JOHN F KENNEDY IN LOUISIANA

Kennedy with Judge Edmund Reggie and Edwin Edwards

In 2013, the Times-Picayune published a fascinating article on John F Kennedy's political connections in Louisiana, which began years before his campaign for president. I don't think I've ever seen a picture of Kennedy wearing a hat, but here he is pictured in a rice hat at The Rice Festival in Crowley, Louisiana. Judge Edmund Reggie is in the center, and a young Edwin Edwards is on the right.

Of his visit to Louisiana:

With the program ready to begin at the podium in the center of Crowley, Kennedy asked his wife to say a few words in French to the gathered crowd of Cajuns. She at first resisted, but Edmund Reggie, who had accompanied the couple throughout the weekend, introduced her anyway at Kennedy's request, according to [Leo] Honeycutt.

"So she gets up there and, in French, she recounts a story about how when she was a little girl, her father had told her that Louisiana was way down south, but it ... was a little part of France, and she had been in love with it ever since," says Honeycutt. "Well, what do you think? I mean, the house comes down."

Kennedy followed his wife with his own speech -- in English -- about various political issues, including the rising tensions between the U.S. and Cuba, but he hardly needed to speak. Following Jackie's story, the crowd was already sold.

When I shared the article on Facebook, a long discussion followed in the comments about JFK and hats, when he wore them, and when he didn't - a very long thread with links and videos. The thread then drifted into whether Kennedy killed the men's hat manufacturing industry. What fun!  You don't know what you're missing by not having a Facebook account, but I admit that at times it is a huge PITA.

VOTER GUIDE!

Looks sort of official with the state seal and all, but if you read the fine print, you see the guide is from Louisiana Family Forum. Thanks, but no thanks. I will not follow your guidance.

Louisiana Family Forum is an organization committed to defending faith, freedom and the traditional family in the great state of Louisiana!
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Our Mission…

To persuasively present biblical principles in the centers of influence on issues affecting the family through research, communication and networking.

Yes, I know. LFF commands, and Bobby Jindal obeys. I had a laugh when the group noted that neither Sen. Mary Landrieu nor Edwin Edwards responded to their questionnaire. Former Gov. Edwards is the lone Democrat among 12 candidates in my 6th District, so he will get my vote.

Here's my friend Lamar White on Louisiana Family Forum.

The Louisiana Family Forum is the most powerful and successful lobbying organization in a state brimming with lobbyists and special interests , and Gene Mills, its President, is arguably Louisiana’s single most powerful registered lobbyist.
....

Even though he has never been elected to public office, Mills talks like someone who believes he controls the legislature, someone who thinks he possesses the same type of veto authority as the Governor, and it’s not puffery: He does.

EDWIN EDWARDS ON LARRY KING NOW

Crusty old James Gill, whose columns I've read seemingly forever, and whom The Advocate managed to steal away from the New Orleans Times Picayune when Advance Publications decided to reduce the paper edition to only three days a week, writes about Edwin Edwards' appearance on Larry King Now.

Edwards told King that he has finally “found something good to use Republicans for — sleep with them.” He would have expressed that sentiment less politely in the days before a Republican became his third wife and mother of his infant son, Eli.

One Republican got no sympathy whatsoever in Edwards’ interview with King: “I don’t understand the man,” Edwards said of Gov. Bobby Jindal. “He’s sitting on a program which would provide immediate health benefits for 300,000 to 400,000 people in Louisiana, and he refuses to sign onto it. He’s a different sort of person.”

Former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards, the crook, is indeed a better man than the fine, upstanding Catholic Christian Bobby Jindal, who denies health insurance to hundreds of thousands of Louisiana citizens to further his own political ambitions.  Edwards would never have refused to implement a program such as Medicaid Expansion which would provide health benefits to many low income people in the state.  With Edwards, I don't understand a man such as Bobby Jindal.

Has Bobby Jindal ever read one word of Roman Catholic social justice teachings?  Does Jindal pay any attention at all to Pope Francis' many statements about preferential treatment for the poor?  How could he and remain so focused on his own selfish political ambitions even as the people of Louisiana go wanting for decent health care?  Shame on you, Bobby Jindal.

EDWIN EDWARDS BOUNCES BACK

From NOLA.com:

Moments after marrying for the third time, former Gov. Edwin Edwards did on Friday what comes so naturally: He stepped before the cameras.

With his 32-year-old bride, the former Trina Grimes Scott, close by his side in the Hotel Monteleone lobby, Edwards, who'll turn 84 on Aug. 7, tossed off quips, joshed with reporters and glad-handed hotel guests who seemed happily surprised to find themselves in the middle of the tangle of reporters, cameras and microphones.

The couple had just been united in marriage, in a 14th-floor suite, by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Catherine "Kitty" Kimball.

Of his bride's dress:

Her strapless, knee-length white dress was "Italian silk, with a Cajun twist," Edwards said.

The romance began while Edwards was in prison, with letters first and eventually with visits by Scott to Edwards in prison and finally a proposal of marriage.

I kissed Edwards once, you know, and it was all my fault. The filters in my brain completely malfunctioned. I've already told the tale here at Wounded Bird twice, but I'll quote myself to give you the story again.

Although Edwards was a crook and a notorious womanizer, there was something about him that I found endearing. (God help me!) Perhaps, it was because he was seldom hypocritical - a welcome relief in a politician.

He'd campaign in black churches and tell the congregation, "I don't drink, I don't smoke. Two out of three is not bad."

In fact, on one occasion when he arrived at a gathering at the university where my husband worked, there seemed to be no officials there to greet him. I was standing there with a group who may have resembled a receiving line, and he came right up to me.

That was one occasion when words came out of my mouth seemingly without passing through my brain, because I said to him, "Does a kiss from the governor come with the greeting?" Of course, he promptly kissed me on the cheek. Grandpère was standing next to me wide-eyed and astonished.

After Edwards moved on he said to me, "What did you think you were doing?" So. There you are. I'm in the company of an enormous number of women who have kissed Edwin Edwards.
October 8, 2007 12:19 PM

Edwards was twice tried and acquitted, but the law eventually caught up with him for his shenanigans on the third try when Edwards was 73 years. A good many of us thought the 10 year sentence was a bit harsh, but Edwards paid his debt to society and lived to tell the tale and make a new life for himself.

The ex-governor had charm, charisma, choose your word, but he was a rogue and a rascal who hustled the citizens of the State of Louisiana. Still, he never left Louisiana as damaged as the present governor, Bobby Jindal, will leave the state after 4 and probably 8 years of slash and burn governance. I'd swap Edwards for Jindal in a heartbeat.