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Clancy DuBos Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Columnist and Gambit political editor Clancy DuBos ends his remarkable run next week. But before he drifts off into semi-retirement, he sat down with colleague Stephanie Grace to share some of his most memorable stories from more than 50 years on the political beat. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Grace: We journalists are sometimes accused of focusing on the negative, so let's start with something positive. Tell me about some politicians you covered who you admire. DuBos: Mitch Landrieu, Marc Morial, Dutch Morial, Moon Landrieu.
They all tried to be, and in many ways were, transformational New Orleans mayors. Moon and Dutch had to push against the entrenched racial dynamic. Marc was the first mayor to really bring police reform in, and he admitted on his way out that his biggest mistake was not institutionalizing the reforms he made under Richard Pennington, because it backslid.
And Mitch had to rebuild the city; literally nothing was working after Hurricane Katrina. So it's like he had to be Mr. FEMA.
And he did that. Also Kathleen Blanco. She had incompetence above and below her, and she stood tall in not letting Karl Rove get his agenda through or nationalize the National Guard.
That took major courage. And she worked her butt off trying to rebuild the state after Katrina and Rita. And Mary Landrieu, the state’s first woman senator, excelled, especially after Katrina.
She passed GOMESA (which gives Louisiana a share of federal offshore oil revenues for coastal restoration). And she made sure institutions got the help they needed. Mayor Dutch Morial and Clancy DuBos I would also add, going back a generation, Hank Lauricella, the state senator from Harahan, who was way ahead of his time in saying that Louisiana needed to combine the ports and have one port authority.
The Port Authority of New York straddles state lines. We can't even get them to straddle parish lines; it holds us back. We have too many fiefdoms in Louisiana, and this is the greatest example.
Grace: Tell me about some politicians who surprised you. DuBos: Bobby Jindal surprised me in a negative way. He was supposed to be the smart guy, and he tried too hard to appeal to the uneducated.
It's a classic example of a politician not playing to his strength. Recently, Cameron Henry has been a very good, pleasant surprise as Senate president. He was always smart, he was always capable, but the knock against him from his own colleagues was that he was too strident and inflexible.
That’s why they didn't elect him House speaker. To his great credit, he matured as a legislator and as a politician, and now I call him the next John Alario — and that's a real compliment for anybody in leadership in Louisiana. Buddy Roemer was a disappointment too, because he was too inflexible and didn't understand that politics is the art of the possible.
He was all about trying to be the smartest guy in the room, and he came across as condescending to a lot of people he had to deal with, and that cost him a lot. And then Edwin Edwards and Dave Treen, in different ways. Edwards had the public persona of being this warm guy who was so easy to like, but deep down he could be very cold.
On a personal level, Dave Treen was seen as this wooden guy, but he was one of the warmest people you could ever meet. He had stage fright, poor guy, he really did. He told me that it was the way he grew up.
His father was very strict, always told him “You have to be upright.” But on a personal level, he was also extremely funny, and he did a drop-dead impersonation of Edwards. Brandin, Clancy, Margo and Will DuBos Another surprise was Mike Foster; he was the best governor in my lifetime for higher education.
And what I admired about Mike was that he didn't get the college-educated vote, and he knew he wasn't going to get it, but he still knew how important a college education was. And he pushed the Stelly Plan, which was the closest thing to real fiscal reform that actually got passed. Grace: Which members of Congress have stood out to you as representing the state well? DuBos: Russell Long really left a mark.
Jimmy Carter famously said, “I ran for president to prove that a Southerner could run the country. When I got here, I realized Russell Long was already doing it.” He was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee; he presided over the tax code of the United States of America.
John Breaux was the quintessential guy who understood that relationships matter. He was good at bringing people together; he was right there in the middle, and he brought people toward him. And the other person that I admired and loved deeply was Lindy Boggs.
She was so kind to me personally when I went through a difficult period in my life, she made a point of calling me and staying in touch. She was absolutely the most gracious person I've ever known in politics. Grace: Here's a question about John Breaux.
