He was an accomplished trumpet player[3] and was named as coronet soloist with the SLI Stage Band[citation needed].

[4] Caffery defeated fellow Democrat Edwin E. Willis, a 20-year incumbent, and a committee chairman, in the primary election held in August 1968.

Senator Russell Long (who considered Caffery a formidable challenger to his U.S. Senate seat) and U.S. Representative Edwin Edwards, (who feared a challenge by Caffery in Edwards' planned 1971 gubernatorial race) the Louisiana Legislature gerrymandered Caffery's district to remove his stronghold of Lafayette Parish (moving it to Edwards' 7th District) and replace it with portions of Jefferson Parish, in which they thought he would fare poorly.

In spite of this opposition from the Democratic political machine, Caffery polled extremely well in Jefferson Parish and even more so in the rest of the district and easily defeated the Machine candidate, State Senator Jules Mollere of Jefferson Parish in the 1970 Democratic Primary.

[1] His seat then went Republican with the victory of future Governor David C. Treen, who had lost three House elections in the 1960s in Louisiana's 2nd congressional district.