Much of David Duke’s ’91 Campaign Is Now in Louisiana Mainstream

[pampango]

... this week when Representative Steve Scalise, the third-ranking House Republican leader, found himself trying to explain why he accepted a speaking engagement offered by a key aide to Mr. Duke in 2002, it was a reminder of the awkward dance and hard choices that Republicans in Louisiana faced in the 1990s when Mr. Duke was one of the most charismatic politicians in the state.

In his 1991 campaign for governor against Edwin W. Edwards, Mr. Duke largely avoided explicitly racial campaigning, appealed to the frustrations and resentments of white voters and won more than 60 percent of the white vote while losing in a runoff election. Two decades later, much of his campaign has merged with the political mainstream here, and rather than a bad memory from the past, Mr. Duke remains a window into some of the murkier currents in the state’s politics where Republicans have sought and eventually won Mr. Duke’s voters, while turning their back on him.

... if Mr. Duke became a third rail for Louisiana Republicans, some Republicans have seen value in courting Mr. Duke’s voters. When he successfully ran for Louisiana governor in 1995, Mr. Foster paid $150,000 for a list of Mr. Duke’s supporters and received his endorsement during the campaign. Mr. Foster said he never used the list, but it did result in a grand jury investigation and an ethics fine for the former governor after the expenditure was not properly reported.

Louisiana political experts say the demography of the state’s electorate has played as much of a role, if not larger, as Mr. Duke’s policy ideas in turning Louisiana solidly Republican. Pollster and data analyst John M. Couvillon, the president of JMC Enterprises of Louisiana, said a polarization has taken place to create a black-majority Democratic Party and a solidly white Republican Party.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/01/us/politics/much-of-david-dukes-91-campaign-is-now-in-louisiana-mainstream.html

[GeorgeGist]

1. Toga party ... with props to n2doc

[Cerridwen]

2. "largely avoided explicitly racial campaigning, appealed to the frustrations and resentments..."

"...of white voters.

<snip>

“Now he doesn’t matter anymore,” Mr. Fletcher said. “But politicians here have still co-opted part of his message without having the same baggage.”

<snip>

Mr. Duke, 64, who now calls himself a “human rights activist,” continues to sell books, a newsletter, DVDs, art and apparel and to speak on racial and cultural issues. He regularly tells audiences he is not a white supremacist and “condemns any form of racial supremacism and oppression.” But he rails against “the ultimate racists, the Jewish, Zionist tribalists.”

Yep. "I'm not a racist. I'm a human rights activist." Re-branding the kkk and other white supremacist organizations using populist and popular phrases. Oh, yeah, and the nazis were socialists. Ooooof, duh.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. Hey, Duke was defended and his ideas praised by Pat Buchanan in print in 1989

Pat was Reagan's Director of Communications, that's pretty much Republican mainstream I'd say. Buchanan was sure that Duke had 'winning issues'. Buchanan also worked for Nixon as a speech writer, gave the keynote speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention.
Republicans of that time were just like they are now, racist, homophobic and greedy.

[bluestateguy]

4. One thing I remember from that campaign

Was Duke's education policy. He wanted to group the children by ability (however that was to be defined), which we all knew was just a backdoor way to resegregate the schools.