Campbell has tenacious,straight-spoken approach

Section: Votenews

Baton Rouge Morning Advocate:

BATON ROUGE - September 24, 2007 - Friend and foe alike say Foster Campbell has a blunt manner and a bulldog mentality.

"He don't back up," said R.D. Elston, an 86-year-old farmer who has known Campbell for nearly three decades.

"When he believes it, he believes it. He puts it on the table."

Nowhere is that more evident than in Campbell's quest of nearly 30 years for a $5.5 billion tax on oil and natural gas.

Similar plans never gained traction during the Democrat's 26 years in the state Senate. Gov. Kathleen Blanco and industry leaders predict it would wreck one of the state's key industries.

But Campbell has made his pet proposal - and the tax cuts he says would go with it - the centerpiece of his bid for governor in the Oct. 20 primary.

"Once he gets a hold of something, he doesn't let go," said Sen. Robert Adley, a Benton Democrat who attended second grade with Campbell at Bossier Elementary School. "Sometimes that works well and sometimes that doesn't. But that is his nature."

Campbell, a 60-year-old Democrat, is a member of the Public Service Commission, which oversees utility rates statewide.

He lives in a log-cabin looking home on a 675-acre farm in Elm Grove, a Bossier Parish town of about 1,000. Elm Grove appears with little warning on La. 71 between McDade and Taylortown.

But the candidate is as blunt-spoken as any big-city politician.

"He will tell you exactly what he thinks," said George Rogers, who grew up with Campbell.

Republican gubernatorial rival Bobby Jindal "wouldn't know a bale of hay from sugar cane," Campbell told listeners in Napoleonville during a recent campaign swing.

State Sen. Walter Boasso, another campaign rival and a recent convert to the Democratic Party after years as a Republican, "is a political opportunist," Campbell said.

"I'm a Democrat and I didn't just switch," Campbell snapped during a campaign trip to Raceland earlier this month.

Asked why lawmakers have never approved his oil plan, Campbell replied, "The politicians are too cozy with the oil industry. That's wrong."

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