PoliticsscalisePoliticsdavid duke

Stephanie Grace: Scalise's Pitch To Duke Supporters Seems Plausible

Stephanie Grace: Scalise's Pitch To Duke Supporters Seems Plausible
Kelly Chen
By 

Assignment Editor, HuffPost

Representative Steve Scalise, a Republican from Louisiana, right, speaks during a news conference while House Speaker John Boehner listens, following a House leadership election on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, June 19, 2014. Republicans elected McCarthy as U.S. House majority leader, promoting a member of Speaker John Boehner's leadership team seen as a friend to business and Wall Street, and chose Scalise to succeed McCarthy as majority whip. Photographer: Pete Marovich/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Representative Steve Scalise, a Republican from Louisiana, right, speaks during a news conference while House Speaker John Boehner listens, following a House leadership election on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, June 19, 2014. Republicans elected McCarthy as U.S. House majority leader, promoting a member of Speaker John Boehner's leadership team seen as a friend to business and Wall Street, and chose Scalise to succeed McCarthy as majority whip. Photographer: Pete Marovich/Bloomberg via Getty Images

This is what I remember about the first time I met Steve Scalise nearly 20 years ago: He told me he was like David Duke without the baggage.

I was a new reporter covering Jefferson Parish, and Scalise, now the majority whip in the U.S. House of Representatives, was just starting out in the Louisiana Legislature (I’m going from memory, but the exchange obviously stuck with me). It would be several years before I would fully decode just what he meant by the sentiment, which is similar to statements he would later make to at least one Washington news outlet, and what it said about Jefferson Parish and Louisiana politics.

Read more on The New Orleans Advocate

|
Submit a tip

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot