Louisiana: The State We're In; 439

[Beep] Production assistance for the following program was provided in part by Kaiser Aluminum. A poll that shows Reagan slightly ahead of Carter now, in my judgment, is translated to a pro-Carter poll, and I'll tell you why. Louisiana is a key battleground in the fall presidential election and with former Governor Edwards running the Carter camp and Republican Governor Treen leading the Reagan team, it could be a pivotal race for all four men. Join us next, on Louisiana The State We're In, for a look at Louisiana

the Swing State, along with a report on a rural life museum. Beth George and Ron Blome. Welcome to this edition of, Louisiana: The State We're In. With less than a month to go in the race for the presidency, Louisiana is still in the uncommitted column. Nearly every poll shows it too close to call. This week we have a report on why Louisiana is considered a swing state.

Well the 1980 election will soon be history, the record of events recorded on videotape and newsprint. And while that process was still underway this week we decided to visit a museum where the roots of rural Louisiana are recorded in the artifacts and dwellings of a bygone era. If our show seems to have an historical bent this week, it is intentional. Far too often the harried pace of modern elections leaves little time for reflection. This week we proposed to examine why Louisiana is called a swing state, and why our 10 electoral votes are up for grabs between the Republicans and Democrats. The political winds of fortune blow variably in Louisiana, a state that has voted since 1944 for Democrats on three occasions, Republicans a like number and two times for Independents. In this election year, Louisiana once more swings in the polls. It is this curious balancing that has made her a target for both presidential candidates and the men who would place Louisiana in their party's column. "I don't view this as a campaign between Carter and Reagan. They're just personalities

nominal figures, and a national balance of power to determine who is going to run this country. The Republican philosophy or the Democratic philosophy." "You don't have to carry the South, and we don't have to carry any specific state in the South. We must, we believe we've got to cut into the South. We don't want that to be solid base for Jimmy Carter and we're confident it won't be". If there is a difference in party philosophy, the modern trappings of a presidential campaign reflect an increasing focus on media hoopla and sophisticated polling. But in Louisiana, as in other states, an analysis of the past may provide some perspective on what may be in store for this election. "Since 1944, we've had, of course, eight national presidential elections and Louisiana has voted every which way since then." Dr. Mark Carleton is a professor of history at Louisiana State University and his studies show that Louisiana's voting past indicates the patterns of a swing state.

"Well, of course, Louisiana, like most other Southern states, voted consistently for the Democratic nominee from 1880 until 1944, back in the Democratic solid South era. But since then lots of changes within the nation, within the Democratic Party, within the Republican Party, within Louisiana have shaken up that consensus. In Louisiana, still, I think very much, is a state in transition. We still have a number of solid Democratic voters, mostly middle-aged or old, who have consistently voted for the Democrats, would probably vote for anybody on the Democratic label. But increasingly we have a growing middle class and upper middle class who identify with the economic views of the Republican Party, including of many people from other states that are accustomed to a two-party system that we haven't had for too long. The race issue has dominated at least three of these elections 1948, 1964, and 1968 in which Louisiana voted for the Conservative primary other candidate each time. And probably, I would think that race has been a major factor in

most of these elections, with the possible exception of the last one, 1976. The black vote, on the other hand, has increased tremendously in Louisiana since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Almost a quarter of Louisiana's registered voters are black right now and they have consistently voted for the Democratic nominee, whoever he was and I expect will vote heavily for President Carter this time." You mention that Louisiana voted in a conservative fashion a number of times in presidential elections. Do you find that there's a difference in the way citizens in Louisiana vote on a national level? "Oh I tell you, I do, in fact, this is where the real schizophrenia comes in. For example, in 1948, locally we elected Earl Long governor by a landslide. He won over 67 percent of the total popular vote. But, of course, Earl Long in the tradition of his brother Huey was a tax happy, free-spending Democrat, who just papered the state with buildings, roads, bridges, free lunch programs, and all that kind of thing.

