The late President Ronald Reagan, just a movie star and TV host early in 1964, played a key role in helping Louisiana Republicans become a major political force for the first time since Reconstruction. Later that year, Reagan would make a speech on behalf of GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater that would propel Reagan into the national spotlight as a conservative spokesman.

Reagan was in Lake Charles on Jan. 21, 1964, as principal speaker at a fund-raising reception and dinner for Charlton H. Lyons, the Republican candidate for governor in the March 3 general election. Lyons faced John J. McKeithen, who defeated DeLesseps Morrison of New Orleans in the Jan. 11 second Democratic primary.

Lyons’ chances were considered slim to none in a state where Democrats were in firm control. The American Press said in an election advance story that all candidates selected in that primary were “virtually assured of election to office in the March general election in this traditionally Democratic state.”

I looked forward to covering Reagan at an afternoon news conference at KPLC-TV and at the Lake Charles Country Club dinner. He didn’t disappoint. The former Democrat continued his criticism of the national party, saying he quit the party “when I found out where the Democrats were getting all that stuff they were giving away.”

“Foreign aid was designed to help 19 war ravaged countries after World War II, and we are now giving foreign aid to 107 countries,” he said.

As he would stress after he became president in 1981, Reagan said the most serious threat to this country was communism. In 1987, he famously told Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this (Berlin) wall,” and, surprisingly, it fell on Nov. 9, 1989.

Over 400 people attended the Lake Charles dinner for Lyons, and Reagan launched an all-out attack on what he called the loss of individual freedom, creeping socialism, growth of the central government and a mushrooming federal bureaucracy.

Reagan urged members of the audience to bolt the Democratic Party, saying it had left them and was controlled by big city machines.

“Freedom has never been so fragile and you will strike a sensational blow for freedom if you win this election,” Reagan said.

Morrison had been the big leader in the first Democratic primary, polling 299,702 votes to 157,304 for McKeithen. It was a winning margin of 142,398 votes, and Morrison started talking about his gubernatorial plans.

It didn’t happen. Segregation was a big issue in the early 1960s, and McKeithen pulled off an upset victory in the second Democratic primary. McKeithen polled 492,905 votes to 451,161 for Morrison, a 41,744-vote winning margin.

“ I think the people have illustrated for the entire nation to see that the people of a sovereign state are not going to allow the NAACP to come in and elect a governor,” McKeithen told The Associated Press.

Lyons wasn’t the only Republican contender in the general election. There were 26 Democratic nominees for the Legislature who faced GOP opposition. The AP said up to then the lawmaking branch had been a closed club for Democrats and token opposition from other parties had been overwhelmed.

Unfortunately for them, Republicans lost another one when McKeithen won the general election, but Lyons had a respectable showing. With only seven precincts missing, McKeithen had 468,088 votes to 296,748 for Lyons.

News reports said McKeithen, the 45-year-old country lawyer, “bumped into the most powerful Republican uprising in this traditionally Democratic state in nearly 100 years.”

“It was one of the best financed and best organized campaigns I’ve ever seen,” McKeithen said.

Only two Republican candidates, both from Lyons’ home parish of Caddo, won seats in the Legislature.

Republicans in Louisiana had to wait 15 more years before electing Dave Treen in 1979 as the first GOP governor since Reconstruction. Republicans had their first state House majority in 2010 and had the Senate majority by 2011.

Reagan gets major credit for his contributions to the 1964 Louisiana campaign, thanks to the statewide effort he waged in support of Lyons. He said while in Lake Charles that he was hoping to make more movies, but voters had other ideas.

The speech Reagan made for Goldwater on Oct. 27, 1964, made him the leading conservative voice in America. However, it didn’t help Goldwater, who lost to President Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Louisiana was one of only six states Goldwater carried.

Reagan went on to serve two terms as governor of California and two terms as president. And Reaganism is as popular today as it has ever been.

Lyons, who said he wasn’t discouraged, summed up the late president’s contribution to the 1964 campaign.

“A new force — a two-party system — has emerged in Louisiana and it is here to stay,” he said.Ronald ReaganMGNonline