Posted on 05/17/2021 8:51:49 AM PDT by White Lives Matter
Buddy Roemer, who rode a message of reform in the 1987 governor’s race to vault over three challengers and “slay the dragon” — scandal-torn three-time Gov. Edwin Edwards — but who lost reelection four years later to the same rival, died Monday in Baton Rouge.
Roemer was 77. He had been ill for months.
Roemer was a Democrat-turned-Republican, but he seemed too independent and headstrong to fit well in either party. He never followed the precept that to get ahead in politics, you had to get along with other politicians. With his sharp mind, he understood all the angles of a political play but disliked the deal-making that came with being governor. And that limited what he could achieve.
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Roemer tried to get it back on track in 1991, when he became the first governor in U.S. history to switch parties while in office. But voters had tired of his version of reform. The newly-minted Republican finished a humiliating third in the 1991 gubernatorial primary behind Edwards and David Duke, a one-term state Republican House member from Metairie who had been a Ku Klux Klan grand wizard in the 1970s.
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Roemer ran for governor again in 1995 as Edwards, wrapping up a fourth term, chose not to seek reelection. Roemer led during much of the race but faded in the stretch.
State Sen. Mike Foster brushed past Roemer and several other better-known candidates, much as Roemer had done eight years earlier. Foster won in part thanks to a secret deal he cut with Duke to win Duke’s conservative supporters. Roemer, who had been a strong supporter of civil rights throughout his career, refused to even meet with Duke. He finished fourth in the primary, 2 percentage points out of the runoff.
(Excerpt) Read more at theadvocate.com ...
I was just in Baton Rouge. I don’t think any of them can top the antics of Huey Long..
Louisiana politics has always fascinated me. Since the days of Huey P Long. Anyway rest in peace to Governor Roemer.
That 1991 race was one for the ages.
Roemer’s biggest problem was that he waffled on pro-life, I don’t remember if it was before or after he jumped parties, but I am thinking before.
This led to him finishing third in the jungle primary behind Duke and Edwards, and that race in turn produced one of the best bumper stickers ever “Vote for the Crook, it’s Important.”
Perhaps even better than the one floating around Florida in December of 2000: “If GOD had meant for us to vote, He would have given us candidates.”
Ah, cynicism.
Mebbe, but Edwards came in a close second. People just liked him. I always said if it was legal, he would be elected while serving a prison sentence.
>>David Duke, a one-term state Republican House member from Metairie who had been a Ku Klux Klan grand wizard in the 1970s.
David Duke was fomerly a Democrat and became a Democrat again and an independent. And he’s endorsed Democrats in the modern political era with little word from the press.
He even thinks one of the Fraud/Squad are the best person in Congress because she’s antisemitic too.
Duke is still a registered Republican.
RIP.
Roermer classic RINO. No guts and no real beliefs
I was very lucky to have T. Harry Williams teach Louisiana History in high school...he was the consumate expert on Huey Long. His book on Long is well worth reading.
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