The Persistent ‘Gnat’ That Lousiana Can’t Get Out of Its Face : Elections: Even by the Byzantine standards of the state’s politics, the factors that led to David Duke’s ‘victory’ were complex.

On the day when budgetary gridlock closed the Washington Monument, angry catcalls from the visitors’ gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives echoed resoundingly a thousand miles away in the voting booths of Louisiana.

There, Democrat J. Bennett Johnston Jr., running for a fourth term in the U.S. Senate, saw a substantial lead--predicted by some optimists to be as high as 50 points--melt to 12 points virtually overnight. More stunning was the chief beneficiary of the wild political swing--a soft-core pornographer, former Nazi and Ku Klux Klan leader who reportedly celebrates Adolf Hitler’s birthday. David Duke is also a state representative and member of the Republican caucus.

Even by the Byzantine standards of Louisiana politics, the factors that led to what virtually all observers agree was an enormous success for Duke--44% of the vote--were complex. Ed Renwick, Loyola University political scientist and pollster, concluded that there were three categories of Duke supporter: “There were the voters who liked Duke, those who hated Bennett Johnston, and those who just wanted to send a message to Washington.”

Closer examination shows how Duke brilliantly exploited the foibles of his opponents, the essential rottenness of the state’s “open primary” system and the frustration of voters trapped by an unyielding state Democratic party.

The underlying theme of every Duke campaign is, of course, race and, no doubt, he attracted racist votes. But his adopted “mainstream” message of denouncing welfare programs and affirmative action and opposing any new taxes has deeper significance in a state where political corruption is perceived to be the norm and where the economy is so weak that population decline may cost the state a seat in Congress in 1992.

Duke, unsuccessful as a Democratic candidate for local office, ran for President as the nominee of the ultraright Populist Party in 1988. A year later, he decided to run as a Republican for a seat in the state house representing largely white Metairie, a suburb of largely black New Orleans.

Alarmed at the prospect of the racist Duke receiving GOP legitimacy, such worthies as former President Ronald Reagan and Republican National Committee chairman Lee Atwater excoriated Duke and championed his regular Republican opponent. The tactic backfired: Blue-collar Democrats crossed over in the open primary and sent Duke to Baton Rouge.

With some apprehension, the Republican caucus accepted Duke as a member. Its leader, Emile “Peppi” Bruneau, insisted that under the rules, set like the supposedly nonpartisan “open primary” system by the Democratic majority, his delegation had no choice.

Not everybody agrees. State committeewoman Beth Rickey confronted the caucus with evidence that Duke was selling racist literature out of his capitol office, including an approving version of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” Rickey demanded Duke’s expulsion from the caucus, but the members declined. Bruneau, mindful of Duke’s penchant for martyrdom, warned opponents they were “snapping at a gnat.”

This year, the national GOP leadership had high hopes of toppling Johnston. But the Lousiana primary was unable to field a candidate with statewide name recognition. At their convention, where Duke got 5% of the vote, Republicans nominated state Sen. Ben Bagert. He was clearly a sacrificial lamb.

Duke ignored all that and declared himself a Republican candidate. Democrats snickered; the Louisiana media routinely reinforced Duke’s self-ascribed new credentials by referring to his Republican status.

Enter the miscalculations:

As Arnold R. Hirsch, University of New Orleans political scientist, explains, Louisiana’s “open primary” was devised in 1975 by former Democratic Gov. Edwin W. Edwards as a means of eliminating the Republican contenders from statewide races. “The original intent was to kill the GOP before it really got on its feet,” said Hirsch, who recalls that Republican registration was in single digits before the 1980s. The rules that make it tough for Republicans to enforce party discipline were tailor-made for a maverick candidacy.

At the time, Democrats felt it was unfair to have to come out of their bloody, costly primaries and have to face unscathed Republicans in the general election. Any candidate winning more than 50% of the vote in the nominally nonpartisan “open primary” is elected outright. Otherwise, the top two, usually Democrats, face each other in the general election.

Another miscalculation was a high-profile anti-Duke campaign by an ad hoc group called the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, made up of liberals and some regular Republicans like Rickey. It mercilessly exposed and lampooned Duke’s unsavory and not-so-distant past. The coalition was particularly critical of the state GOP and Bagert for not openly denouncing Duke. For all practical purposes, the coalition became the mud-slinging left arm of the Johnston campaign.

