Louisiana Politics: After brief flirtation, treasurer turns efforts toward re-election

Treasurer John Schroder turned the heads of donors, journalists and others recently when he said he would be open to running for governor next year. But the Republican spoke more definitively on the issue recently and he will be seeking re-election in 2019.
Politically, it’s in keeping with other moves made lately by Schroder’s administration. For instance, roughly a month after her surprising third-place finish in the special election for secretary of state, Renée Fontenot-Free has joined the treasurer’s staff as executive counsel.
Free comes from Attorney General Jeff Landry’s office, where she was previously director of the Public Protection Division. She has spent the vast majority of her career in state government, working under five different attorneys general and three secretaries of state.
Free’s new gig in the Treasury likely means that she won’t be returning to the political arena as a candidate in 2019 — even after capturing 16 percent of the vote in a crowded nine-candidate field.
Like other statewide elected officials, Schroder will be up for re-election as treasurer next year, having won a special election in 2017 to succeed U.S. Sen. John Kennedy. Schroder currently has about $18,000 in his campaign kitty, but that’s likely to increase quickly as election season approaches.

More on the insurance front
Former Insurance Commissioner Robert Wooley’s name won’t appear on a ballot again any time soon, but he will be a factor during the 2019 election season.
Wooley, the Democratic commissioner from 2000 to 2006, has accepted a position as the general consultant to the still-developing campaign of Tim Temple of DeRidder, the president of Temptan. Temple, whose father was a founder of Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Corporation, has quietly been building a challenge to Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon for months.
Donelon, with $204,000 in the bank and national industry connections, is expected to seek re-election. He has run statewide five times since 1998 and has never been in a runoff during that timeframe, although former Sen. James David Cain came awfully close to forcing one back in 2006.
On the statewide ballot, Donelon’s record is 4-1, having only lost in 1998 to former U.S. Sen. John Breaux.
Here’s a rundown of the incumbent’s last five statewide races:
— 1998 U.S. Senate Race: John Breaux, 64 percent; Jim Donelon, 32 percent; Others, 3 percent
— 2006 Special Election to Succeed Wooley: Jim Donelon, 50 percent; James David Cain, 39 percent; S.B.A. Zaitoon, 11 percent
— 2007 Statewide Elections: Jim Donelon, 51 percent; Jim Crowley, 36 percent; Robert Landsen, 9 percent; Jerilyn Schneider-Kneale, 5 percent
— 2011 Statewide Elections: Jim Donelon, 67 percent; Donald C. Hodge, 33 percent
— 2015 Statewide Elections: Jim Donelon, 54 percent; Charlotte C. McDaniel-McGehee, 19 percent; Matt Parker, 14 percent; Donald Hodge, 13 percent

Political History: When
Coozan Dud met the Pope
In the wild world of Looziana politics, there has never been, and probably never will be, a character quite like Dudley Joseph LeBlanc, Sr., who late Gov. Earl K. Long claimed could never be bought — only rented.
Vermilion Parish’s favorite son, or rather cousin, was known back home as “Coozan Dud.” But across the country in the 1940s and 1950s, he was pop-culture famous for his supposedly magical medical elixir, Hadacol, which was promised to cure any and all ailments. Hadacol’s alcohol content, however, was the real selling point.
LeBlanc also had a political life. He served in both chambers of the Louisiana Legislature, was a member of the Public Service Commission and ran for governor three times.
If you wanted to run for statewide office in Louisiana in the middle of the 20th century, you had to go through LeBlanc to buy into the Acadiana region.
It was during the 1960s that LeBlanc, then a state senator, decided to run again for his old seat on the PSC. While fundraising was not a problem, Coozan Dud desperately needed fresh endorsements and new support behind his campaign.
Hat in hand, he went to the Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rouge to ask then-Gov. John McKeithen for an endorsement. “Big John,” however, found his hands politically tied in the race. Both LeBlanc and his opponent, incumbent Ernest Clements, had been major supporters of McKeithen. The governor didn’t want to take a chance on making an enemy out of either one.
LeBlanc, after being told that an endorsement was impossible, instead asked McKeithen for a favor. Could the governor arrange for him to have an audience with Pope Paul VI in Rome?
McKeithen tasked his top aide, Gus Weill, with the job of getting Coozan Dud a meeting with the pope. In his book, The Weill Side of Louisiana Politics, Weill recalls McKeithen telling him, “I can’t do it, I’m a Methodist.”
Flipping though the governor’s rolodex, Weill put in a call to Cardinal John Cody in Chicago. The cardinal, who had perviously been archbishop of New Orleans, was familiar with LeBlanc and his huge personality. Eager to help out Louisiana’s governor, Cody put in a request at the Vatican.
“The next thing we knew there was a press association photo of the Holy Father meeting with Senator Dudley J. LeBlanc,” Weill wrote.
Whether or not Coozan Dud left behind any Hadacol in St. Peter’s Basilica remains a mystery.
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