PROFESSORS SAY VOTERS TOOK ROGUE OVER RACIST

Louisiana voters Saturday elected to put a rogue in the governor's mansion rather than a racist in an election that took on national significance, two local political science professors said Sunday.

Democrat Edwin Edwards Saturday resoundingly defeated ex-Klansman David Duke, reclaiming the governorship he lost in 1987.

A record 78 percent of the state's 2.2 million voters cast ballots in the election, with Edwards capturing an estimated 61 percent of the vote to Duke's 39 percent.

"I would assume most people in Louisiana probably held their nose with one hand and voted with the other," said Peter Bergerson, chairman of the political science department at Southeast Missouri State University.

Voters, he maintained, decided they would "rather have someone they know is corrupt than someone they think is a racist."

Russell Renka, a political science professor at Southeast, said Duke presented "a blatantly racist message."

The racial issue put the election in the national spotlight, Renka and Bergerson maintained. "It took on national importance because one of the candidates was basically a racist and a Nazi sympathizer," said Bergerson.

Renka said, "Here's a guy who is a Nazi and he wins his way into a runoff for a governorship of an American state."

While Duke, 41, was a former Ku Klux Klan leader, Edwards, 64, was a former Louisiana governor whose administrations had been tainted with scandal.

Edwards served as governor for eight years in the 1970s and again for four years in the 1980s. During his administrations, top aides went to prison. Edwards himself was indicted on federal racketeering charges.

He was accused of accepting bribes from companies trying to win state approval for new hospitals. But he was ultimately acquitted of those charges.

"There is an old saying in Louisiana that you can make graft and corruption illegal, but you can't make it unpopular," said Bergerson.

He said Louisiana has a history of colorful politicians. Edwards, he said, fits into that mold.

"Edwin Edwards is very colorful and entertaining," Bergerson said. "He kind of fits in the mold of rogues and political impresarios. Edwin Edwards is not unique to Louisiana politics."

Duke tried to distance himself from his past ties to the Klan, but he was unable to convince voters that he had changed his position on race, Bergerson said.

Renka and Bergerson also contended that Edwards won largely because of heavy support from black voters.

"He (Duke) received 54 or 55 percent of the white vote in Louisiana," said Bergerson. "The reason he lost was the tremendous Afro-American or minority vote. It had to be well over 95 percent in favor of Edwards."

Renka said, "Democrats depend nowadays on black votes in the South to win, including Louisiana."

In addition to race, economics also was at issue, Bergerson and Renka said.

"Probably a sober middle class felt economically threatened by David Duke and the (potential) loss of jobs," said Bergerson.

There was concern that convention business and businesses in general would not come to Louisiana if Duke were elected governor, said Bergerson.

A Duke victory, Renka said, "would have killed New Orleans as a convention city or as a tourist site."

But economics also played a role in Duke's appeal to voters. Edwards received more than 1 million votes, but more than 671,000 voters chose Duke.

Bergerson said Duke's candidacy emerged at a time when Louisiana is mired in economic woes. "Their economy is tied almost exclusively to the price of oil and natural gas." Prices for such fuels are low now.

Duke, said Bergerson, "hit a populist chord with voters, particularly those who are unemployed or those who see the efforts of affirmative action as perhaps taking jobs away from them.

"He represented a tremendous protest vote against some of the social and political changes that we have seen in the last 15 or 20 years."

Duke railed against big government, affirmative action and domestic ills.

Renka said Duke delivered a message that other politicians have used successfully in the past. "It's more of the same old thing. George Wallace did it. Jesse Helms did it. Obviously, David Duke and others like him can do it, too," he said.

There's a lesson in Duke's success in getting support from white voters, said Renka. "It tells me he has a formula for winning the white South and he copied it from the established formula used by people like Jesse Helms."

Renka added that such candidates talk of law and order and denounce affirmative action. "They say it doesn't have anything to do with race. It has everything to do with race," he maintained. "It's a way of blaming the blacks for whatever the problems of the South are."

Bergerson said the Louisiana election and the recent election for U.S. senator in Pennsylvania have refocused attention on national domestic issues.

He said those elections could be viewed as "the kick-off for the presidential campaign for 1992."

Critics of President Bush have focused on the nation's domestic problems, and Duke has hinted he may run for president or enter a future congressional race.

"I don't think necessarily we've seen the end of David Duke," said Bergerson. "He could present a challenge to President Bush in the South."

Said Bergerson, "I think you are going to see other people, like potentially (conservative columnist) Patrick Buchanan, raising their voice, because you have a very frustrated middle class population."

Renka said he believes Duke will run for president.

While Duke has been repudiated, his message continues to be sounded by other politicians, said Renka. "The strategy is this," said Renka, "it is acceptable to use messages to appeal to those who don't like black people, to attack affirmative action, to attack welfare and get the white South vote that way.

"It is not acceptable to do it by saying you are a racist."