Yet in the very same year, three or four months later, we voted for the Dixiecrat. In the presidential race J. Strong Thurman who was for white supremacy, anti-New deal, low taxes, low government profile, and that kind of thing and we've done this fairly consistently since the 1940s. Except, of course, last year when we very narrowly elected a conservative Republican governor David Treen." Putting it in historical perspective, I suppose, do you see any trends developing? We've talked about the populous past, the history, tradition of Huey Long and increasingly in Louisiana, of course, with the election of a Republican governor, we see an affluent middle class developing. Are there any long-range trends developing in Louisiana? "Well, of course, we have had a populist past. If, by that you mean, the traditions of Huey Long and Earl Long, and the Long-ism movement generally. We also have along with it a very well-established conservative tradition, which began, of course, with John M. Parker, back in the '20s, and continued through Sam Jones' administration, Robert

F. Kennon's administration, and now David Treen's administration in 1980. So, I think, what we may see is an increased polarization in Louisiana politics between the liberal Democratic populist legacy of the Longs, and the increasingly conservative property-conscious attacks economical philosophies of the anti-Longs and now the conservative Republicans with neither side really winning that many adherents away from the other. What I'm trying to say, in less academic terms is, I foresee a continued fairly equal division in Louisiana politics and ideology for the foreseeable future." Former Governor Edwin Edwards is leading one of those divisions. As chairman of President Carter's reelection campaign in Louisiana. He thinks the state will be carried by the president, but it will be close. "I would emphasize that if people are voting for Reagan and many of them are because they think interest rates will go down, inflation is going to stop, unemployment is going to diminish.

They're going to be very bitterly disappointed because that is not going to happen until two things occur. One we must decrease our dependence upon foreign crude of which I have been saying for eons of time. And second, the industrialists of this nation are going to have to change their method of operation, the style of their plants, to where we will become competitive with foreign nations in the manufacture of automobiles, television sets, radios, electric razors, all of the consumer products that now are commanding such as a great deal of attention in world markets. And no matter who is elected president that is not going to happen in the next few years. The best that we can do is to try to stage a return to traditional American policies to bring us back in that posture. Second basically, oil and gas, that's my big thing, okay. I've had running battles with Carter over oil and gas. Most people in the oil and gas industry are Reagan

supporters, but I suggest to them they are very poorly advised. A Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower, in 1956 first vetoed national legislation which brought about the control of gas at the wellhead, which everybody in the industry and in economics knows started us on the wrong road in energy matters. A Republican president. A Republican President, Richard Nixon, in 1973 first imposed controls on oil. Another Republican President Gerald Ford in 1975 signed national legislation which codified control of oil. A Democratic president Jimmy Carter first began to decontrol natural gas and oil which is very important to a good stable oil and gas industry. And I would suggest to those in the industry, whether you work in the oil and gas industry on an oil rig, if you're a secretary for a service firm,

or you have any relationship to the oil and gas industry, that if Ronald Reagan is elected governor and tries to repeal the windfall profits tax or if you are a royalty owner in this state that you are going to be flirting with disaster because I think if another run is made at that in the national Congress given the sentiment of people and in states that do not produce oil and gas, we're going to end up with more controls on oil and gas. We will not repeal the windfall profits tax and we're going to have the worst of two worlds. And so I would suggest as one who I believe has studied it and knows something about what's best for Louisiana and best for a royalty owner and best for the country and best for the oil and gas industry that a Democratic president to help bring us out of the problems caused in the industry by three Republican presidents." Is this move then good for your political future in 1983? "It would certainly be very good if Carter carries the state. It would be a psychological plus for me. It would be a psychological minus if he loses the state and I recognize that.

But I also recognize that every citizen has an obligation in this election. Some just to vote, some to influence others, some to serve as campaign managers, some to serve in other capacities. I viewed my role as accommodating to the president's request that I try to do what I can statewide to help mobilize his campaign here and I'm serving in that capacity. I also feel if I just wanted to be, analyze it selfishly, that if I'm to run for governor in '83, I will necessarily be running against an incumbent Republican governor and certainly the Reagan-oriented Republicans are going to support him as indeed they should and I'm therefore going to have to appeal to the traditional Democratic vote in Louisiana for my support. I felt that as a matter of loyalty then, since I do not consider other factors to be controlling that I align myself with the Democratic nominee. I don't view this as a campaign between Carter and Reagan. They're just personalities, nominal figures and

a national balance of power to determine who is going to run this country -- the Republican philosophy or the Democratic philosophy." Give me some prediction. What do you think is final outcome going to be on November 4th? I predict that Jimmy Carter will carry the state of Louisiana by a very narrow margin and that Anderson will get less than 5 percent of the vote." You think Anderson will draw from Carter? "No, I don't. I think that it's a double-edged sword. I think many people would just vote for Anderson because they do not like either of the other two and can't make themselves vote for either Reagan or Carter. People think Reagan is too old, that he is too radical, that he's too eager to push a button, that he's too irresponsible in making statements like blockading Cuba, he's indecisive. He's for the Olympic boycott in January, he's against it in February, then in March, he wants the athletes to decide. Then others are against Carter because he's indecisive, and because he can't get anything done, and because employment is down and inflation is up and

