Duke Ends Presidential Bid, Blames Hostile GOP

Former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke, broke and bitter over his rebuff by the Republican Party, ended his challenge of President Bush on Wednesday and ruled out running for the White House as an independent or third-party candidate.

Returning to the same spot from which he launched his presidential bid in early December, Duke told a sparsely attended news conference at the National Press Club that he was dropping out of the race because of mounting debts and a lack of support.

“I know that my role in this presidential election is over. . . . I have no plans to continue the quest for the Republican nomination,” the former Louisiana state legislator said.

Duke also said he saw no future in an independent candidacy this year, particularly with the prospect of Texas businessman Ross Perot launching such a campaign. “Perot’s candidacy would preclude other third-party candidacies,” Duke said.

He announced his departure from the national political ring with his rhetorical fists flailing. “Government is out of control in America . . . taking away rights and liberties every day,” he charged.

And in comments that did little to dispel the skepticism of critics who doubt Duke’s claim that he has outgrown his racist past, Duke said American democracy is in danger because the growth of nonwhite, non-Christian ethnic groups is turning the nation into “a Third World country.”

A former klan leader and one-time Nazi sympathizer, Duke burst like a fire’s back draft onto the national political scene after defeating incumbent Buddy Roemer in Louisiana’s GOP gubernatorial primary in October.

Although he subsequently lost the gubernatorial election to Democrat Edwin W. Edwards, his strong primary showing shocked the Republican Party. When he announced his plan to challenge Bush, party regulars mobilized their forces to keep him off the primary ballot in as many states as possible.

These efforts, Duke said Wednesday, smacked of the “kind of tactics that belong in the Soviet Union, not the United States of America.”

But Duke’s campaign fizzled in large part because of another Bush foe. In the view of most analysts, conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan stole Duke’s fire by articulating more imaginatively many of the same right-wing themes.

Duke opted not to campaign in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary, deciding to focus his attention on Southern primaries that followed a few weeks later. But Buchanan’s strong showing against Bush in the Feb. 18 New Hampshire vote gave his campaign a momentum Duke was never able to match.

Starved for money and attention, Duke did poorly even in the South, rising above single digit percentage points only in Mississippi.

“There is no question that Duke would have done better if Buchanan had not gotten into the race,” said Claiborne Darden, an Atlanta pollster who specializes in Southern politics. “You can’t have two protest candidates. There’s not room in the inn for more than one.”

“The publicity went to Buchanan,” Duke conceded Wednesday.

Duke said that he dislikes Bush but probably will endorse him because the presumptive Democratic nominee, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, “is in the back pocket of the far left.”

Duke said he planned to spend the next few months lecturing and working on a book to help pay off personal and campaign debts of $60,000.

Times staff writer Jack Cheevers contributed to this story.