Retirees Cheer Duke, Shout Down Edwards
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BATON ROUGE, La. — Hundreds of retirees cheered gubernatorial candidate David Duke on Wednesday when he attacked welfare as a subsidy for criminals.
His opponent, former Gov. Edwin W. Edwards, was shouted down when he defended welfare “for the unfortunate.”
Duke’s reception was evidence that the Republican is overcoming the stigma of his past ties to the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis. The crowd was unusually hostile to Edwards, a Democrat once regarded as the state’s most popular politician since Huey Long.
Both men spoke at a forum attended by about 700 people as part of the American Assn. of Retired Persons’ state convention. The two led a field of 12 candidates in an Oct. 19 primary and will face each other in a Nov. 16 runoff.
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