interest rates are up and so there's a lot for people to find on the minus side in both camps, to be honest with you." Is Carter going to win? "I have no way of knowing. If I were to base an opinion based upon polls, I would say yes, because I don't analyze the polls the way others do. A poll that shows Reagan slightly ahead of Carter now in my judgment is translated to a pro-Carter poll and I'll tell you why. Because the minorities, the Hispanics, blacks, Italians, Polish people, people such as that who are traditional Democratic voters are never fully reflected in polls and we have to assume that a majority of those people will be in the Democratic column. So a close poll today even with Reagan ahead two or three percentage points equates, in my opinion, to a pro-Carter result.

That's my analysis of it." The Republicans have their own opinion on who's going to carry this state. They see it as a narrow Reagan-Bush victory and they're supporting that hope with recent visits from both candidates. "The future Vice-President of the United States, Ambassador George Bush." She talked about the importance of the South in this campaign. How is it a key, does Reagan have to carry the South?" "You don't have to carry the South and you don't have to carry any specific state in the South. We must, we believe we've got to cut into the South. We don't want that to be solid base for Jimmy Carter and we're confident it won't be. We will win Louisiana because on the issues we're talking common sense and we're talking hope and we're talking productivity and we're talking sound environmental practice and we're talking about all the things that the people in this state really

do understand. And if we continue to do that, we're going to win Louisiana. It won't be a walk away, but we will win it." There is sometimes, I suppose, misconceptions in the rest of the country. They think about the South as being one large block. Do you lump Louisiana and Texas together because of their oil and gas? "There is certainly a common interest on energy. But there are different problems in each state, clearly has its own definition. But, there's a common thread through not just productivity and the ability to go out and go forward and get something done. You see, that's what I think of having lived in this part of the world. But there's also a national threat. Hopelessness, instead of the hope we're talking about. Unemployment, all these things." Governor Edwards, former Governor Edwards, has suggested that if we should capture our gains. We should have what we have now, deregulation. If there's a push to hurt us because there is a reaction in the rest of the country against this sort of thing. He suggested that that would be in our,

not in our best interest in this part of the world. "I think he's right, if his man wins because Jimmy Carter has lost credibility in terms of solving economic programs. I think that, under new leadership, where you really chart a different way, a different direction for the country in terms of helping people or solving problems, that we can move to get rid of that kind of tax. You see, under Jimmy Carter, taxes have gone up a hundred billion dollars in one year, revenue, economic policies and our belief in the private sector employment makes attacks like the windfall profits tax necessary. If you believe that the private sector can go out and do a better job with less regulation and less taxation. Let me ask you general question. Usually in presidential campaigns vice presidential candidates are the ones that take the tough shots. They're the

ones that don't have to remain above the fray, if you will. This election seems to be going a little differently. It seems that the candidates themselves are taking the tough shots. How do you feel. Is that an accurate assessment? No, not particularly, with all due respect. I like to feel I'm not taking, if you mean a tough shot by a low blow, a low road campaigning I wouldn't be very good at that. I'm not sure how good I am at what I am doing, but I know I'd be no good at that. I think that the unfortunate campaign tactics Carter has decided to use, this candidate that kind of setting in divisions in this country, religious divisions, racial division, war and peace division, assigning to my running mate Governor Reagan motives that just clearly are nothing in his record to support those. I think that's bad for the political process. And I think in pure politics it works against it. So one reason we're not doing that, Governor Reagan or me,

is that neither of us would be very good at it. And secondly we don't believe that's the way the process should work. Let them do their thing over there. Republican Governor Dave Treen and Democratic former Governor Edwin Edwards say that the presidential race in Louisiana should not be seen as a personal battle between them. But in the larger sense the two men leading their respective parties represent the divisions that exist within the state -- historically, politically, and philosophically. There is agreement that this presidential election will be as close as those in the past. It's still a cliffhanger and I will also predict this, that whoever wins in Louisiana is going to follow this pattern of taking the state with a very lean majority of the popular vote. Or perhaps if there are minor candidates as John Anderson without really a popular majority with a plurality of the popular vote. Ron, Doctor Carleton pointed out in our interview that since 1944 the margin for victory in

