Louisiana Election Puts White Conservatives in Serious Bind : Politics: Republicans who have opposed Democrat Edwards for years now have no middle ground. Many are loath to vote for Duke, some will.

Beverly Sylvester would rather vote for a scoundrel than for David Duke.

That is why she said she will vote for Edwin W. Edwards in the Louisiana governor’s race on Saturday.

David Duke, the Republican candidate, is a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, former Nazi sympathizer and a one-term member of the state House of Representatives. Edwards, three times Democratic governor of Louisiana, was accused but never convicted of racketeering, and in the past firmly believed in letting the good times roll and the money flow into the pockets of his cronies.

Not the best of choices for a white conservative like Beverly Sylvester, who supported reform Gov. Buddy Roemer, a loser in the open primary last month. But she and others like her are the key to the runoff election, one of the most intensely fought modern gubernatorial battles anywhere.

For most voters here the middle ground disappeared long ago. On one side is the Duke camp, made up almost completely of white voters who have come to think of Duke as the man who is not afraid to stand up and say what everyone is thinking. On the other side is the Edwards camp, its core being the black vote and, by inference, the very people that Duke has been talking about when he speaks about chopping the welfare system and bemoans high crime rates.

Then there are the people like Beverly Sylvester. They are the people who live in places like Uptown New Orleans, Sylvester’s neighborhood. They pay their taxes. They live middle-class lives. They have black maids and gardeners and many have burglar bars on their windows because crime has found its way here in recent years.

They think of themselves as the citizenry that wants to change the state, the reason they voted for Roemer. In her tree-lined city ward, the vote for Roemer was 5,939 to 1,584 for Edwards and 1,185 for Duke.

Now both Duke and Edwards need them. Edwards must win at least 30% of the white vote in the state to win the election, something he has never done in three previous statewide elections. Conversely, Duke must take almost two thirds of the white vote to win, a staggering prospect even in this racially charged contest.

In a number of interviews throughout Sylvester’s neighborhood, the sense was that Edwards, so anathema to the standard Roemer supporter, may be slightly ahead of Duke. But in many cases, the residents made it clear that Edwards remains intensely disliked because of his past and that he shines--faintly--only in comparison to his opponent.

They were also upset that Louisiana’s image had once again taken a serious shellacking because of the governor’s race and resentful that the election was being viewed from afar as blacks versus whites only. Others said they thought the media had been unduly harsh on Duke and said, as Duke himself has predicted, that there will be a voter backlash because of it.

Beverly Sylvester’s husband, Albert, won’t let her put out her Edwards campaign sign on the front lawn, so intense is his dislike for either candidate. She wanted to put it out because “I know people who are well-educated and smart who are going to vote for Duke. To me, he’s the devil.”

There is very little visual evidence of the campaign in this neighborhood. One small sign tacked to a tree on State Street said: “Don’t Humiliate the State--Vote Edwards.” There is nary a Duke poster anywhere. Jack Alltmont replaced his Roemer sign with a large Edwards banner the day after the primary. Alltmont said he had been working against Edwards for the past 20 years but now he supports the words of a more-frequently seen bumper sticker: “Vote for the Crook. It’s Important.”

“That probably sums up a lot of people’s sentiment,” he said. “It’s an unpleasant decision for many of us but not a difficult one.

“Edwards’ background has some pretty big questions concerning propriety. Despite some questionable financial dealings, he is basically not an amoral person,” said Alltmont, who is a lawyer. “I think David Duke is beyond morality. I think that underneath it all he’s probably a vicious person. If he thought the people would like him more if he were a member of the Ku Klux Klan, he’d still be a member.”

Next door, investor Michael San Miguel said he found the thought of Duke as governor “terrifying.” In addition to Duke’s racist background, he said he was troubled by the prospect that dozens of conventions and business ventures might pull out of Louisiana if Duke wins.

But there were those in this neighborhood who take issue with the treatment Duke has received in the press, while other neighbors believe Edwards will do poorly because voting for a Democrat goes against the grain in this very conservative part of town.

Gerald Osborne, a retired civil engineer, said he thought the trend was in Edwards’ favor, but also said he pondered voting for Duke because of the former klansman’s treatment by the media.

“I think all the animosity and the one-sidedness of the newspaper here--they’ve torn up Duke every way they could--has worked in his favor,” he said.

Ruth Ricketts, a retired teacher and social worker, said she believes Edwards is going to have trouble with those who had supported Roemer.

“Edwards will not do well in this area, even with Duke in the race,” she said. “The idea of voting for a Democrat among some of these people here--this is a very conservative district--is even worse than voting for a member of the klan. I think many, many people who voted for Roemer will either stay home or vote for Duke, but they won’t tell you about it.”

Sojna Kenwood, who manages her real estate holdings, was sitting in her living room on State Street. She said she had never voted for Edwards before but is going to do so now. She told of how a group of friends had come to visit from out of state, but that they had been extremely uncomfortable being here as the campaign went on.

“They couldn’t have a good time in this place,” she said.

Kenwood also expressed concern that the election is seen from outside Louisiana as purely a racial issue.

“I presume the whole country thinks we are racist, but much of it is that people feel misused by the politicians,.” she said.

She also said that a Duke win is “scaring the hell out of me,” but also knew of people who just couldn’t pull the voting lever for Edwards.

“I guess the thing I hate the most is the way the press has come down on this state. I just came back from New York, and that place isn’t exactly heaven, but you don’t see them treating it like Louisiana,” she said. “It’s like everyone feels it’s OK to whip up on this state. There are good people here who mean well. We’re just trying to survive.”