David Duke has been considered a "fringe" or "kook" candidate for years. He is an ex-Nazi and a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Duke broke into the mainstream in 1987, when he was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives, from the Old Metairie/Bucktown district of Jefferson Parish. Duke made an attempt to unseat J. Bennett Johnston from his position in the U.S. Senate in 1990. He gave Johnston quite a scare, forcing a runoff election and garnering almost 40% of the vote in that election. Emboldened by that performance, Duke gave up his House seat to run for governor. He got 32% of the primary vote, which was enough to knock out incumbent Buddy Roemer (who had 29% of the vote) and get him into a runoff with Edwin Edwards (who led the field with 35% of the vote. That runoff was the high point of Duke's political career. He appeared on various shows on CNN and caused the entire state to do a great deal of soul-searching. After losing to Edwards in the '91 runoff, Duke took a shot at the White House the following year. With Pat Buchannan's entry into the '92 campaign, however, Duke was unable to capitalize on the "angry white male" vote. His effort quickly fizzled.
Duke's occupation is more-or-less that of a professional activist/candidate. He heads the NAAWP (National Association for the Advancement of White People), and runs a mail-order book business. The titles he sells through this business have been characterized as neo-Nazi and Anti-Semitic in content.
Duke is strongly conservative. All of his compaigns have focused on themes now firmly embraced by the Republican party: reducing the size of government, welfare reform, no new taxes, etc. He goes off into extremes, however, with proposals for mandatory birth contro and/or sterilization for mothers on welfare. He is ardently opposed to affirmative action and is in the "pro-life with exceptions" camp on the abortion issue.
Duke is polling in the 2%-3% range. In the past, however, he has been known to "fly under the radar," meaning that many people who have voted for him in the past do not admit to pollsters that they will do so. This factor has added as much as 10 percentage points to his support in past elections.
"We have got to make a choice if we want this state to look like Haiti or have it be like it was planned by the forefathers of Louisiana."
I remember back in 1975 when my high school debate partner, Earl Bridges, called me up to tell me how excited he was that he was going to be on the panel that would interview David Duke for a public-TV program featuring high school students. Earl's black, and extremely intelligent, and he couldn't wait to bust the chops of a guy who publicly claimed to be a leader of the KKK. That group of high school students made a fool of David Duke. When Duke went on "Meet the Press" during the '91 gubernatorial campaign, all I could think of was how Russert and Co. were doing it to him again, just like Earl and the gang did in '75. You see, David Duke is a professional fund-raiser. He's got a great direct-mail machine in the form of the NAAWP, but he needs a regular cause to drum up support and dollars. Running for various offices gives him something for which he can ask supporters for money. The catch is that there are many people now in control of the Congress that think the same way as Duke, but don't have his Nazi/Klan baggage. Duke saw how this kills his popularity back in the '92 presidential campaign when conservatives and extremists flocked to Pat Buchannan rather than Duke. With four other Republicans and two conservative Democrats (Lee and Foster) in the race, the electorate has legitimate options, and will not feel the need to cast a protest vote. Since he is incapable of doing anything to fix the state's problems after the election (his record as a legislator was dismal), I don't see Duke going anywhere in this campaign.
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