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Streetcar Line
Dave Treen, Political Builder
Requiescat in pace. And in joy.
(Page 2 of 2)
Treen reviewed the record. He cited irrefutable proof, proof that many voters still, amazingly, were unaware of, that Duke had been a draft dodger, that Duke was a riot-fomenting lawbreaker, that he was a habitual tax delinquent -- and that he was still a Nazi. Treen provided transcripts and audio tapes to prove his claims. And he spoke in clear, unadorned, Cheney-like words and tones.
"David Duke simply is not believable," Treen said. "He is an opportunist who will say whatever is necessary to gain him votes."
Then, he addressed Duke's "Republican" status. This was important. Voters still were confused. Treen noted that Duke actually had lost the Republican convention, that the party had rejected him in numerous ways, and that he was an interloper.
"To my Republican friends, therefore, I say do not be persuaded in favor of Duke simply because he has adopted the Republican label…. Duke affiliated with the Republican Party for one reason and one reason only: pure political opportunism. It is my judgment that David Duke must be defeated. He can't be defeated by voters staying at home out of disaffection for both candidates for governor.… There are but two names on the ballot: David Duke and Edwin Edwards. To defeat David Duke, one must vote for Edwin Edwards. That's what I will do."
Everybody in Louisiana knew the history. Everybody knew how Edwards had mocked Treen for 20 full years. Asked about this, Treen responded: "Everybody knows that I have had my differences with Edwin Edwards. Ummm. People know that he has attacked me personally. And some may suggest that for that reason, I should stay out of it. It has been so suggested. But this is too important. This election is far too important."
I was standing there right in front of Treen, covering the event for Gambit New Orleans Weekly. It's hard to describe the pathos of the scene. Among the assembled media, you could hear not a sound. The sincerity, the swallowing of personal pride and ego, and the clarity of Treen's whole statement (only a small part of it is quoted above) left the normally cynical media struck dumb. They all knew of Treen's moral objections to Duke -- but for him to put himself on the line for Edwards, his own great nemesis, in such stark terms, was something that seemed to come straight out of Aeschylus or Vergil.
The center-left Louisiana scribe John Maginnis, in his brilliant book Cross to Bear, explained what happened next. Other endorsements came in for Edwards, including that of outgoing Gov. Buddy Roemer. The national media started attacking Duke. Volunteers came out of the woodwork for the "crook" over the Nazi. But: "According to [Edwards' own] polling, the most important blessing came from Dave Treen." As the Times-Picayune's Tyler Bridges added in his own book The Rise of David Duke, Edwards' "campaign polling showed that Treen's endorsement mattered as much to Roemer's supporters as did Roemer's [itself]."
Read that again. Even Roemer's own voters cared as much about the word of Treen, out of office for eight years, as they did for that of their own man. Such was Dave Treen's reputation for disinterested probity.
Edwards pulled away and turned the nail-biter into a rout. Duke's ascending star faded. The neo-Nazi tried several comebacks, but only one even came close. In a special election for Livingston's vacated congressional seat in early 1999, when Treen was 70 years old, in the area of the state where Duke had been most popular, a multi-candidate field, almost all Republicans, was taking shape. Treen knew that if the rest of the field split the vote too many ways, Duke could sneak into a runoff even with well under 25 percent of the vote -- and the nightmarish national attention would descend on Louisiana again. I met with Treen at his home as the field was taking shape. "I'm happily retired," he told me, in so many words, during a lengthy discussion. "But I may be the only one with enough name-ID to keep Duke out of a runoff. I'm leaning toward running."
Run he did. Sure enough, he came in first in the jungle primary. Duke was third. Without Treen in the race, Duke probably would have made the runoff and all Hades would have broken loose again.
But Treen spent almost the whole last week of the runoff (general election) campaign away from Louisiana, working to draw national media attention to the search for Treen's grandson, lost on a hike out West. If it had been anybody else's grandson, the young man probably would have died. Instead, Treen's high-profile efforts drew national news helicopters from all over, and after a few days it was a news chopper that spotted him and called in the rescue team. Treen returned to Louisiana the day before the election, looking much older and wearier, and he had an exhausted/angry meltdown on camera about opponent David Vitter's campaign tactics. Vitter squeaked out the victory, 61,661 votes to 59,849. Dave Treen had lost yet another campaign. But his grandson was alive; in effect, it was Treen himself who saved him.
