Roemer Switches to GOP as Bid for Reelection Nears : Politics: Sources believe it will help Louisiana governor in primary. Some say change signals a desire for higher office.

Buddy Roemer, the maverick governor of Louisiana who has built much of his political career around doing things unconventionally, Monday outdid himself by announcing he was leaving the Democratic Party of his heritage to become a Republican.

In an elaborate, sun-baked ceremony on the steps of the governor’s mansion, the 47-year-old Harvard graduate, flanked by Louisiana Republican Party officials, said: “It was time to stop the debate about the party to which I belong. I am a Republican. . . .

“I felt that with an election coming up it was the best time to make a decision regardless of the politics or the polls. I’m not smart enough to know about that. But this lets people know where I stand, and why, that my values about Louisiana will not change, that my programs will continue as helped by the Legislature, both Democrats and Republicans.”

Although Roemer denied that his decision was based on strategy for the fall gubernatorial election here, sources close to the governor believe that the switch of parties virtually guarantees Roemer a place in the runoff election. In Louisiana, all candidates from both parties run in one primary contest with the two top vote-getters facing one another in the runoff if neither gained a majority in the primary.

But while Roemer’s decision may make it easier for him to forestall Republican or conservative competition in the primary, some analysts believe being a Republican in a general election in Louisiana is still viewed with suspicion among one of the most Democratic states in the South, a state where losing Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis won his greatest percentage, 45%, in the region in 1988.

“Roemer has been polling right now at about 26% in our polls, which is not a great percentage for an incumbent running for reelection,” said Edward Renwick, director of the Institute of Politics at Loyola University in New Orleans. “He obviously has problems going into this election, particularly from the right with David Duke (the former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and an unsuccessful 1990 U.S. Senate candidate who has already announced his intention to run for the governorship this year).”

But many observers believe that Roemer--by positioning himself as a moderate Republican against the ultraconservative Duke--will get a bigger portion of the primary vote than he might have had facing former Gov. Edwin Edwards, an announced candidate, as a Democrat.

As Renwick put it: “So being a Republican helps in the short run but for a general election he has more of a challenge ahead of him because part of his winning coalition the last time around was composed of blacks and liberals, and it’s going to be much harder to get those voters now that he’s an announced Republican.”

Edwards predicted that Roemer’s party switch will be a powerful issue in this fall’s campaign.

“It’s just another example of his propensity for breaking promises,” Edwards said. “He promised early in his term that he would stay as a Democrat. He even signed a statement to that effect.”

“He promised he would make no political deals, and now he’s made one of the rawest political deals ever engineered in Louisiana politics. My basic criticism of him for this is that he has broken yet one more promise to the voters of Louisiana.”

A three-term congressman before he became governor in 1987, Roemer was known in Washington as one of the Southern Democrats who were labeled “boll weevils” because they backed President Ronald Reagan on economic issues.

Some Roemer supporters viewed his party switch as a move with ramifications beyond Louisiana, a theory backed by Susan Howell, the director of the University of New Orleans Survey and Research Center. “I think he has aspirations to run for the Senate and maybe for the presidency some day,” she said. “And it’s certainly better these days to be a Republican than a Democrat in national politics.”

Republican Party officials here also believe the move will greatly enhance Roemer’s fund-raising capabilities for the guberatorial campaign, with the likely endorsement of President Bush for the Republican nominee.

But one Republican Party official said even with Bush’s endorsement and a large financial base, Roemer is still up against political history in Louisiana. “Only one Republican has won a statewide race here in 100 years,” she said. “Party registration stands at about 18% statewide, which is an all-time high. So just by looking at the numbers you can see Roemer has his work cut out for him. But this is a guy full of surprises, he proved that today, and he just may prove it again in the fall election.”