Polls indicated that Duke’s support leveled off last summer, especially after the coalition discredited his military record and exposed his authorship of a sex manual. But after months of attack advertising, including a coalition TV spot, the overkill began to numb the effect.

As Bagert’s polls collapsed, he finally attacked Duke. Negative advertising against Duke, as in 1989, seemed to energize his renegade campaign.

Then Johnston, jubilant over Bagert’s fall to single-digit support, thumbed his nose at the official GOP candidate and turned up the heat on Duke, whom he proclaimed as his only “real” opponent.

In a sort of Willie Horton commercial in reverse, Johnston released an attack commercial showing a videotape of Duke at a Klan rally standing in front of a burning cross and throwing a Nazi-like salute as he bellowed, “White victory!”

The TV spot backfired. “(Johnston) shouldn’t have run those commercials,” claimed pollster Renwick. “I thought it was very dangerous.” All the attention on Duke simply legitimized his candidacy, while making a martyr of him.

Then with fewer than 72 hours before the polls opened, Republicans inadvertently handed Duke a compelling last-minute issue: Bagert withdrew from the race and eight northern Republican U.S. senators took the unprecedented step of endorsing Democrat Johnston and denouncing Duke. This unlikely alliance, announced on the eve of the federal budget debacle, was the living embodiment of the old George Wallace adage that there isn’t “a dime’s worth of difference” between Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

Still, the Louisiana Democrats were ecstatic. Some felt Johnston might get as much as 75% of the vote--up from 48% in late polls--since the ex-Klansman was pegged at 25% in the polls. More cautious observers worried that pollsters were undercounting Duke support. They were right.

The ecstasy turned to horror as returns showed Duke support climbing to 44%. It had been generally agreed that if Duke were to poll more than 40%, it would be a victory for him.

Who created David Duke? The Republicans or the Democrats? Probably fewer than a quarter of Duke’s voters were Republicans, since they comprise only 17% of the state’s registered voters. Many of them reluctantly voted for Johnston, while some went for Bagert by absentee ballot; others stayed away from the polls. Meanwhile, 60% of whites went for Duke. Surprisingly, black turnout was 15% less than projected, in part because black leaders were focusing on the race for an open congressional seat rather than the U.S. Senate contest.

Now state GOP house members must decide quickly whether they wish to be perceived as genuine Republicans or stooges for Duke. Expulsion, of course, would take courage.

Louisiana Democrats, on the other hand, must take the larger share of responsibility for creating this monster. The “open primary” rules, created expressly for the purpose of keeping Louisiana a one-party state, are unfriendly to reasonable opposition. To change this patently unfair system would take courage, too.

As for Duke, he may run for governor next year. But he has to weigh the risks of relinquishing his house seat and of polling less than 44% the next time, which would take the bloom off the rose. Almost certainly, though, he will spend the next year consolidating last week’s “victory.”

“David Duke is going to take over the state GOP,” predicts Rickey. “He’s targeting my seat, for example.”

Duke’s entry into the 1991 gubernatorial race would be dandy for former Gov. Edwards, who is eyeing a fourth term. Duke, and perhaps the regular GOP nominee, would draw votes from the incumbent, conservative Democrat Buddy Roemer, whose vetoes of strict anti-abortion and anti-obscenity bills leave him vulnerable on the right. The result would probably be an Edwards-Duke runoff, which Edwards, with his strong black support, ought to win handily. Were Edwards not to run, there are fears that Duke might actually win in a runoff with Roemer, but he would probably need at least 75% of the white vote.

In 1992, Duke might launch either a George Wallace-style campaign against President Bush in the Republican primaries, or he might actually win in a campaign against Republican Rep. Robert L. Livingston.

Either way, Democrats presumably would be delighted. Whether Duke’s Hitlerite past will travel well across state lines remains to be seen, but as Kelly Johnston, deputy political director for the National Republican Senate Committee, says, “He has the potential to cause us some headaches.”

Yet, if Duke wants to win a seat in Congress, the door appears to be open to him.

That door, however, would be slammed in his face in Washington. Kelly Johnston says, “He would be a pariah. The Republicans in Congress would have the courage to do what the state caucus didn’t. Duke would be totally useless there, with no party privileges or committee assignments.” He’d be lucky to get a parking place, and his district might as well be beamed up to the moon. Of course, that would have happened had he been elected to the Senate, too.