Saturday, February 11, 2012
A Man of Many Gifts
Posted by Clancy DuBos on Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 5:27 PM
Louisiana’s political landscape is populated with lots of interesting characters, but not many are people of great character. Only a few are both. We lost one of those few recently when political consultant Ray Teddlie died on Feb. 4 after a long battle against Parkinson’s Disease. He was 59.
Teddlie got his start as a political consultant in the 1970s under the legendary Ray Strother, who also mentored James Carville. In fact, Teddlie and Carville both worked on one of Strother’s first New Orleans campaigns — the mayoral bid of Joe DiRosa in 1977. DiRosa lost the runoff to Dutch Morial in that transformational contest; Morial became New Orleans’ first African-American mayor.
Strother says Teddlie was a “brilliant copywriter” who also had a lovable and hilarious knack for bungling. He recalled the time they went to visit a friend at a local marina, and when Strother asked Teddlie to retrieve his wallet from the trunk of his car, Teddlie accidentally tossed the wallet and all its contents into the water. “He missed,” Strother laughed. “That was a typical day with Ray.”
Carville remembers Teddlie fondly from their early days in the business. “He was different than most political consultants because he was such an avid reader — and he was drop-dead funny,” Carville added. “Ray had a sense of humor that was unique. Few people in this business had knowledge that was as broad as his, and his humor was deep and sophisticated.”
Teddlie handled the media for Kathleen Blanco’s successful run for governor in 2003, when she beat Bobby Jindal in a heated runoff. Blanco and her husband, Raymond “Coach” Blanco became two of Teddlie’s closest friends.
“Ray was a brilliant man who understood human nature and knew how to tap into the goodness of people,” she said in a statement released upon news of Teddlie's passing. “He was sensitive, and he used the subtlety of emotion quite effectively in his work. And he was fun to work with, so much so that we enjoyed helping on his other campaigns. … Ray was hands down the smartest man I ever met in Louisiana, and I’ve met a lot of smart people in my time.”
Teddlie had a vast array of clients. They included former Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Pascal Calogero Jr., Justice Jeannette Theriot Knoll, state Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, former Mayor Sidney Barthelemy, former U.S. Rep. Bob Livingston, Jefferson Parish DA Paul Connick, Jr., Clerk of Civil District Court Dale Atkins, Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman, Public Service Commissioner Lambert Boissiere III, more than a dozen area judges.
Atkins, who was a Teddlie client as well as a fellow adviser to Blanco, remembers him as a man of many gifts. “Two of these gifts were his big heart and his gift of words,” she said. “It was his caring heart that made his clients more than clients. Ray developed relationships with his clients that transcended business and political relations. He portrayed his clients as humans and showed a softer side. It was this gift of words that enabled him to write on paper what he felt in his heart. As caring as Ray was, he also was someone that you wanted in the trenches. He was a tenacious fighter.”
Sadly, he lost his toughest fight of all against Parkinson’s. Throughout that long campaign, however, he remained active on behalf of his clients. And I never heard him complain about his illness or his fate. That kind of character is rare anywhere, even more so in politics.
Comments (1)
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jesus clancy. there is no doubt he was a charming , smart , and brilliant man. as well as a good friend.
at the same time the man threw his lot with some of the same folks who have continued to keep louisiana in stagnation.
when i called him a dbag on an earlier post that you deleted, it was a reference to the people he worked for.
some of the same folks you have said are part of our state and city's problems.
censoring comments instead of encouraging dialogue really makes me wonder who the hell you are.
may your friend rest in peace.
i am sorry for your loss of a good friend. i have also lost some good friends who i sometimes didn't agree with but they were still my friends because of what we did for each other.
the difference is i would never fake my disdain for some of their thoughts and actions in public , private , or to their face . or even after their death. i really hate the whole code of you can't talk bad about the dead.
when my dead friends were still in my life they would always call bullshit on me when i got on my high horse.
if you want to honor some one who was your friend speak of the good and the bad. make their life a lesson for others.
when i'm dead im coming back to haunt every mofo who says in public oh that rick was a good guy while talking bad about me in private .
take care pal.
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