthe As of late August, with the law and a one-lung economy zapping the high-rollers, Roemer had raised an estimated $1.1 million and Edwards less than a half-million, with Clyde Holloway, David Duke, and Kathleen Blanco yet to reach six digits...
...Issues like crime, out-of-wedlock births, welfare dependency, drug use, low labor-force participation, the lack of black entrepreneurs, and so on...
...Enter Buddy Roemer, jauntily, playing the new-face role that Edwards had himself played in 1971—the young congressman who had big ideas on how to shake things up in Baton Rouge...
...Roemer manages to walk through a statement giving reasons for his switch to the Republican party without once uttering the name G----e B--h...
...but that was before the incumbent stepped out of the Azalea Garden and put his campaign into gear...
...Babbitt said the other candidates "shared my sense of pride" that Jackson's candidacy "was a piece of history...
...Retiring to the private practice of law, the King bided his time, waiting for the usurper to make the big mistake that would trigger calls for a Restoration...
...He was articulate," wrote the New Orleans Times-Picayune's Iris Kelso of the Buddy Roemer who whipped the King in 1987...
...if not, the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, meet in a November runoff...
...Suddenly the Coonass King, who once boasted that the only way he could lose an election was to be found in bed with a live boy or a dead girl, was vulnerable Out of sync with his people, out of step with the times...
...TREEN (dourly): You're talking out of both sides of your mouth...
...lb punctuate his point, Bradley added, "If you don't believe me, ask any African American who tries to hail a cab late at night in an American city...
...Bush won't talk frankly about race and poverty...
...Flashy ex-governor Edwin Edwards, an old-style bayou politician, squares off against New Age incumbent Buddy Roemer, whose conversion to the Republican party is by no means his strangest move of late...
...After four years of honest-butdull, Louisiana was ready for a return to the flamboyant style of a governor 14 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1991 who lived and led by the Coonass maxim, Laissez les bons temps rouler...
...He signs off on a reapportionment plan with legislative leaders, they go away happy, then wake up the next morning to learn the governor has changed his mind...
...On October 19, in livid color with Dolby sound, comes the rematch...
...Democrats got support from a Bush appointee on the issue of Bush's campaigning...
...Brown asked him why he and other white presidential candidates in 1988 didn't criticize Jesse Jackson...
...Victor Gold THE COONASS KING AND THE GURU The 1991 gubernatorial race heats up in Louisiana...
...But when they pass another bill meeting his objections, he vetoes that one as well, is overridden, and earns the distinction of being the first governor in Louisiana history to suffer an override...
...There'll be a presidential visit in September, during which, presumably, he'll fmd it possible to utter the name G----e B--h...
...Three times Edwards has won the governorship, twice in the 1970s and again in 1983...
...A decade and a half of high-rolling, skirt-chasing, and allegations of corruption had taken their toll...
...Duke argues that he always "flies below radar"--meaning, middle-classvoters won't tell pollsters they're backing a candidate with Nazi-KKK credentials...
...Staying close to the mansion, working an Azalea Garden re-election strategy, he would move through the hot, unseasonably rainy Baton Rouge summer, jeaned legsatop his desk, rubber bands at the ready...
...This wasn't Fletcher's first hit on Bush...
...So I travel to the governor's house and waited 20 minutes and then was shown to his room and I saw him with his legs on his desk...
...They worried they might be called racist if they said drugs, welfare, and crime were disproportionately a black problem...
...E ven in the distant era when stories covering Southern elections would inform readers that "winning the Democratic primary is tantamount to election," Louisiana did things differently...
...He was funny...
...Heated public issues at the time, both in Louisiana and across the country: Desert Storm and quotas...
...He was bold...
...If male saviors haven't worked out, why not a Joan of Arc...
...The game had changed, and in the worst possible way for a politician given to gambling excursions to Vegas and one-line quips to silence his critics...
...Edwards's big-spending populism meshed perfectly with the bon temps mood of a state with a treasury surplus and all economic indicators pointing up...
...You receive Japanese businessmen in this manner, it creates incredibility...
