Louisiana The No-Win Election

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In the privacy of the voting booth, it came down to a balance of terror. After riding out the historic race between neo-Nazi David Duke and rapscallion Edwin Edwards, Louisianians had to choose between Duke's appeal to white hostility and fear of the economic chaos and racial divisions that his victory promised. In the end, their pocketbooks and qualms about Duke prevailed.

Throughout the campaign, Edwards supporters warned that if Louisiana elected a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan as Governor, a wave of revulsion would sweep business, tourism, conventions and jobs out of the state. Duke skillfully manipulated the politics of discontent, playing on resentment of quotas, welfare and Big Government. He railed against Edwards' liberalism and his penchant for gambling and womanizing and trading government jobs for campaign contributions. But in the end, the bumper sticker won the day: VOTE FOR THE CROOK: IT'S IMPORTANT. Concluding that electing a bigot would be too costly to a state in dire economic straits, voters gave Edwards 60% of the vote. The turnout was an astonishing 75%.

Searching through the results for useful lessons, analysts found some disturbing truths. Anyone who thinks that Duke is merely a Bayou State phenomenon should be disabused by the numbers. More than 40% of his $1.37 million in contributions came from outside Louisiana, mostly small donations from people in 46 states. Duke's supporters were not all racists. Many were hardworking people who felt alienated from government-as-usual and desperate for help. "He says what a lot of people think but don't have the guts to say," observes oil-field supervisor Mark Hulin. "We're all middle-class people who are tired of paying taxes for all those people who don't want to better themselves." The Duke phenomenon, a volatile mix of race, class and plain rage, will not simply disappear. He may even challenge George Bush in next year's Republican primaries.

That Duke got as far as he did is perhaps the most important message of all. This, after all, is a man who has never held a regular job. He has made his living by selling hate materials and trolling for contributions for various racist organizations. He wore a swastika in college, founded the National Association for the Advancement of White People, advocated dividing America into separate ethnic nations, denied that the Holocaust happened. His reason for studying German in college was to be able to read Hitler's Mein Kampf in the original.

Yet Duke's campaign was not farfetched. He won a place in the runoff by defeating incumbent Republican Buddy Roemer, a Harvard-educated reformer whose imperious manner doomed him to a single term. Duke won blue-collar voters, largely rural, young and male. But he also made inroads into the middle class, capturing conservatives from both parties. If the election had been held just after the primary, Duke would have won.