Frank Spooner

In the fall of 1976, Spooner waged a strong but losing race for the United States House of Representatives for Louisiana's 5th congressional district in a bid to succeed incumbent Otto Passman, who had been unseated in the Democratic primary by farmer/businessman Jerry Huckaby, then from Ringgold in Bienville Parish.

Therefore, instead of facing Passman, as he had expected, Spooner competed with Huckaby for a relatively rare open seat in the state's congressional delegation.

The senior Spooner came to Texas with the petroleum industry and settled in Arkansas, first El Dorado, then Smackover, and finally Stephens in Ouachita County, where he married the former Willie Green (1905–2000).

[4] Ransdell thereafter served in the United States Senate until he was unseated in the 1930 primary election by Governor Huey Pierce Long, Jr.[5] In preparation for his race and when he expected to face Passman, Spooner attended a Republican candidate training school in Washington, D.C.

The Republican National Committee sent John Bruce Hildebrand, former editor of the party's First Monday newsletter who had written speeches for vice-presidential candidate Bob Dole, to work on Spooner's behalf.

Jennie Carroll Casey, a reporter at the time for the Monroe News-Star, worked as an unpaid public relations specialist.

[6] Top-name Republicans, including former Governors Ronald W. Reagan of California and John B. Connally, Jr., of Texas, later rivals for the party's presidential nomination in 1980, came into the sprawling district, with a large agricultural component, to urge voters to elect Spooner.

Connally lashed out at the increased power of the Democratic Caucus of the U.S. House, which he maintained had undermined the influence of the more moderate party members, such as then U.S.

Huckaby, who like Spooner was a political newcomer, nevertheless developed effective television advertising critical of out-of-state politicians trying to influence voters in an otherwise unnoticed Louisiana district.

[8][9] Spooner hoped to poll convincing majorities in urban areas of the district to offset expected losses in rural regions, where voting Republican was still comparatively rare at the time except for the presidential level on occasion.

Passman was particularly known as a critic of foreign aid programs and a supporter of farm subsidies and the recently concluded Vietnam War.

In 1979, Spooner was uncommitted between Treen and U.S. Representative Henson Moore of Baton Rouge, who then held Louisiana's 6th congressional district, as the Republican choice for governor.

Such divisions hurt the state party in 1986, when Henson Moore opposed Democrat John Breaux in the U.S. Senate race to succeed Russell Long, who retired after thirty-eight years in office.