John H. Cade, Jr.

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John Hamilton Cade, Jr. (July 9, 1928 -- January 8, 1988), was an Alexandria businessman and a pioneer in the development of the modern Republican Party in Louisiana. Though he never held elected office himself, Cade was the GOP national committeeman and thereafter the Louisiana party chairman from 1976-1978. He was the campaign manager on several occasions for his close friend, David C. Treen, the first Louisiana Republican since Reconstruction to win election to the United States House of Representatives (1972) and thereafter to the governorship (1979).

Cade was born in Monroe to John Hamilton Cade, Sr. (1894-1981), and the former Carrie Flournoy (1895-1982). He and his father were owners of the former Alexandria Feed and Seed Co., which the senior Cade established in 1933. Cade married the former Marie Howell (November 26, 1932 -- September 17, 2006), the daughter of Thomas Stone Howell and Nettie Gray Cummins Howell Hunter. The Cades had two children, Martha Morse Cade (born 1963) and John Overton Cade (born 1966), both of Alexandria.

1 Early Republican campaigns
2 Cade and Treen split over Reagan and Ford
3 Managing Treen's gubernatorial runs
4 Cade's legacy
5 References

[edit] Early Republican campaigns

Cade once said that he fell in love with politics in 1940, when he was only twelve years old. In 1964, he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention which met in San Francisco to nominate Barry M. Goldwater for president. It was at the Cow Palace conclave that he first met David Treen, a fellow Louisiana delegate.

In 1966, Cade was a Republican candidate for a then at-large seat on the Rapides Parish School Board. The entire GOP slate was defeated. On the ticket with Cade were future U.S. District Judge Nauman Steele Scott, and Dr. H. Lamar Boese (pronounced BOZE), a proctologist whose wife, Jean Boese, was subsequently Louisiana's Republican national committeewoman.

Two years later, Cade ran unsuccessfully for the Rapides Parish Police Jury (equivalent of county commission in other states). Cade said that he never expected to be elected to local office: "I realized that I could do my best work behind the scenes."

Cade managed Treen's House races in the Third Congressional District in 1972, 1974, 1976, and 1978. The campaigns were herculean tasks at the time; the 1972 Treen victory being the first Republican breakthrough in modern Louisiana history, and the 1974 race mired in the political fallout from Watergate. In the second House race, Treen defeated Charles Grisbaum, Jr., a future Republican convert who served in the state House of Representatives and as a judge.

[edit] Cade and Treen split over Reagan and Ford

Though often depicted as alter egos, Treen and Cade did not always agree. They were the same age -- Cade was eight days older -- and shared similar philosophy and values. In the race for the 1976 Republican presidential nomination, Cade hitched his star to former California Governor Ronald W. Reagan, considered the most conservative serious candidate to seek the presidency in a nearly a generation. Treen had backed Reagan at the 1968 convention in Miami Beach, when Reagan was a last-minute entry into the contest against Richard M. Nixon. Reagan repaid the favor and campaigned for Treen's third unsuccessful congressional race that fall against the entrenched New Orleans Democrat Thomas Hale Boggs, Sr.

In 1976, however, Congressman Treen favored the unelected incumbent president, Gerald R. Ford, Jr., of Michigan, who had led the Republican minority when Treen first came to the House. To minimize party bickering, Treen declared that he was uncommitted in the Ford-Reagan contest. He won election to the state convention in Baton Rouge before he announced for Ford, who was considered more moderate than Reagan. In Louisiana, Reagan forces prevailed in seven of the then eight congressional districts through the caucus procedure. The uncommitted slates were overwhelmingly defeated in part because the Reaganites convinced Republicans that these delegate candidates were really pro-Ford.

The Ford-Reagan rivalry in Louisiana Republican circles grew bitter. In the now defunct Eighth Congressional District, which was then represented by the late Democratic Representative Gillis William Long of Alexandria, the only elected Republican holding office, John L. Bradas, a member of the Rapides Parish Police Jury was denied a delegate slot to attend the state convention because he actively supported Ford. Bradas remained active in GOP politics, holding at-large membership on the Rapides Parish Republican Executive Committee through at least March 22, 2008.

Reagan is believed to have swept the Louisiana caucus based on momentum that he gained the previous week in the Texas and Indiana primaries. Before Treen made his support for Ford official, the Reagan people had him in the "leaning Ford" tabulation, and the Ford managers listed him as "leaning Reagan."

