Louisiana Grand Jury Questions Duke’s $1,900/M Mailing List

David Duke, a perennial Republican political candidate and former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, has been called before a Louisiana grand jury investigating a $150,000 payment made to him in 1995 for rental of a 78,000-name donor list.

Duke, who invoked the Fifth Amendment before the grand jury last Thursday, rented the list to Republican Governor Mike Foster during the 1995 election cycle. On a cost per thousand basis, the lists would have been worth just over $1,900 per thousand.

The grand jury is investigating whether the high cost of the list represents a tacit agreement on Duke’s part not to enter the Louisiana gubernatorial campaign, a move that could potentially have split the Republican vote. Both Foster and Duke have denied the suggestion that the $150,000 represented a payoff, with Duke characterizing it as “ridiculous” in published accounts.

“It’s a very, very valuable list,” said Susan Morrow, of Impact Mail & Printing, the Metaire, LA broker that rented Duke’s list to Foster. Morrow confirmed that the list, which she said was in the 78,000-name range, has a flat use fee of $100,000. The additional $50,000 was for a renewal of an exclusivity agreement.

“This was a very current Louisiana-only list, very focused on conservative constituents,” said Terry Ryder, Foster’s deputy chief of staff. According to Ryder, there were no additional services or hardware bundled with the names that would represent additional value.

But the list was never used. Asked about this, Ryder said “[Foster] had been in the low single digits. Then his campaign caught fire and he decided not to use it.” Ryder did not know whether the list had been purchased for fundraising, get-out-the-vote, or other purposes.

Carol Hess, president of Political Resources, a Burlington, VT-based campaign direct marketing services firm, was taken aback when presented with the cost-per-thousand figure.

“Good lists of donors should go for between $75 to $100/M, maybe $125/M if it is extraordinary,” said Hess. Political Resources, she noted, rents a 60,000-name list of Republicans that have given more than $200 to campaigns for $100/M, as opposed to Duke’s pro-rated price of $1,900/M.

According to reports, Duke is not a target of the grand jury investigation. However, he invoked the Fifth Amendment as a result of not being granted immunity. As of deadline, Foster had not been summoned before the grand jury.