Duke Says Reagan, Bush Endorsements Will Work Against Opponent
NEW ORLEANS (AP) _ Ex-Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke mocked the endorsements of his opponent by President Bush and former President Reagan as his campaign for a Louisiana legislative seat wound up today.
″I respect Mr. Bush and Mr. Reagan. But they do not know the real issues in this race,″ Duke said Thursday. ″These endorsements are so absurd. Who’s going to endorse my opponent next, the ayatollah?″
The Republicans rolled out their top guns this week to keep the one-time grand wizard of the KKK from winning a seat Saturday in the state House of Representatives as a GOP member.
Commercials for both candidates dominated the airwaves, including Reagan’s familiar voice lauding conservative home builder and longtime Republican John Treen, 62.
Duke, 38, responded with a special half-hour television show to promote his candidacy in the final hours of a race that has attracted national attention, comment and money.
Reporters from as far away as West Germany, where readers are intrigued by the man who in college donned a Nazi uniform and carried a picket sign saying ″Gas the Chicago 7,″ swarmed to New Orleans to interview the glib, good- looking Duke and his mild-mannered opponent.
Turnout is expected to be high, some estimate 80 percent, in the bid to represent the nearly all-white House district in Metairie, a New Orleans suburb.
The backing from Bush and Reagan is unprecedented in a local legislative race, said state and national GOP officials who fear Duke might sully the Republican Party.
″He is not a Republican and should not pass himself off to be a Republican,″ said Leslie Goodman, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee in Washington.
Letters from Bush promoting Treen’s candidacy were to arrive at homes of the 23,000 voters in the district by Election Day.
″I can’t help but tell you of the high regard I have for one candidate in the race for the 81st district - John Treen,″ Reagan said in the heavily played radio spot.
Treen was ″ecstatic″ about the endorsements, adding, ″If Ronald Reagan or George Bush did not think I was a credible candidate and would do a first- class job, they wouldn’t have endorsed me no matter who I was running against.″
Duke, who sought the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination but registered Republican in the fall, led a field of seven candidates with 33 percent of the vote in the Jan. 21 primary. Treen had 19 percent.
Under Louisiana’s open primary system, the top two vote-getters in a primary, regardless of party, face each other in the runoff. The seat opened when Metairie’s representative was elected to a judgeship.
Both candidates campaigned at Metairie shopping centers Thursday and encountered supporters. One shopper, Glenda Johnson, said she would vote for Treen, explaining:
″I’m 32 years old. We worked hard to get our parents and grandparents to feel a certain way (about racism) ... and then along comes David Duke.″
As Duke greeted drivers stopped in traffic, a school bus driver leaned out his window and shouted, ″I hope you win, Ace.″
Duke has disavowed the Klan, which he left in 1980 after being accused of selling secret membership rolls. He now heads a group called the National Association for the Advancement of White People, which he says seeks equal rights for everybody.
He is opposed to welfare and affirmative action and supports Louisiana’s $75,000 homestead exemption.
Treen, whose brother, Dave, was Louisiana governor from 1980 to 1984, was state campaign chairman for Bush’s 1980 presidential bid.
He also was a member of the State’s Rights Party of Louisiana in the 1950s, which he said was not formed as a racist group although many members were segregationists.
″I left that behind a long time ago,″ Treen said.