...About Duke, the Spy magazine cover boy who picked up 44 percent of the vote in a 1990 race against Senator Bennett Johnston: for all the national publicity he's generated, the drop-off in Duke's grassroots appeal has been dramatic...
...Indeed he did, say Roemer's critics—but Huey, for all his rustic vagaries, was never into California-style self-help seminars in the mode of Guru Jerry Brown...
...I ris Kelso, on the eve of the 1991 governor's race: Roemer has brought a new level of intellect and high-minded motivation to the office of governor...
...Edsall says there is "pointed liberal avoidance of these issues," or what he calls "self-imposed Democratic myopia...
...But then I've been surprised before...
...EDWARDS (jauntily): That's so people like you, with nothing between their ears, can understand...
...I don't get the connection...
...He's entitled to the benefit of a double standard," Babbitt said, because "there has been so much racism in this society and so much willingness to belittle blacks...
...I'd be surprised if he did...
...Bienvenu a Hollywood South: New Orleans as a movie lot, tinsel on the Spanish moss . . . T hey cluster in their off-hours— '. producers, directors, actors, gofers —at nouvelle Cajun eateries like the Pelican Club in the Quarters and the Palace Cafe on Canal Street, to talk of angles, grosses, edits, contract points—Beverly Hills Polo Lounge chatter over their crawfish etouffei while on the streets outside, on past the spillway, into bayou country and beyond, the ultimate local diversion, a governor's race, warms up...
...As examples of "inflammatory racial rhetoric" to be avoided, Fletcher cited the Horton ad and the TV commercial of Jesse Helms in 1990 attacking the same racial quota provision that Bush has criticized...
...And he said, "I am very frustrated that Japanese companies are not coming here...
...Pre-Labor Day, the polls showed the two neck-and-neck, Edwards at 27 percent, Roemer at 25...
...But in 1987, along came Charles "Buddy" Roemer, with his Harvard business school degree and promises of sweeping reform...
...It was Edwards, no less, then at the height of his vote-getting power, who saw that while Democrats were spending fortunes and bloodying themselves in intra-party primaries and runoffs, Republican candidates were enjoying the carnage, gearing up for an autumn push against whichever Democrat survived...
...Buddy has a way of getting into trouble when he talks too much," says Richard Baudouin, editor of the Times of Acadiana...
...For the first time in his political career, the Coonass King tasted defeat...
...That could spell serious trouble in a race against the old Edwin Edwards, but this year Baudouin and others detect a dullness in Edwards's reflexes, as if, like Sugar Ray Leonard, he's a stylist fighting one match too many...
...That's what Bradley said in a second speech on July 16 to the National Press Club...
...Some major examples: • Roemer seems to have perfected the art of never-letting-his-left hand-knowwhat-his-left hand-is-doing, especially in dealing with the state legislature...
...Does he cite any pathologies of the underclass that frighten whites and spur the race issue...
...After months of White House wooing, Roemer tests the political winds and decides to switch parties...
...The governor's defenders will tell you there's a precedent for this sort of diplomatic faux pas...
...He's waited four long years...
...As for why he's changing parties, it's very simple: the Republicans are too much of a "country club" party and need an infusion of new leadership more attuned to minority and women's interests...
...Roemer mentions neither...
...The refusal to discuss real issues of social disorder has "eroded the political credibility of liberalism and the Democratic party," he writes...
...Louisiana voters, north and south, look for style in a governor, and they're willing to pay for it...
...Then he proceeds to say almost nothing candid or honest on the subject...
...Then there are the little things that make him look ridiculous...
...I was shocked . . . no jacket, no tie, he has jeans...
...All races must learn to speak candidly with each other," he said...
...oemer will benefit from the national significance read into the campaign by a press corps hungering for harbingers of 1992...
...He was inspiring...
...Civil Rights Commission warned ominously against "the use of irresponsible campaign tactics that only serve to divide the nation along racial lines...
...He proposed a summit conference of Republican and Democratic leaders, the press, private citizens, and no doubt himself, to "prepare guidelines for proper conduct...
...The closest he comes is to say, "Liberals have failed to emphasize hard work, self-reliance, and individual responsibility" Does he say anything about the real issues that have driven whites from the cities to the suburbs...