…. And what of Edwin Edwards? Well, the wily old Cajun finally got caught in illegality and went to prison in 2002, where he remains to this day. Bizarrely, in the past two years Dave Treen started publicly advocating that the sentence of his old foe, now 82, be commuted. Reports my old boss at Gambit Weekly, Clancy DuBos: "Friends often asked why he would work so hard to free a man who had caused him so much pain. He told one of them, 'Because every night I say the Lord's Prayer, and when I say the words, 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,' I would feel like a hypocrite if I didn't forgive Edwin.' Dave Treen may have lost his biggest political campaign to Edwin Edwards, but in the race that really counts, he was much the better man."
(For a compilation of some of Mr. Hillyer's past writings on Dave Treen, go here.)
About the Author
Quin Hillyer is a senior editor of The American Spectator and a senior fellow at the Center for Individual Freedom.
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Pingback| 10.30.09 @ 6:52AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Dave Treen, Political Builder [spect links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Ryan| 10.30.09 @ 8:22AM
Fellow Louisianian "outmigrant" here (the word is really funny to Louisianians for bizarre reasons).
Treen's political career was the best and worst of Louisiana politics. In Maginnis's The Last Hayride, he points out that Treen was actually set up to WIN by Edwards because Edwards didn't want another Democrat to get any power and continue on as governor (who was term-limited at the time - LA govs can only serve two consecutive terms and they have to sit out one election). What it DID do, which EWE didn't anticipate, was give rise to the Republican party in Louisiana.
You forgot the name that we gave to the Duke/Edwards travesty election - "The Election from Hell."
People may be wondering if Louisianians were really that racist or that stupid, but they forget that, at the time, Duke was THAT good at hiding his racist spots. Edwards really was the lesser of two evils (and yes, that really wasn't saying much).
Alan Brooks| 10.30.09 @ 7:48PM
Heaven had better exist-- otherwise where would those such as David Treen go to after the mortal coil is fini?
Paul D| 10.30.09 @ 9:18AM
When Dave Treen was elected Governor, I was a senior at Tulane University. Treen was a graduate of both Tulane's undergraduate program and Tulane Law. He was also an alum of our local chapter of my fraternity, Kappa Sigma.
On sort of a lark, me and my Frat brothers invited Treen to visit his old stomping grounds. To our shock, he accepted immediately. We then had to scramble to send out invitations to local alumni and were of course, suitably impressed by the distinguished guests who showed up for his visit.
I always wondered what the local residents on Broadway street thought of the Governor's limo parked in front of our shabby little Frat house. It's was obvious that Treen certainly didn't care what kind of impression he was making and I think now it just demonstrates another aspect of his graciousness.
Thanks for the great obituary.
Alex D| 11.2.09 @ 1:55PM
Thank you, Paul, for helping me remember that wonderful dinner event with Dave Treen at the Kappa Sigma house on Broadway Street. I was also a "frat brother" in attendance at that dinner. I believe that I was in my 3rd year at Tulane (undergraduate) at that time.
After having the pleasure of briefly speaking with Dave Treen, I was convinced that I should join the Republican Party. I don't remember what he said, however, in over 30 years of voting, I have never voted for a Democrat.
And, thank you Quin, for a wonderful article on Dave Treen. He will be missed.
Rob| 10.30.09 @ 2:17PM
Wow, what a tremendous contribution he made to both Louisiana and the nation. A fine testimony to a man who did a great deal of good. Peace be with him.
shoey| 10.30.09 @ 3:07PM
never heard of him before, i'm glad for the schooling, i have some reading to do.
Ken (Old Texican)| 10.30.09 @ 10:30PM
Every timje I cross the Lake Charles bridge...I see the hundreds of six-gun castings. Perfect example of LA politics.
