SALON

Thursday, Mar 3, 2011 2:01 AM UTC

The White House hopeful who lost to the Klansman

20 years after a shocking and humiliating loss derailed his career, Buddy Roemer is set to run for president

By

Topics: 2012 Elections, War Room,

The White House hopeful who lost to the Klansman

There’s a new entrant into the Republican presidential sweepstakes, and you can consider yourself excused if his name doesn’t mean much to you. Buddy Roemer is 67 years old, hasn’t won an election in 23 years, hasn’t been in office for 19, and hasn’t stood on his own on the political stage in 16.

But his pending candidacy (he’s due to form an exploratory committee on Thursday) is a perfect illustration of how weak the competition for next year’s GOP nomination now is.

Roemer, to the extent he’s remembered at all outside of his home state, is best known for managing to win just 27 percent as the incumbent in Louisiana’s 1991 preliminary gubernatorial election — even though one of his two main opponents was the ex-Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and the other was enjoying a break between indictments on federal corruption charges.

That campaign began with immense promise for the highly ambitious Roemer, who had been elected governor in 1987 as a conservative “Boll Weevil” Democrat — only to switch parties in early ’91. The road map seemed simple: He’d win a second term as a Republican, then begin positioning himself as the South’s candidate for the 1996 GOP presidential nomination.

The national Republican Party — led by George H.W. Bush’s White House — embraced Roemer’s switch, for good reason. Like the rest of the South, Louisiana’s politics were shifting, with white voters — many of whom had inherited an affiliation with the Democratic Party — increasingly attracted to the national GOP’s conservative, Southern-friendly messaging. But there was an art to this messaging. Ever since the debacle of 1964, when the GOP had nominated civil rights opponent Barry Goldwater and suffered one of the worst landslides on record, Republicans had been careful not to engage in blatant racism in their appeals to Dixie, lest they seem like monsters to the rest of the country.

The rise of David Duke, the aforementioned ex-Klansman, in the late 1980s threatened this delicate balance. When Duke ran as a Republican for the Louisiana state Legislature in 1989, he did so as a reformed bigot, swearing off his Klan past and claiming that he now believed in racial equality. And when he won that February ’89 election, Bush and other national Republicans rushed to repudiate him. But Duke was on to something. If the national GOP could make inroads with Southern whites by embracing Christian conservatism and railing against affirmative action, welfare and federal power in general, so could he. Duke’s past made him poisonous to the Republican Party, but his platform was essentially the same as the GOP’s. He then ran for the U.S. Senate in 1990, and even with the Bush White House disavowing him, managed 44 percent of the vote against Democratic incumbent J. Bennett Johnston — a shocking total, given Bennett’s seeming popularity and the fact that Duke had only been polling in the teens.

Emboldened, Duke set out to run for governor in 1991, and national Republicans began panicking that they might not be able to stop him. It was in this context that the Bush White House began courting Roemer. His mandate in his first campaign in ’87 had been nonexistent; he’d finished first in the preliminary election with just 32 percent of the vote, then defaulted into the governorship when Edwin Edwards, the Democratic incumbent who had beaten corruption charges during his term, declined to contest the runoff. Instead, Edwards set about undermining his successor and positioning himself for a comeback bid in ’91. Roemer’s first term had been rocky and Edwards was well-positioned to exploit his vulnerabilities on the left, so the governor was quite receptive to the White House’s entreaties. We’ll raise money for you and make sure no other Republicans run, Roemer was told, which should guarantee that you’ll make the runoff — in which you’ll have no trouble beating Edwards or Duke in a one-on-one race.

For Roemer, this plan had the added benefit of enhancing his national prospects. The rise of an authentically Southern Republican presidential candidate seemed inevitable. The White House was offering him a chance to switch with significant political cover. He could win in ’91, then serve out his term and fulfill his national aspirations by running for president in 1996 (when the GOP nomination would be open no matter what happened to Bush in the ’92 campaign). So it was that Roemer announced his switch in March ’91.

But almost immediately, it became clear that the White House wouldn’t be of much use to Roemer. Bush and his allies helped Roemer raise money and Vice President Dan Quayle was even dispatched to campaign with him, but Louisiana Republicans reacted with resentment. Clyde Holloway, a staunchly pro-life Republican congressman, ignored the White House’s threats and entered the race — and promptly won the state party’s official endorsement. And Duke, defying predictions that Roemer’s party switch might make him think twice about running, plowed ahead and watched his support grow. By the end, Roemer didn’t have a chance. Edwards, rallying the Democratic base of black voters and blue-collar Cajuns, finished first with 34 percent. Duke was right behind him with 32 percent. Roemer, in third place with 27 percent, was eliminated on the spot.

“It’s my worst nightmare for the state of Louisiana,” Roemer declared.

It was also the end of his national ambitions, at least for the next two decades. Edwards, whose runoff campaign spawned a famous bumper sticker reading “Vote for the crook — it’s important,” went on to defeat Duke handily and to reclaim the governorship — which, after more corruption trouble (he ultimately landed in prison this time), he gave up in 1995. Roemer made a comeback attempt that year, but was thwarted by Mike Foster, an extremely conservative ex-Democrat (who would end up endorsing Pat Buchanan in the 1996 GOP primaries –helping “Pitchfork Pat” score an early, momentum-generating victory over Phil Gramm in Louisiana’s caucuses).

When it began, the 1991 Louisiana gubernatorial campaign was supposed to be a springboard to national glory for Buddy Roemer. Instead, it derailed his once-promising career. And now, as he heads off to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, it makes a nice reference point for commentators who see the 2012 Republican field as heavy on B- and C-list talent: Mitt Romney is such a weak front-runner that even the guy who lost to David Duke thinks he can beat him.

Steve Kornacki

Steve Kornacki writes about politics for Salon. Reach him by email at SKornacki@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveKornacki More Steve Kornacki.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 9 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator who voted against federal funding for Hurricane Sandy victims: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
38 points39 points | comment
vote
"Slave descendants seek equal rights from Cherokee Nation": long, detailed narrative of legal and historical complications in red-white-black relations
26 points27 points | comment
vote
Obama opposes GOP bill on Keystone XL oil pipeline: The White House said Tuesday that the bill “seeks to circumvent longstanding and proven processes” by removing a requirement for a presidential permit. The legislation also says no new environmental studies are needed.
23 points24 points | 2 comments
vote
Who is "Company Doe"? Corporations accused of wrongdoing win battle to keep identities secret
12 points13 points | comment
vote
Facebook’s Hate Speech Problem
4 points5 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations