[citation needed] In recognition of his service during the war, Rarick was awarded the Bronze Star and earned a Purple Heart.

Rarick's campaign sought to cast Morrison as a rubber-stamp for President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had become unpopular with Southern conservative Democrats.

[3] In the runoff, Morrison tried to justify his support for universal suffrage while highlighting his opposition to other civil rights bills, while Rarick highlighted his military record and attacked Morrison's as a supporter of LBJ's War on Poverty social welfare programs, which were unpopular in southeastern Louisiana.

[1] During his time in Congress, Rarick gained a reputation for racially-tinged rhetoric, frequently inserting into the Congressional Record criticisms and personal attacks directed at Black and Jewish leaders of the day, including Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.[5] FBI records confirm that Rarick was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and that he worked with the Silver Dollar Group, a Klan splinter organization responsible for the deaths of at least eight black people along the Louisiana-Mississippi border between 1964 and 1967.

[8] In 1967, he made an unsuccessful run for governor of Louisiana, losing to incumbent Democrat John McKeithen by a wide margin.

Rarick's defeat created an opportunity for Republican candidate Henson Moore, who beat LaCaze by 44 votes in the November general election.

[1] Rarick supported David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, during his campaign in the 1991 Louisiana gubernatorial election.