Louisiana has been very narrow. I think it was only in 1972 that Nixon carried the state with a landslide vote. And in the weeks to come it would seem that neither Reagan nor Carter has conceded the state. And we can anticipate a flood of campaigners on both sides. President Carter is slated for an October 21st visit to New Orleans. And Ronald Reagan may be planning another swing through the state in the week prior to the election. Well, moving from political history in the making to another kind of history, our next segment involves an effort being made by Louisiana State University to preserve a part of the 19th century. Specifically, the LSU project involves the life of the common man, a way of life that built our state. Life in Louisiana, the Louisiana of another century was very difficult. Those were the plantation days when cotton and sugar cane were king. Those were the days when the plantation owners lived in magnificent homes like this, while most of the people lived in homes that looked more like this. There are plenty of restored plantation homes in Louisiana, but only one place to find the working side of the

plantation. And that's the LSU Rural Life Museum operated by LSU in Baton Rouge and located some 10 miles east of the campus on the grounds of the old Windrush Plantation. Windrush Plantation built in 1855 by John Burden was turned over to

LSU in the late 1960s by Steele and Ione Burden, descendants of the plantation builder. The museum began when LSU asked to borrow the Burden's private collection of plantation artifacts. Instead of borrowing a small collection, however, LSU was given the collection and the land on which to build a museum. And today the collection includes 17 buildings and a barn full of artifacts. What we're attempting to do is to show what the life for the common man back in 19th century Louisiana would have been like. This is an area that's I feel is underrepresented in the way of museums and what have you, particularly on a permanent basis. You have visiting exhibits that travel from one museum to another and from one university to another, but on a permanent basis there's no place in the state that attempts to depict life in 19th century rural Louisiana, which of course would be the, would cover the predominant majority of the white population and black population as well.

John Dutton is curator of the LSU Rural Life Museum and he says the collection has grown beyond anyone's expectations. Nobody ever dreamed it'd be this large. It was strictly a kind of a collect as you find operation. There was no master plan as such. I suppose that once the idea of moving cabins onto the property was kicked about then the idea of having a working portion of a plantation, what you would find behind the elegant plantation home took hold in people's mind. And so consequently we, one of the main sections here is the plantation section, which includes the overseers' house and slave cabins with kitchen, schoolhouse on through the sugar house and grist mill. There's quite a lot here, a lot of varied articles. Do you have trouble identifying sometimes? Do you have to be an expert on

everything? A jack of all trades at everything with this? Most museums have curators of specialized interests and areas of study. You might have a curator of technology, a curator of textiles, fine arts curators and what have you. Out here we have only two employees, myself and Malcolm Tucker, so we have to kind bone up on interests that may not appeal to us, but this, we've got to know what they are so that when people ask we can tell them. You have a lot of visitor groups that come in here, some off the tour boats, and they've just come off seeing a lot of magnificent mansions and then they come here to the Rural Life Museum. What's their reaction to this place? Especially with people off the Mississippi Queen and Delta Queen, we find that they've had a weeks touring the plantation home, but when they finish seeing the homes they have yet to see what took place behind those big houses to create the wealth that allowed the

plantation owner and his family to live in the style that they lived in those homes. And so they're quite, the visitors are quite impressed with coming out here since this is their only opportunity to see, more or less an actual working section of a plantation, what took place in particular on a sugar plantation. Wwere in the sugar growing region, you know. Quite a few of our artifacts have come from the sugarcane areas, particularly around the Convent, Gramercy. Although the collection of artifacts housed in the museum barn is extensive, the key to this historic exhibit lies outside where some 17 buildings gathered from across Louisiana stands witness to life in the 19th century. A lot of museums have room settings that typify or authenticate actual rooms over a certain period of time. But in order to really get the feel of being in a house or whatever, you really need the house or the cabin to display the artifacts in. And I think that by having

these buildings out here and having them realistically equipped with artifacts from the 19th century that people who visit us do get the idea that they are actually in a workers cabin or in an Acadian house or dog trot house or whatever or the commissary. The LSU Rural Life Museum is a place where history stands remembering. Not just a collection of odds and ends from an earlier day, but a reflection on a lifestyle that built a state. And the Rural Life Museum run by LSU is open on weekdays and as we mentioned it's on the east side of Baton Rouge at I-10 and Essen Lane. I think that they would like you to make appointments if large groups are coming to visit the museum. We're going to be back next week at our appointed time on Louisiana: The State We're In and we hope you'll join us then. I'm Beth George. I'm Ron Blome. [Theme music]

Production assistance for the preceding program was provided in part by Kaiser Aluminum.