American Notes ELECTIONS
Talk about bipartisanship. Until two days before the election, Ben Bagert was the Republican Party's official nominee to run for the Louisiana Senate seat held by three-term Democratic incumbent J. Bennett Johnston Jr. But state representative and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke was also in the primary race as a Republican, running a campaign that played on white resentment over affirmative action and welfare. Though polls gave Johnston about half the vote in the Oct. 6 primary, they also showed Bagert, a state senator, badly trailing Duke. That opened up the possibility of a Nov. 6 runoff between the two front runners. The prospect of the former Klansman becoming the G.O.P.'s standard-bearer made state and national party leaders so unhappy that eight Republican Senators declared their support for Johnston. Then Bagert made the ultimate sacrifice: he withdrew from the race. The bipartisan blocking maneuver seemed to be paying off. Early returns gave Johnston 56% of the vote, enough to win the election outright.
Most Popular »
- How Medicated Was Michael Jackson?
- Why Sarah Palin Quit as Governor
- Searching for Palin's 'Hot Photos'
- Behind North Korea's Missile Launch
- Afterbirth: It's What's For Dinner
- Asian Film Fireworks for the Fourth
- What Michael Jackson Did on His Last Day
- U.S. and Russia: The Talk Starts Here
- When Benedict Meets Barack
- Director Sydney Pollack Dies
- Afterbirth: It's What's For Dinner
- How Medicated Was Michael Jackson?
- Asian Film Fireworks for the Fourth
- Schwarzenegger's Failure in California
- Goldman Sachs vs. Rolling Stone: A Wall Street Smackdown
- TV for Babies: Does It Help or Hurt?
- Why He's a Thriller
- What Happened to the Stimulus?
- Why Marriage Matters
- Amazing Births







RSS