Anger Over Primary Defeat
After 30 years in office, Passman faced an unexpected challenger, who seemed unlikely to pose a problem for the veteran congressman. Jerry Huckaby, a Jackson Parish native and a 1959 graduate of Minden High School in Minden in Webster Parish, which was outside the Fifth District, had no previous political experience but had been a dairy farmer in Bienville Parish. As an ally of Jimmy Carter, who was running strongly in Louisiana at the time, Huckaby upset Passman in the Democratic primary, largely because of charges of influence peddling that had engulfed the congressman in his last term in office but which had not yet led to indictment.
Passman was so incensed over his primary defeat that he "threatened" to endorse Republican congressional nominee Frank Spooner, a Monroe oilman who challenged Huckaby in the general election. However, the endorsement never materialized. Years later, Huckaby said that Passman never spoke to him after the 1976 primary. Huckaby went on to defeat Spooner and to hold the seat until 1993, having been defeated in 1992 by Republican James O. McCrery, III, of Shreveport, as a result of reapportionment.
Passman's friend Garland Shell said that the loss of the congressional seat was the turning point in his life. "When the old gentleman was defeated, that was it. He's been inactive since."
Read more about this topic: Otto Passman
Famous quotes containing the words anger, primary and/or defeat:
“Don’t make your enemies happy.
Make up with your lover,
who’s greedy to be back
in your good graces.
Daughter,
because you’ve taken anger to extremes,
you won’t amount
to a hill of beans.”
—Hla Stavhana (c. 50 A.D.)
“Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained the result; but even these, are not the primary cause of our great prosperity. There is something back of these, entwining itself more closely about the human heart. That something, is the principle of “Liberty to all”Mthe principle that clears the path for all—gives hope to all—and, by consequence, enterprize [sic], and industry to all.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“I never liked bananas much anyway. Two-thirds of the way down even one banana I am willing to concede defeat smilingly and give the rest to the nearest monkey.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)