He’s a conservative, but out of the populist Cajun Democratic tradition. Could he get elected in Louisiana today? DuBos: Probably not, and he would say that, too. Relationships still matter, but it's unfortunate that they don't matter as much.
There are still lots of people in Washington who try to have relationships with people that they might not agree with, but they do it at their own peril. And it's a shame. It's worse in Washington, but it's getting a lot worse here, too.
Grace: What’s the most memor a ble interview you've done? DuBos: Probably one with Edwin Edwards, when he was about to be indicted the second time on the hospital case. I said, “You know, everybody knew you were a gambler, but everybody assumed you won all the time. And what came out in the first trial was that you lost a lot and that you paid off your gambling debts with a suitcase full of cash.
” And he said, “Well, that's how you people in the media are, y'all want to focus things like it was a suitcase. It was a briefcase, not a suitcase.” I didn’t say this out loud, but I’m thinking, “Oh, well, that makes all the difference in the world.
” Grace: So you’re known for writing about “Winnas and Loozas,” and we’ve talked about a number of winners. Who are some of the biggest losers you've covered? DuBos: I would say the biggest losers in the last 51 years are the taxpayers of Louisiana. We keep flirting with tax reform, and we keep not quite getting there.
And the big winners would be the wealthy and the people in power. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer; that’s an old saying, but it's very true in Louisiana. And I hope people don’t give up on changing it because it is possible, but it's very difficult in a state like Louisiana because we don't have a big middle class, and that's the problem.
And if there's one thing that I would change about Louisiana, it would be that we really start focusing on early childhood education and making pre-K mandatory starting at 3 years old. And fund it. That would lessen crime.
It would create a middle class. It would take time, but we don't take the long view in Louisiana, we always look for what's right in front of us, the quick gratification. And I think term limits are the other big mistake we've made.
Term limits have been awful because we lose our institutional knowledge. It empowers the executive branch and the staff, and the staff is important, but it really empowers the special interests, who don't have term limits. And term limits make a strong governor even stronger, and a strong mayor even stronger.
If you look at the history of our legislative races before we had term limits, we had at least a 30% turnover every four years, anyway, so we don't have to require it. It makes people leave their third terms early. Look at how many people quit the Legislature to run for something else.
Too few of them really focus on being good legislators as a career ...
except (former state Rep., former state Sen. and now state Rep.
again) Francis Thompson, bless his heart. Gov. Edwrin Edwards and Clancy DuBos Grace: Last question.
You’ll still appear on TV, you're still going to write for the paper occasionally, but you’re going to be stepping back from your long-running weekly column. How would you like your career — let’s just say to date — to be remembered? DuBos: You know, people have been so sweet to me and so kind on my way out. Many of them have said, “But you made such an impact.
” And I say, “Are you serious? Look at New Orleans right now. You think I made an impact? If that's my impact, I'm an abject failure.” But I understand where they're coming from, and what I think they're really saying is that I've made an impact on them.
I hope that people will say that I was approachable and that I was fair and that I was honest with my readers. One of the things I've worked hardest at is trying to get it right, but when I'm wrong, and when someone lets me know I'm wrong and they show me where I'm wrong, I've always admitted it. I've always apologized, I've always corrected it and I've tried to make it up to them, because we human beings are very fallible creatures and we all make mistakes.
But we need to forgive one another because there's not enough forgiveness. In terms of my relationships, I live by a mantra of “I don't let friendships determine my politics, and I don't let politics determine my friendships.” I have very close friends like (former state Sen.
and current BESE member) Conrad Appel, who's a strong, staunch conservative, and we are the best of friends. We go fishing and hunting together, we go out with our wives, and we tease each other, we laugh about our political differences. I think more people ought to be able to do that.
And so I hope they remember me as somebody who loved what he did and did his best. I love the city, and I love the state, and I'm planning on being around for a while. But I’m never going to run for anything.
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