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'''Ernest S. Clements''' (April 17, 1898 – May 17, 1987)<ref name=findagrave>{{cite web|url= https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7675210/ernest-clements|title=Ernest Clements|publisher=Findagrave.com|accessdate=January 6, 2020}}</ref> was a most unusual member of the [[pro-Long]] political faction in [[Louisiana]] in a career which spanned thirty-eight years from the 1930s to the 1970s. The pious, introverted Clements did not fit the public image of the no-holds-barred, extroverted Long man. [[Bill Dodd|William J. "Bill" Dodd]], a former lieutenant governor, state auditor, and state education superintendent who was a long-time observer of Louisiana politics, described his friend Clements as "zealous and a fine orator in the old-school style . . . [but] so humorless, straitlaced, and self-righteous that none of us, from Earl ([[Earl Long|Earl Kemp Long]]) on down to the sound-truck drivers, could keep from playing tricks on him."<ref name=bdodd>[[Bill Dodd|William J. "Bill" Dodd]], ''Peapatch Politics: The Earl Long Era in Louisiana Politics,'' ([[Baton Rouge]], [[Louisiana]]: Claitor's Publishing, 1991.)</ref>
'''Ernest S. Clements''' (April 17, 1898 – May 17, 1987)<ref name=findagrave>{{cite web|url= https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7675210/ernest-clements|title=Ernest Clements|publisher=Findagrave.com|accessdate=January 6, 2020}}</ref> was a most unusual member of the [[pro-Long]] political faction in [[Louisiana]] in a career which spanned thirty-eight years from the 1930s to the 1970s. The pious, introverted Clements did not fit the public image of the no-holds-barred, extroverted Long man. [[Bill Dodd|William J. "Bill" Dodd]], a former lieutenant governor, state auditor, and state education superintendent who was a long-time observer of Louisiana politics, described his friend Clements as "zealous and a fine orator in the old-school style . . . [but] so humorless, straitlaced, and self-righteous that none of us, from Earl ([[Earl Long|Earl Kemp Long]]) on down to the sound-truck drivers, could keep from playing tricks on him."<ref name=bdodd>[[Bill Dodd|William J. "Bill" Dodd]], ''Peapatch Politics: The Earl Long Era in Louisiana Politics,'' ([[Baton Rouge]], [[Louisiana]]: Claitor's Publishing, 1991.)</ref>
==A most loyal Longite==
==A most loyal [[Longite]]==
Clements served as a state senator from 1936 to 1944, when he gave up the seat, then won by Gilbert Franklin Hennigan (1883-1960), to launch a quixotic campaign for governor. Most of his fellow Longites were openly supporting an elderly attorney and former [[U.S. Representative]] Lewis Lovering Morgan (1876-1950) of Covington in St. Tammany Parish in [[suburb]]an [[New Orleans]]. Clements polled only 20,404 votes in the [[Democratic Party|Democratic]] [[primary]], then closed to registered party members. The winner that year of his first of two nonconsecutive terms was [[Jimmie Davis]], a popular singer and occasional actor, by which roles he had become a state celebrity.
Clements served as a state senator from 1936 to 1944, when he gave up the seat, then won by Gilbert Franklin Hennigan (1883-1960), to launch a quixotic campaign for governor. Most of his fellow Longites were openly supporting an elderly attorney and former [[U.S. Representative]] Lewis Lovering Morgan (1876-1950) of Covington in St. Tammany Parish in [[suburb]]an [[New Orleans]]. Clements polled only 20,404 votes in the [[Democratic Party|Democratic]] [[primary]], then closed to registered party members. The winner that year of his first of two nonconsecutive terms was [[Jimmie Davis]], a popular singer and occasional actor, by which roles he had become a state celebrity.