...Like the retreat where his staff members were told to wear rubber bands on their wrists and snap them as a reminder not to think negative thoughts...
...My favorite oyster bar tout—he called the shot on Bush picking Quayle at the 1988 convention—has it down as Roemer 7 to 5, Edwards 4 to 1. Rewrite the third act, change the title Call it The Guru Strikes Back...
...But pollsters aside, when a candidate draws crowds in the dozens where a year ago he pulled them in by the thousands, it's clear, as Baton Rouge campaign consultant Roy Fletcher points out, that Duke's strong showing in the 1990 Senate race was more an anti-Johnston than a pro-Duke vote...
...Of course not...
...Edwards, though the incumbent, ran a poor second in a multi-candidate field, then backed away from a two-man runoff that would only have deepened his humiliation...
...They pass an anti-abortion bill, he vetoes it because it doesn't make exceptions for rape, incest, and protecting the mother's life...
...reason ason is the liberal taboo on T suggesting the black community might be responsible for any of its own problems...
...Don't bet on it...
...Nor is this a modern phenomenon—despite the misconception that Huey Long was the first of Louisiana's picaresque politicians...
...Bradley is no exception...
...Predictably, Louisiana Republicans rejected the new convert at the state party's June convention, nominating conservative Clyde Holloway for governor...
...The state's unique view of democracy as an ongoing entertainment—a morality play with laugh lines—goes back to Reconstruction, when a colorful but venal carpetbag governor, Henry Clay Warmoth, was impeached and blamed his troubles on the local environment: "Corruption is demoralizing," complained the Illinois-born Warmoth, "but it is the fashion down here...
...On-the-scene observers believe that despite Roemer's fall from popular grace —like Edwards's, his polling negatives run in the incredible 40s—the power of incumbency guarantees him a runoff spot, especially with the state's new campaign-reform law in place...
...Should one candidate win a clear majority on October 19, the campaign is over...
...Fletcher's own candidate, Public Service Commissioner Blanco, created a mild stir when she entered the race in June, chiefly because she's a fresh face, always a factor to be reckoned with in a state with a history of looking for political saviors every four years...
...Bradley is breathtaking in his hypocrisy on this point...
...It was a shortcoming the King made the most of in their televised debates...
...All that changed with the growth of the Republican party in the 1960s and 1970s...
...It's all part of a pattern, argue the critics—a curious, even arrogant approach to affairs of state, both major and minor...
...Neither is Bruce Babbitt, the former Arizona governor who's normally known for his painful honesty, not self-censorship...
...Louisiana's answer was the "open primary...
...New Orleans IT n soggy May, on the Cole-Haan loafer heels of the crew shooting Storyville (starring Jason Robards, James Spader), Oliver Stone arrived, Kevin Costner in tow, to film JFK—everything the Warren Commission didn't tell us about the Kennedy assassination...
...Blanco is also a certified south Louisiana Cajun, which led to early speculation that she might cut into the King's base, provided she could raise the money...
...On July 22, Chairman Arthur Fletcher of the U.S...
...It was unfair, yes, but nevertheless no contest, either in the debates or at the polls...
...And I think, "No wonder...
...The whipping was thorough...
...Democrats want Bush to act like that...
...Add to that an uncharacteristic ennui Louisianians seem to feel about this year's race, and the bottom line is Roemer and Edwards running one-two in October, with the frontrunner lacking the majority needed to avoid a November runoff...
...In his classic Southern Politics in State and Nation, V. 0. Key told how Louisiana's Democratic primary, unlike that of other Southern states, provided for tickets—e.g., the Long Ticket, the Jimmy Davis Ticket—that allowed voters to cast straight-slate ballots, top to bottom, governor to tax assessor...
...ALouisiana governor's race, like an 0liver Stone movie, demands a willing suspension of disbelief of those who watch it...
...Adds Brown: "Most white politicians were afraid to examine why blacks were unable to climb the economic ladder as had countless immigrant groups beforethem...
...He also manages to walk through a statement giving reasons for his switch without once uttering the name G---e B--h...
...The Willie Horton ad was an attempt to demonize all black America...
...Buddy Roemer could care less...
Vol. 24 • October 1991 • No. 10
