Stanley R. Tiner - On Long, Roemer, and Duke

On Long, Roemer, and Duke

In 1986, Tiner opined that retiring U.S. Senator Russell B. Long may have stepped aside from seeking a seventh full six-year term because Long may have been unseated by Republican U.S. Representative Henson Moore of Baton Rouge. Long's successor, John Breaux, also a U.S. representative at the time from Crowley, however, defeated Moore in the general election. Moore had led in the nonpartisan blanket primary. Long said that he merely wanted to have a few years of retirement while the calendar was still somewhat favorable to him. Long lived until 2003.

In 1991, Tiner noted in an interview that the returning Edwin Edwards, poised to win his fourth and final term as governor, was dependent on disillusioned supporters of former Governor Buddy Roemer, a Democrat-turned-Republican, to provide victory over then State Representative David Duke, the one-time figure in the Ku Klux Klan who was opposed by nearly two thirds of Louisiana voters. According to Tiner, "The Duke vote is impenetrable. It's going to be there even if a tidal wave rolls across the state. Edwards is dependent on the Roemer voters who despised him four years ago -- he was the dragon Buddy Roemer promised to slay. That's a pretty scary prospect if you're sitting in Edwards's seat." As it turned out, Tiner appeared to have overrated Duke's electoral appeal in 1991, and Roemer's father had been Edwards' first campaign manager commissioner of administration in the first two Edwards terms.