re: Who's the smartest politician from Louisiana you've ever met?

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EWE was extremely street smart but if you took away all the money he stole, over decades, he would have just been another lawyer. Senator Kennedy is both High IQ smart & street smart.

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A partner of an uncle set up a deal with Edwards for his first campaign for governor which I only knew that they borrowed the planes a few times.

when a friend who owned a drilling tool company in oil's heyday in LA asked the head of Texaco's NOLA office that he wanted to hire the salesman away from my uncles company who had the NOLA territory because of all the biz he got. Texaco said he was a shitty salesmean but what he was allowed to do was come in once a month to see what Texaco was about to drill in Louisiana and in state waters and pick 10% to supply drilling fluids for if on state leases. That deal was verbally handed down by the state to all major oil companies because Gulf Coast PreMix had loaned its two twin engine planes one for governor and his staff, the other for the press corps to follow him around the state campaigning.

And that is how that company grew rapidly in teh 1970s and why it was sold right before the end of Edwards' 2nd term. All partners but my uncle ended up bankrupt and broke. He was hampered in business deals because he had made at supposed tax shelter investment in Texas that the IRS disallowed. The "Tax Shelter" went bust in 1983. Uncle fought the IRS and won just before he died so didn't owe any money.. He wasn't broke but wasn't wealthy like he should have been

Julia letlow