William M. Rainach - The Gubernatorial Primary of 1959

The Gubernatorial Primary of 1959

See Louisiana gubernatorial election, 1959-60

Three Louisiana State University political scientists described Rainach, accordingly, as he sought the governorship:

Although Rainach's legislative record shows him to have been consistently opposed to the Long program, there is little to indicate that his conservatism was calculated to make a major place for him in the political circles traditionally opposed to the Longs. His effective appeal is... as a past national president of the White Citizens' Council. served as the chairman of the joint legislative "watchdog" committee on segregation from its inception until he ran for governor. From these positions, he was able to command something of an organization and to project himself as the premier guardian of "the southern way of life" on every occasion possible. Whether the single issue of preserving segregation could... carry a man to the governor's office... was a subject for considerable discussion during the primary campaign.

Rainach carried the support of the now defunct Shreveport Journal, which referred to both his legislative leadership and record in making then endorsement. Rainach's campaign manager was his legislative colleague John Sidney Garrett, a state representative from Haynesville, who later served a term as Speaker of the Louisiana House. Rainach's unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor was Cy D. F. Courtney, a brother of another conservative activist, Kent Courtney. The Rainach choices for the new positions of comptroller and state insurance commissioner were future U.S. Representative Joe D. Waggonner and Hardy N. Goff, respectively.

In one of his closing newspaper advertisements, Rainach described the gubernatorial race, accordingly:

This is a fight to curb Louisiana's disastrous financial policies ... This is a fight to preserve states' rights ... to protect the individual rights of the laboring man ... to return home rule to our towns and parishes ... but even more than that, this is a crusade for our children. We cannot ... We must not leave them a heritage of integration to struggle against! ... Only one canddiate has the determination, the will, and the ability to turn back northern Radicals and the NAACP....

An even stronger segregationist than Rainach was also in the race: A. Roswell Thompson, a taxi operator in New Orleans and a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

In the Democratic primary held on December 5, 1959, Rainach finished a relatively weak third with 143,095 votes (17 percent). A runoff election was held on January 9, 1960, between former Governor Jimmie Davis (213,551 or 25.3 percent) and the more liberal candidate, Mayor deLesseps Story Morrison of New Orleans, (278,956 or 33.1 percent). Two other candidates, the outgoing Auditor (thereafter called "Comptroller") Bill Dodd of Baton Rouge and former Governor James A. Noe of Monroe, split another 22 percent of the vote.

Rainach, outgoing Governor Long, and Joe D. Waggonner all endorsed Davis,who in the runoff defeated "Chep" Morrison, 487,681 (54.1 percent) to 414,110 (45.9 percent). Bill Dodd endorsed Morrison for his own reasons. Years after that election, Rainach declared that he should have endorsed neither candidate: "If I knew what I know now, I would have sat it out," he told the Shreveport Times. It was the closest he came to criticism of Governor Davis. In the general election held on April 19, 1960, Davis overwhelmed Republican nominee Francis Grevemberg, 82 to 17 percent.