In northwest Louisiana's Fourth Congressional District, liberals are about as popular as the cottonmouths that abound in the swamps about Shreveport. Last week, in a special election to fill the seat of Democratic Representative Overton Brooks, who died Sept. 16, the voters of the Fourth had just the sort of choice they liked: arch-Conservative Democrat Joe D. Waggonner Jr., 43, was pitted against arch-Conservative Republican Charlton H. Lyons, 67. When the votes were counted, Waggonner was the winner by 33,846 votes to 28,275, a remarkably narrow margin for a Democratic congressional candidate in Louisiana.
Waggonner, a former White Citizens' Council leader...
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