POLITICS / DAVID DUKE : Wallace Message Attracts Crowds : But the former klan leader is given little chance in his bid for U.S. Senate.

Here in this economically ravaged town, David Duke, ex-grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, is on a roll.

“I think it’s time we made a statement to Washington that we’re not going to take it anymore,” Duke told a local truckers’ association to rousing applause. “I think it’s time we bring government back to the people.”

While such rhetoric may seem conventional, Duke is anything but. After being elected to the Louisiana Legislature from his nearly all-white district last year, Duke is now campaigning for the U.S. Senate. A tireless campaigner, Duke is drawing huge crowds and tapping powerful emotions both among his supporters and opponents, largely because of his conservative platform and a past littered with white supremacist affiliations.

Not many experts give Duke, a Republican, much chance against three-term Democratic incumbent J. Bennett Johnston. “Duke’s support statewide is . . . so low that . . . it’s hard to see how he could beat Johnston in a one-to-one, said Dr. Susan Howell, a pollster with the University of New Orleans.

Johnston’s forces believe the same and are hoping Duke places second behind Johnston, but ahead of Republican state Rep. Ben Bagert in Louisiana’s open primary in October. That would give Johnston, 57, a U.S. senator since 1972, a straight shot at Duke, 39, in the November general election.

But others, including former Gov. Edwin Edwards, warn that Duke should not be taken lightly, noting that some people might not like to admit to opinion takers that they intend to vote for a man who once expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler.

Johnston’s latest statewide poll gave him 56% compared to 20% for Duke and 13% for Bagert. Nevertheless, Johnston’s press secretary, Tony Garrett, said Duke “could do a lot better than is expected,” and acknowledged that the former KKK activist has one solid asset: charisma.

“He’s a guy who wears a nice suit, he’s articulate and very charming,” said Michael Zatarain, the author of an upcoming biography of Duke entitled “David Duke: Evolution of a Klansman.” Zatarain said Duke has always been underestimated as a politician, but as a candidate on the hustings, Duke has few equals: “He has the message of George Wallace, the communicative ability of Ronald Reagan and the looks of Tom Selleck,” said Zatarain.

Duke has drawn crowds numbering into the thousands in central and northern Louisiana with a message not unlike ones voiced earlier by Reagan and Wallace. His campaign literature says Duke wants to “remove drug sellers and users from the welfare rolls,” and to end affirmative action because it promotes bias against whites.

What are discussed far less by Duke are his theories on racial genetics and his historical revisionism of Nazi Germany. As late as last November Duke said he believed “there are genetic differences between races and that they profoundly affect culture.” Duke also said the U.S. should “not have gotten involved” in World War II, and that there were “some things” he admired about both Hitler and Nazi Germany. He earlier said atrocities committed during the Holocaust were exaggerated and that the Holocaust itself is a “tremendous propaganda tool for U.S. policy toward Israel.”

Duke says such positions were youthful errors.

In Shreveport, state Rep. Alphonse Jackson, a black Democrat, told Associated Press Duke’s backing is mind-boggling.

Jackson said: “I’ve even heard some blacks say they’re voting for Duke because he is for equal rights. I tell them what Duke says and what he means are entirely different. It sounds crazy, but he could get some black vote.”