DAVID DUKE AND DUBUQUE THREATEN TO CLOSE THE DOOR OF OUR FREE SOCIETY

First it's Duke and then it's Dubuque. The people of Louisiana had a choice between a ne'er-do-well crap-shooter and a professional hater with a face lift. One bumper sticker read: "For good government, vote for the crook." To the extent there are perceptions that the national mood is changing for the worse, the incredible Louisiana governor's race contributed to them. In Dubuque, a town of 58,000 with 330 blacks, the bigots have taken to a cross-burning campaign to intimidate the City Council members.

The simple fact that a Ku Klux Klan Wizard who sells Nazi, anti-Semitic literature out of his public office could make it even to the runoff for governor shows the depth of hate, anger and distrust in our nation. In recent times, otherwise clean candidates (e.g. George Bush in 1989, Mississippi Governor-elect Kirk Fordice in 1991) use clever racial images and carefully selected code words to exploit racial fears. It's a political film maker's art. A 30-second spot is precisely calculated to turn on the hate or anger button. Hate and anger are instantaneously stimulated reflexes.

David Duke was not Mr. Clean evoking subtle negative images. He was Mr. Dirty playing to that ugly recess that lurks in the inner emotions of many otherwise decent people.

Louisiana is broke. It will get even more broke. It has a bleak future. It really didn't have much of a past. Its public services are deplorable and heading down~ward. Hopelessness and despair can engender responses of irrational frustration. That was the evil attraction of David Duke, and the white people of Louisiana substantially supported him.

The Republican party in the South is the party of the white folks and it's the white folks who win the elections. A 1992 Democratic party presidential nominee a Mario Cuomo, for example writes off all of the South including Florida and Texas. He likewise writes off other traditional Republican strongholds. He can win the presidency if and only if he carries New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, California, Washington and, yes, Iowa.

This daunting task can be accomplished only if a pervasive and deeper recession grips the land. The demographics and population shifts in America tilt Republican in the Electoral College.

For the Democrats, the hot button issues are jobs and economic nationalism: blame our plight on Japan, Germany and Mexico. In a Presidential campaign, the Democrats might get cornered and have to say how they will pay for a national health care system, cut taxes for the middle class and balance the budget all at the same time a pretty neat trick.

The Wofford victory in the Pennsylvania Senate race doesn't necessarily play out for the Democrats below the Mason-Dixon line. It might not even play in Iowa. For the moment, race seems to have top political billing nationwide. The cancer of old-fashioned, garden-variety bigotry metastasizes throughout the national body politic. It was not eradicated by courts, laws and regulations.

Brown v. Board of Education opened the door to a freer and more just society. The shadows of David Duke and Dubuque cast large across the national landscape threaten to close it.