Ed Renwick

Renwick was born in Chicago. He received a bachelor's degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and then took post-graduate studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson. In 1967, he moved to Louisiana to complete research for his Ph.D. dissertation about Earl Long. After completing his graduate studies, Renwich remained in New Orleans as a professor at Loyola University and its Institute of Politics. He also became a popular political analyst for WWL-TV, the CBS affiliate in New Orleans. A Democrat, Renwick said that he could not leave Louisiana because the state is "heaven for a political junkie".[2]

According to Renwick:

"We're so divided in Louisiana – by ethnicity, by race, by religion, by language, by geography. You have the French and the non-French, the Catholics and the Protestants, North and South, black and white, liberal and conservative. Having all these different forces makes the politics lively. It's never boring here... Because Louisiana is so divided, it's difficult to put together 51 percent of a legislative body, and if you're going to get anything accomplished, you have to do that.[2]

In the 1992 U.S. presidential election, Renwick attributed the defeat of U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush to the Independent candidate, also from Texas, H. Ross Perot. Renwick said that the winning candidate Bill Clinton ran little better among white voters than had the 1988 Democratic nominee, Michael Dukakis. "Perot gutted the Republican vote," Renwick told the organization, the Council for a Better Louisiana. Renwick took the view that Bush would have been the alternate choice of the Independent dissenters that year and that the Perot candidacy enabled Clinton to win the election with 43 percent of the popular vote.[3]

In 1999, Renwick was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield.[4] The Renwick Lecture Series at Loyola University is named in his honor.[5]