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10/18/2014 Cajun Prince brings out secret weapon to win Congress seat in Louisiana - FT.

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October 17, 2014 5:13 pm

Cajun Prince brings out secret weapon to win Congress seat in


Louisiana
Richard McGregor in Baton Rouge

Edwin Edwards, 87, has been busy since he was released from prison in 2011 in Louisiana after
serving nearly a decade for fraud and extortion, marrying a woman 51 years his junior and
fathering a baby.

Now the ex-congressman, ex-governor and ex-con is trying to win a seat in Congress for the
Democrats in Novembers midterm elections, to cap off one of the most baroque and
Getty
controversial careers in US politics.
Edwin Edwards with his wife and secret weapon, Trina
Scott Edwards The last of the old-style southern Democrats, Mr Edwards was first elected in 1954 at a time when
the party held sway over the old confederate south, a hold which has withered away.

Variously called the Cajun Prince, the Silver Fox and the Silver Zipper, he was the master of the political one-liner. He once joked hed
only lose an election if he was caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.

In his campaign office in Baton Rouge, the state capital, Mr Edwards dismisses concerns about his age. Eighty-seven is the new 60, he
says, twisting the words in a clipped Cajun drawl.

His striking wife, Trina Scott Edwards , a Republican, slips in and out of his office, canoodling with her husband and gently rubbing the
ink marks on his shirt pocket left by a dribbling pen.

I love her. Thats easy to understand. She loves me. Thats hard to understand, he says.

Mr Edwards is dressed like a London banker for the days campaigning, with leather suspenders and shirts monogrammed with his
initials, EWE. A picture of their 14-month-old child, Ely, hangs on the wall.

Thankfully we put him to bed at nine oclock and he sleeps all night, he says. Dont ask any more questions about it. I dont want to
change his habits.

Mrs Edwards became his prison pen-pal and visited him regularly inside, making him a hero among inmates who cheered as they
watched her walk across the parking lot. The pair starred in a reality TV show last year, The Governors Wife.

Mr Edwards had thought about running for a fifth term as governor, but as a convicted felon he is barred under Louisiana law from
holding office in the state for 15 years after his release.

As one local newspaper drily noted: Edwards would be 101 by then. He dropped the idea after an attempt to get President Barack
Obama to pardon him failed and targeted a congressional seat in Washington instead.

Although he might not win in November, Mr Edwards could have a decisive impact on the balance in the Senate, which partly turns on the
Democrats holding Louisiana.

Louisiana elections feature jungle primaries in which multiple candidates from both parties compete against each other, with the top
two competing in a run-off if no one gets 50 per cent in the first round.

The district was redrawn into a horseshoe shape by the Republican state legislature, excising African-Americans, who heavily vote
Democrat, and bringing in whites, who are overwhelmingly conservative.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b91acf26-54dd-11e4-bac2-00144feab7de.html#axzz3GSUnhbiM 1/2
10/18/2014 Cajun Prince brings out secret weapon to win Congress seat in Louisiana - FT.com
They snaked through the district and picked out localities that had large black votes and took them away from Nobody will say it
the white areas, Mr Edwards says. openly but deep down
in the recesses of their
If he makes it into the second round of voting, as expected, his presence on the ballot will lift turnout for a
heart they resent him
fellow Democrat, Mary Landrieu, who will probably face a run-off for her crucial Senate seat at the same time.
as the president. But
they resented Johnson
The biggest difference between campaigning now and in his heyday is social media Twitter, Facebook,
and Nixon and Clinton
internet but Mr Edwards still talks like an old-style Democrat.
and the Bushes,
because whoevers in
I have strong support from labour, law enforcement, school teachers, bus drivers, firemen, civil servants, old
people, blue dog [moderate] Democrats and people who need help from government thats a pretty charge has to take the
impressive coalition, he says. licks
- Edwin Edwards
The voters who dont like him, he says, are people who drive to work in their air-conditioned cars from their
air-conditioned homes to their air-conditioned offices, because they have no need for anything.

They are the kind of people who believe government is only necessary to fight wars and build highways.

Like all Democrats, especially in the south, he understands the presence of Mr Obama in the White House will not help him at the polls.

Nobody will say it openly but deep down in the recesses of their heart they resent him as the president, he says. But they resented
Johnson and Nixon and Clinton and the Bushes, because whoevers in charge has to take the licks.

Still, he claims to have a secret weapon to recruit at least some Republicans to vote for him in November. Im going to let Trina talk to
them, he says.

RELATED TOPICS United States of America, Barack Obama

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