Former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards Paints Himself in Candy-Striped Colors, Announces Candidacy for Governor in 2015, Marries 14-Year-Old Girlfriend

Former Louisiana Governor Edwin Washington Edwards, perhaps the most colorful politician in a two-century line of colorful politicians in the Bayou State, added to his legacy with a triple performance that left even veteran reporters and politicos shaking their heads in admiration.

First, Edwards appeared at a widely anticipated press conference wearing only briefs, and painted from hair to toe in bright red, green, blue, yellow, and white stripes, ready to answer questions from the assembled group.

"People here like their politicians colorful," he said. "In that past, that has meant figuratively. But that won't cut it anymore. Nowadays they want a man to get the paint cans out; they have to see it in front of them....Maybe it is just the television and computer age."

Edwards announced he was running for a fifth term as governor in the 2015 election, at which time he will be close to ninety years of age. "I was the most investigated governor in history as early as the 1970s. When I ran in 1991 against David Duke, I naively claimed in our television debate that I was older and wiser. Most people thought I meant that I knew better than to steal, but what I really meant was that I was too smart to get caught.

"Obviously, I was wrong about that. But now I am even older and wiser, and I think I have learned my lesson; I believe I know how to avoid getting caught the next time. The Feds haven't seen anything yet. What I learned in the Big House should get me through the next two terms, no sweat."

Edwards also announced that he was marrying his 14-year-old girlfriend of two weeks, Belladonna Prejean from Cameron. "I was fine with my current girlfriend, but she is 26, and the polls we have taken indicate that the voters thought she was showing some mileage. So I traded her in on a newer model....Voters were hung up on my age, too--they wanted me to prove my spark plugs haven't all fizzled out."

At the end of the conference, Edwards had a mechanical device lift his now bulky frame onto a table, where he shouted, "24 cheers for the coonasses!" The phrase, he explained to younger reporters, had a double meaning. Not only did it recall his cheer after his election in the runoff in 1971 in his original successful race for governor, but the number represented the total years in six terms, which he will have served after he served out his next two terms.