74-Year-Old Dave Treen Pontificates About Another LA Gubernatorial Campaign

BATON ROUGE - Former Gov. David Treen said he intends to run for governor next year, but won't make a decision until traveling the state in January.

Treen, now a New Orleans lawyer who lives in Mandeville on the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain, said he would not run if an acceptable candidate would adopt his pet program.

Treen was urged by the Reagan White House to seek the Senate in 1984, but he declined to take on incumbent Democrat J. Bennett Johnston, Jr. Instead Johnston was reelected without opposition on the night Reagan was reelected. Thereafter, old nemesis Johnston blocked Reagan's attempt to make Treen a federal judge. Since that time, Treen has talked about entering many races but did so only once: when he failed to win the special House election created in 1999 by the resignation of former Rep. Bob Livingston, R-LA. In 1991, Treen endorsed old nemesis Edwin Washington Edwards over the former KKK leader David Duke. Ironically, only yesterday Duke accepted a plea bargain and will serve up to 15 months in federal prison for mail and IRS fraud. Can the LA GOP ever get its act together again?

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