No matter how good a Duke victory would look for the Democrats, one thing is clear: the prospect of Governor David Duke would be a terrible thing for Louisiana. A Duke-run statehouse in New Orleans would threaten rights of minorities and encourage racism.

ANOTHER REASON why the nation has been ignoring the Duke race is that Louisiana does not inspire as much interest as New York or California.

In many ways, Louisiana is on the fringes of American society. They have some of the toughest anti-abortion statutes in the nation. Louisiana culture is also far from typical American culture.

Ads and movies portray the state's citizens as Bayou-dwellers hunting for crawfish and speaking a kind of bastardized French. This is the land of "The Big Easy"--not of apple pie, baseball or Chevrolet.

But it's not as if Louisiana is starting a secession movement. And now that David Duke may become the state's governor, the concerns of Louisiana are especially relevant to the concerns of people across the country.

To the extent that David Duke's candidacy threatens to erode decades of American progress in civil rights, we should all be concerned about Saturday's election in Louisiana. And we should try to do something to stop him from getting elected.

On Saturday, decades of advances in civil rights could be erased by David Duke.

Why aren't Americans doing something to stop him from getting elected?