Elections: The Duke of Louisiana

Strychnine or arsenic, Louisiana? Pick your poison. That's about the only way to look at the state's gubernatorial race, which took on a noxious taint last week when former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke began battling roguish ex-Governor Edwin Edwards for the keys to the executive mansion. The campaign threatens to bare the cantankerous soul of a state that is often derided as America's banana republic, a Third World realm of corrupt and crazy politicians, wild parties and bizarre customs. Yet even Louisiana has never seen anything this weird. Says John Maginnis, publisher of the Louisiana Political Review: "We're in...