One candidate, Phil Preis, has tried attacking Foster for dealing with former Klansman David Duke, who has made several statewide election bids. David Duke is an avowed racist and represents the worst of this state. But Foster laughs it off as a mistake.
People are just sort of grasping at straws.
Foster has benefited from good economic times and the fact he hasn't faced allegations of criminal activities, unlike some of the state's previous governors. Foster's only real challenge comes from Democratic Rep. William Jefferson, a five-term congressman who grew up poor on a cotton farm and went on to earn a law degree from Harvard. His television advertisements promote his plans to put air- conditioning in every school, raise teacher pay up to the Southern average and guarantee that every child will read by the third grade. Louisiana is last on the things that we ought to be first on, and first on the things we ought to be last on. Yet when Jefferson takes his campaign to the voters, some political observers see something missing.