"Please — for goodness' sake — don't tell Edwin where you got this," Louisiana's then-Republican State Chairman Roger Villere admonished Newsmax in 2014.
Villere had just given Newsmax the private cellphone number of the Pelican State's most controversial politician, former four-term Democrat Gov. Edwin Edwards, who died Monday at age 93.
Having served a prison sentence from 2002-11 for racketeering and mail fraud and two more years in a half-way house, the former "Inmate #03128-095" was now poised to make a political comeback by seeking the seat of Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy, who was leaving the House to run for the Senate.
But Edwards had no objection whatsoever to talking to Newsmax. A subscriber to the old axiom that "you can report anything you want so long as you spell my name right," he talked freely about everything from what he wanted to do in Congress to how he and his third wife Trina had a one-year-old son, Eli, who was the same age as some of his great-great grandchildren.
A supporter of mass transit during his own days in the House (1964-71), Edwards called for a high speed rail system between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. He also voiced disappointment with President Obama for opposing the Keystone XL Pipeline.
While praising Obama for what he felt were good things in Obamacare, the Louisianan nonetheless said he would have voted against the Affordable Care Act because it did not reach his ideal of universal health care.
Newsmax recalled that Edwards had been a House classmate of Rep. Phil Burton, D-Calif., father of the liberal reforms that gave the progressive wing of their party the strong hand in the House.
"I knew Phil well," he told Newsmax. "And his is the kind of leadership we need today. And that's what I'd provide if I return to Congress."
But it was not to be. Edwards topped the initial seven-candidate "jungle primary" in November 2014 with 30% of the vote. But in the subsequent run-off, he lost to Republican Garret Graves by 62% to 38%.
At 85, it was Edwin Edwards' last hurrah in a political career that lasted more than half-a-century.
When he sought a third non-consecutive term as governor in 1983, Louisianans remembered good times under Edwards and did not seem to care about his love of gambling, the rumors of corruption that surrounded him, or his flagrant womanizing Edwards' enemies swore the governor had appointed first wife Elaine to a vacancy in the U.S. Senate in 1972 to get her out of Baton Rouge so he could make even more "pursuits."
Even religious voters did not seem to care about the stories of Edwards' adultery that resounded statewide. He presided over sound economic times and anything else he did could be excused. As one prominent Pelican State Republican said, "Edwards was one of a kind until Bill Clinton used him as a template."
Of his successor and 1983 opponent, Republican Gov. Dave Treen, Edwards famously said he was so deliberate "it takes him two-and-a-half hours to watch '60 Minutes.'" On the eve of the election, Edwards said he could only lose if "I was caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl." He won by a lopsided margin of 3-to-2.
By 1987, Louisiana's oil prices plummeted and its economy tanked. So did Edwards' popularity and when he sought reelection that year, he came in second behind conservative Democrat Rep. Buddy Roemer. Rather than meet sure defeat in the run-off, Edwards graciously conceded to Roemer.
Four years later, the situation changed dramatically. It was Roemer who got the blame for Louisiana's economic woes. Edwards was increasingly looked on nostalgically and, in results that stunned the state and the nation, he topped the "jungle primary" with 34% of the vote and ended up in a runoff with Republican and onetime Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, 32%.
Asked what he had in common with Duke, Edwards — never shy about trumpeting his reputation as a ladies' man — replied: "We've both been wizards beneath the sheets."
With Republicans from President George H.W. Bush on down repudiating Duke and urging votes for Edwards, the former governor won his fourth term with 61% of the vote.
As Louisiana prepares to mourn its longest-serving governor, and the governor with the seventh-longest tenure in U.S. history, the inevitable comparisons and contrasts will be made between Edwards and the state's other larger-than-life politician — Huey P. Long, populist governor and U.S. Senator who was eyeing a bid for the White House before being assassinated in 1935.
Perhaps his own self-characterization fit Edwards as well. Asked once to describe himself, Long replied: "Oh, hell, just say I'm sui generis [Latin for unique or different] and leave it at that."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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