While state leaders, politicians, family, and friends remember former governor Edwin Edwards, a question surfaces: where would Edwards be if he had applied his political and personal talents for good and not his personal gain?
“He’d become president of the United States,” Nola.com | The Advocate journalist and author Tyler Bridges told WWL’s Tommy Tucker.
“He and Bill Clinton were governors at the same time,” explained Bridges. “Clinton, and extraordinarily smart, Rhodes scholar, became president, but Edwards was at least as politically smart, if not smarter, than Bill Clinton.”
Tyler notes the many contributions Edwards gave to Louisiana, including riverboat gambling.
“Video poker and the riverboat casinos were actually passed the year before he became governor, under Buddy Roemer, but the land casino was passed under him, and the regulation, and setting up occurred under his watch,” said Bridges “But since he left office both Democrats and Republicans have expanded gambling in the state.”
Bridges describes Edwards as using his best personality traits to sway legislatures to his will.
“So often he used his humor, and his incredible charm to get things,” said Bridges. “He told me once that he was not a guy who lived in the past by being bitter he really had kind of a remarkable ability to keep moving forward.”