Taddy Aycock

Aycock was born in Franklin to Clarence A. Aycock (1885–1948) and the former Inez Crask.

Losing candidates included sitting Governor Earl Long, who was actually waging his third campaign (the last two unsuccessful) for lieutenant governor, and Mayor William J. "Bill" White (December 25, 1910 – December 12, 1990) of Gretna in Jefferson Parish, a ticket-mate of State Auditor William J. "Bill" Dodd, then of Baton Rouge.

Clarence C. "Taddy" Aycock (January 13, 1915 – January 6, 1987), a conservative Democrat from Franklin in St. Mary Parish, was the only three-term lieutenant governor in 20th century Louisiana history.

(Vaughn L. Phelps (born 1920), also of Monroe, the nominee of the Louisiana States' Rights Party, received 11,299 votes, the remaining 2.4 percent.) Boardman, at seventy-two, did not wage an active campaign.

He was the first Republican in modern times even to seek the lieutenant governor's position.

At that time, under the Louisiana Constitution of 1921, the lieutenant governor presided over the state Senate.

He received his law degree in 1937 from Loyola University in New Orleans and launched his law practice in Franklin.

He won the Bronze Star while serving in Europe during World War II.

In 1945, Aycock married the former Elaine Champagne (1918–2011).

They had six children.

Aycock was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1952 and, though a freshman member, was tapped by incoming Governor Robert F. Kennon as his choice for Speaker.

In Louisiana, House Speakers routinely have the recommendation of the governor regardless of the separation of powers between executive and legislative branches.

He was reelected to the legislature in 1956 but was not recommended for retention as Speaker by Kennon's successor, Earl Kemp Long.

Long instead called Lorris M. Wimberly back as Speaker and then sent Wimberly to head the Department of Public Works in the summer of 1956.

Wimberly's abrupt departure led to the accession of Speaker Robert Joseph "Bob" Angelle of St. Martin Parish.

Aycock was associated with the anti-Long faction within the Louisiana Democratic Party.

Goldwater won Louisiana's ten electoral votes: he was only the second Republican to have done so in modern times, the other having been Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956.

Aycock first won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor in 1959 – 1960.

Aycock and then Mayor W. George Bowdon, Jr., of Alexandria led the primary field in December 1959 and went into a January 1960 runoff.

He served from 1960 to 1972.

In the general election held on April 19, 1960, Aycock defeated Republican Clark Clinton Boardman.

Aycock polled 392,421 votes (83.2 percent) to Boardman's 68,186 (14.4 percent).

Ernest J. Wright, a labor organizer from New Orleans, was the first African-American candidate for lieutenant governor in the 1963 primary, the first member of his race to seek the office since the era of Reconstruction.

Aycock was in the second round of balloting Jimmie Davis' choice for lieutenant governor; his intraparty rival, George Bowdon, was endorsed from the start by the losing runoff candidate, Mayor deLesseps Story Morrison of New Orleans.

In December 1963 – January 1964, Aycock ran as an "independent" Democrat, meaning that he did not align himself to any gubernatorial candidate.

He might have favored Robert Kennon, who was seeking a comeback as governor and who had made him Speaker, but he preferred to make his race alone.

Kennon therefore ran with former state Representative Francis Dugas, a lawyer from Thibodaux in Lafourche Parish.

Aycock was thrust into a runoff with Chep Morrison's next choice for the position, attorney Claude B. Duval of Houma in Terrebonne Parish.

Omitted in the primary runoff was Dugas and McKeithen's ticket-mate, former Mayor Ashton J. Mouton of Lafayette.

Duval, an "old-school" orator, was as conservative as Aycock, but he, like his gubernatorial ticket mate Morrison, fared poorly in central and northern Louisiana.

In the fall of 1964, Aycock endorsed Republican presidential nominee Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona, rather than his fellow Democrat, President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Governor John J. McKeithen, many of whose backers also voted for Aycock for the second position, remained neutral in the presidential race.

The states' two powerful Democratic senators, Allen J. Ellender of Houma and Russell B. Long of Baton Rouge, however, endorsed the Johnson-Humphrey elector slate.

In 1968, Duval entered the state Senate for the first of three terms with his former rival, Lieutenant Governor Aycock, as the presiding officer.

Duval and Aycock also had something else in common: they came from adjoining south Louisiana parishes, and both were in the anti-Long tradition of Louisiana politics.

Aycock failed in his only bid for governor in the 1971 Democratic primary.

Few lieutenant governors in Louisiana have been elected directly to the governorship; former Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Lafayette, is a prominent exception.

In the 1974 Constitution, senators chose a "Senate President" to preside over the body, with a ceremonial President Pro Tem in the second position.

These Senate presidents also have the recommendation of the governor.

Not until 1987, eleven months after Aycock's death, did a Republican, Paul Hardy of St. Martinville in St. Martin Parish, win the position, which had been otherwise reserved for Louisiana Democrats.