Livingston Chosen to Call the Tune for GOP

Days after it became evident that Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.) would become the next speaker of the House, his wife found herself waking up in the middle of the night wondering if it really would happen.

“Is this a dream?” Bonnie would ask, according to her mother-in-law.

After all, who would have imagined that the awkward kid who never even ran for student council would one day be second in line to succeed the president?

Not his mother, who never knew what he would do next as a kid. “I never dreamed this,” Dorothy Billet said.

And certainly not Rick Tonry, who beat the young prosecutor in his first congressional race in 1976. But as things tend to happen in Louisiana, Tonry soon found himself indicted and behind bars, forfeiting the seat that Livingston then won.

“If it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t be there,” Tonry said, chuckling.

By most accounts, Livingston, who won unanimous Republican backing Wednesday to succeed Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) as the next speaker, is not your typical congressman. He isn’t rich. He wears Wal-Mart running shoes. He stumbles over his words. He plays the harmonica, badly.

He could have been equally at home starring in “Animal House,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” or “1776,” which features one of his ancestors. But the part he snared was one in a Washington production of “1776,” in which he sang and wore a wig, tights and all.

One recent day in New Orleans in the $45,000 two-bedroom condo he owns in a blue-collar neighborhood, Livingston emerged on the street in a tuxedo dressed for a political event. A neighbor asked where he worked as a waiter.

“My Dad’s so laid back. He doesn’t act like a congressman,” said his youngest son, David, 26, a New Orleans stockbroker. “He’s a normal dad. He mows the lawn on Sundays.”

Around the family’s suburban Virginia house, purchased for $410,000 in 1991, Bob Livingston tends to wear clothes that “are usually a fashion mistake,” David said.

Newly taken to jogging, he likes to wear fatigues and a fishnet cap. “He looks like a stalker,” his son said.

Ever frugal, Livingston has complained for years that members of Congress should be paid more than their annual salaries of $136,673. (As speaker, his salary will increase to $174,500.)

The Livingstons never boarded an airplane for vacations, opting for car trips instead. For years, his family owned a beat-up station wagon that was missing part of its floor. Even today, the Livingstons drive around in a different 15-year-old station wagon.

“He didn’t care much about how he came across to people,” David said. “Maybe now he will.”

The new speaker’s friends back home worry that the new position might change him. “With us, in particular, he’s still today one of the guys, a regular Joe,” said Rusty Barkerding, 57, who owns an environmental management company in New Orleans. “He’ll sit down, play a game of Bouree with us and drink a beer.”

Bouree is a fast Cajun card game played for money. Among Livingston’s friends, the pot never goes over $30.

“On the one hand, he’s an important, powerful man,” said another childhood friend, New Orleans maritime lawyer John Bolles. “On the other hand, he’s a regular guy with bad puns, bad accents and bad jokes.”

Many of the folks back home shudder when they recall Livingston’s musical ability. He likes to play the harmonica. Before that, it was the trumpet. Bonnie Hymel, Livingston’s scheduler when he ran for Louisiana governor in 1987, said that she asked him once why he took up the harmonica. He told her: “I was driving into Washington one day, playing the trumpet and I slammed on the brakes and busted up the car. Bonnie said: ‘Bob, you’ve got to get another instrument.’ ”

Livingston finished a dismal third in that governor’s race, primarily because of his poor showing in a televised debate when he lost his train of thought and asked the moderator to repeat a question.

That misstep seems to have been forgotten by Louisiana voters, who continue to overwhelmingly elect him to Congress. Hans Jonassen, another boyhood friend, said Livingston has always been “in the right place at the right time.”

“He’s admittedly not the most brilliant guy in the United States of America,” he said. “He’s organized. He trusts people. He’s trustworthy and honest.”