Fast Eddie, the pride of LSU

Comes the news that a new biography of Edwin Edwards -- former Louisiana governor, current federal prisoner and LSU Law School grad, class of 1949 -- is flying off the shelves down there. (Click here to order yours.) In reading up on it, I found this little gem from the book "The Saints, The Superdome and the Scandal" by Dave Dixon. This has to do with the Edwards-David Duke gubernatorial runoff in 1991:

Out of my own pocket, I paid for the following message, booked via our ad agency, at half a dozen north and central Louisiana TV stations, markets where Edwards needed help the most. "I'm Dave Dixon. I want to tell it to you just the way it is. It's goodbye LSU Tigers or it's goodbye David Duke. Take your choice. If David Duke is sitting in the governor's mansion, how can we recruit the best football talent in America to come to LSU? Take your choice: LSU Tigers or David Duke.'

Thirty days later Edwin Edwards came into our office on Royal Street to show me a Mason-Dixon poll. "Here I am thirty days ago, actually a little bit behind this clown. Today we're 250,000 votes to the good, and we're going to win by 350,000 votes on Election Day." He actually won by 384,000 after trailing at the beginning of the runoff. "You know what all of this tells me?" he questioned. Dutifully I asked "What?" Edwards continued, "This tells me that 250,000 Bubbas, Rednecks and ex-Ku Kluxers have suddenly decided that they like LSU football a whole lot more than they dislike blacks."

-- R. Trentham Roberts