Cade and Treen worked for Ford's election in the fall, but Louisiana (as did nine other former Confederate states) supported the southern Democratic choice, former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, whose regionalism and personal appeal overshadowed his mostly liberal political views.

[edit] Managing Treen's gubernatorial runs

Treen held on to his House seat in the elections of 1976 and 1978. Then he entered the gubernatorial campaign of 1979 to choose a successor to term-limited Governor Edwin Washington Edwards. Cade was his campaign manager, and he devoted his activities nearly 24-7 to electing his friend as governor. Then state Representative Daniel W. "Dan" Richey of Ferriday in Concordia Parish, a Democrat who supported Treen and who years later became a Republican himself, recalled asking Cade why the GOP did not offer strong candidates for the other state constitutional offices. There were Republican candidates seeking the other statewide positions, but none had the name identification and background to be taken seriously. Cade told Richey, who also supported Treen, that the GOP would do nothing that might detract from the big picture of electing Treen. Cade speculated that a full GOP slate might have encouraged a greater turnout among Democratic loyalists. Therefore, the party concentrated on the governorship.

Cade viewed Treen's narrow victory in 1979 as "a significant turning point in Louisiana politics." He also commended the approximately 15,000 Treen volunteers: "We bucked a tremendous tide. I don't think that ever again that Republicans will meet the same tide of opposition because they are Republicans." Yet four years later, when Cade again wore the hat of campaign manager watched in dismay as Treen was unseated by a nearly 2-1 margin by Edwin Edwards. Furthermore, numerous Treen supporters among both parties, such as state Senators Dan Richey of Ferriday and Edward G. "Ned" Randolph, Jr., of Alexandria were unseated. Republican lieutenant governor candidate James Edward Fitzmorris, Jr., of New Orleans lost in an attempt to regain the position from incumbent Democrat Robert "Bobby" Freeman, who had quarreled with Treen throughout the governor's tenure.

Cade declined appointment to any state position under Treen but continued as an unpaid advisor to the new governor, as did another Treen confidant, William "Billy" Nungesser, who was Treen's chief of staff. Cade and Nungesser maintained offices on opposite sides of the governor, Cade on the west and Nungesser on the east. They kept their private businesses as well. Cade was also appointed to the Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors, having served until 1986. Nungesser went on to become the state Republican chairman in 1988 and served until 1992, when he broke with party loyalists and endorsed Patrick J. Buchanan for the presidential nomination, rather than Treen's choice of incumbent George Herbert Walker Bush.

[edit] Cade's legacy

Cade died of an apparent heart attack at 59. He was a member of the Christian Science Church. John and Marie Cade are interrred in Greenwood Memorial Park in Pineville, across the Red River from Alexandria.

David Treen called his friend Cade "the unsung hero of the Louisiana Republican Party. Those close to him know how much he's given. But because of his nature, he didn't ever blow his horn."

Then U.S. Representative Clyde C. Holloway of Forest Hill in south Rapides Parish recalled that Cade had "in my early days been very, very helpful to me. He was a Republican when you could hold a convention in a telephone booth." Holloway, who served in Congress from 1987-1993, said that Cade came a long way toward achieving his goal of a two-party system in Louisiana. "The ball is definitely rolling. If only he'd had a few more years . . . to be around to see it," Holloway said.

At the time of Cade's passing, there were nearly 750,000 registered Republicans in Louisiana.

Alexandria GOP leader Charles Trent declared that Cade was "personally responsible for the growth of the Republican Party in this state. . . . All of us [Republicans] have always leaned on John Cade as an advisor and a consultant in so many things."

Former state Representative John W. "Jock" Scott of Alexandria, son of the late Judge Nauman Scott, and himself a Democrat-turned-Republican, said that Cade had "good political judgment and was reliable. . . . [Cade] has been a source of real common sense. [The Republican Party] is prone to a lot of personality conflicts, and he brought some maturity to those small-party type disadvantages. He was able to see all the personalities involved and move the party forward."

Cade is commemorated by the John H. Cade, Jr., Scholarship Fund at Louisiana State University at Alexandria, P.O. Box 100, Lecompte, LA, 71346.

Preceded by James H. Boyce, Sr., of Baton Rouge	Louisiana Republican State Chairman John H. Cade, Jr., of Alexandria 1976–1978	Succeeded by George Joseph Despot of Shreveport