Jimmy Wilson - 1978 Congressional Primary

1978 Congressional Primary

Wilson emerged as the leading Republican candidate in the new Louisiana nonpartisan blanket primary format to choose a successor to retiring Democratic Congressman Joe Waggonner, of Plain Dealing. Wilson did not switch parties until after Waggonner declared that he would not seek reelection. The Republican leadership, under state chairman George Despot of Shreveport, considered endorsing either state Representatives Art Sour of Shreveport, or Bruce Lynn, or a younger prospect, Bossier City council member Chester J. "Buzz" Wojecki. The party finally decided in caucus to anoint Wilson as the candidate most electable in the historically Democratic district.

Several leading Democrats entered the field, including banker/businessman Buddy Roemer, state Representative Claude "Buddy" Leach of Leesville, state Representative and former FBI agent Loy F. Weaver of Homer, the seat of Claiborne Parish, and Rogers M. Prestridge, the municipal judge of Bossier City.

Primary campaigning centered on the "Big Four" in the race: Republican Wilson and Democrats Roemer, Leach, and Weaver, with Prestridge in a distant fifth position. Each candidate relied heavily on television to present his message, and each promised to continue the kind of constituent services provided for the previous seventeen years by Waggonner.

Waggonner said that he would remain neutral, but shortly before the primary he criticized Roemer's suggestion that the Red River navigation program might have to be scaled down or delayed as a means to fight excessive government spending and inflation. Political observers regarded Waggonner's criticism of Roemer as a factor in Roemer's failure to obtain a general election berth. For years, the Louisiana delegation, particularly Waggonner and Democratic U.S. Senators J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., and Russell B. Long, had worked to make the river navigable from Shreveport through Alexandria and south to Simmesport, on the Avoyelles and Pointe Coupee parish border.

Wilson had the enthusiastic support of the national and state Republican organizations. Four recognized Republican names appeared on his behalf, including former President Gerald Ford, former California Governor Ronald W. Reagan, former Texas Governor and former Treasury Secretary John B. Connally, Jr., and former Texas Congressman and Ambassador George Herbert Walker Bush. He also won the backing of state House Democratic colleague, R. Harmon Drew, Sr., of Minden.

Leach, who carried the support of influential State Representative Walter O. Bigby of Bossier City but a Vernon Parish native, led in the primary with 35,010 votes (26.9 percent). Wilson trailed by .1 percent, with 34,841 ballots (26.8 percent). Roemer finished third with 33,302 votes (25.6 percent). Roemer hence lost a general election berth by some 1,500 votes. Weaver, who had the backing of the Shreveport Times and former Caddo Parish Sheriff James M. Goslin, finished fourth with 17,396 votes (13.4 percent). The other candidates, including Judge Prestridge, trailed far behind.