I hope he wasn't in on that boondoggle.
Jacob Sulzbach| 10.31.09 @ 1:53AM
Quin, you have done so much for those of us on the right side of history here in Louisiana recently, that you really deserve some props. First Beth Rickey and now Dave Treen.
I published a special post linking to this article at Blogging Louisiana at:
http://blogginglouisiana.blogs.....treen.html
And yesterday I followed it up with my own remembrance of Dave Treen at:
http://blogginglouisiana.blogs.....itics.html
It was a pleasure to meet you at Beth Rickey's funeral Quin, even if only briefly. Please feel free to contact me if you ever feel you need help publicizing something important. You've got credit in the bank now.
Jacob Sulzbach
Blogging Louisiana
Alan Brooks| 10.31.09 @ 1:35PM
"Duke was THAT good at hiding his racist spots."
Duke doesn't really dislike blacks, it is worse. IMO, reality is always worse that our perceived image of it.
Does a spider dislike a fly? No.
The spider loves the fly, it loves the taste of the fly's blood.
That is general as to all life.
Rich Rostrom| 11.1.09 @ 12:17PM
"the first GOP governor in the Deep South since Reconstruction..."
This claim is sort of true and sort of not true. Treen was elected in 1979. Before that, Republican Claude Kirk was elected in Forida in 1966, Winthrop Rockefeller in Arkansas in 1966, James Edwards in South Carolina in 1974, and Bill Clements in Texas in 1978.
Florida, South Carolina, and Texas were certainly Deep South states at the time of the Civil War; and if Florida and Texas ceased to be "Deep Southern" by the 1960s, Arkansas effectively became such later.
This should not take away from David Treen's splendid work in establishing the Republican Party in a state where it had been extinct for 42 years. (From 1916 through 1956, there was not even a token Republican candidate for governor, and in 13 of 21 election years no Republican ran for Congress.)
However, Treen is wrong to call for Edwards' release because Treen has forgiven him. Treen can forgive Edwards' personal abuse of him, but Edwards not is in prison for that. He is in prison for crimes against the public welfare, and Treen does not have standing to forgive those wrongs.
Jacob Sulzbach| 11.1.09 @ 2:47PM
Reply to Rich Rostrum ...
Rich;
Your factual information on the candidacies of Republicans for southern governorships is most welcome--thank you for that.
And with respect to your final comment about Edwards' "crimes against the public welfare"--I cannot argue that either. But as a Louisianian who fought "all things Edwards" for decades, for which I endured no small amount of anguish at the hands of his organization (including violence), I will disagree with your comment about Treen's forgiveness of Edwards and his recommendation of a pardon for him.
Treen's real success is that he led the way for Louisiana in the creation of a new political culture which rejected Edwards and all he stood for in the public eye--as well as the myths Edwards embodied, much in the tradition of Huey Long. Even Mary Landrieu has called down Louisiana Democrats for their ties to Edwards on occasion. If you have lived Louisiana politics as I have, you would know the significance of this accomplishment. It is huge.
Treen's request of a pardon for Edwards represented a desire on Treen's part to build a consensus in Louisiana for facing some of the toughest problems we must deal with as a legacy of years of corruption and "mythical" politics (if I may use the term). It deals with our tax structure, the harmful effects of casino gambling, damaging workmen's compensation laws written by organized labor, the popular myth of maintaining a high homestead exemption (lowering property taxes on homeowners) so that "the wealthy will pay their fair share," which has done so much damage to the costs of doing business here, and more.
What was really behind Treen's call for a pardon for Edwards was a desire to get the ear of Edwards' former supporters and allies to "fix things." At bottom, it was an attempt on Treen's part to make the political peace in Louisiana so that a true consensus for reform could emerge. We have taken some small steps towards building that consensus as a consequence of Treen's forgiveness alone.
The one trait which can be seen as evident in all Dave Treen's conduct is the placement of the interests of Louisianians above all else, no matter how hard it may have been to do so.
P.S. -- I lose no sleep over Edwin Edwards rotting in jail.
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