Unlike his father , who was a staunch supporter of U.S. President Richard M. Nixon in all three presidential campaigns and helped to deliver critical delegates to Nixon at the 1968 Republican National Convention , Hall Lyons grew disillusioned with the liberal influence within the national Republican Party . Lyons hence left his father 's Republican Party to join the American Independent Party , an organization founded by Bill Shearer in California in 1967 and known for its nomination of George C. Wallace , the governor of Alabama at the time , as its presidential candidate in 1968 against Nixon and the Democratic nominee , Vice President Hubert Humphrey . Hall Lyons supported Wallace in 1968 and planned to run for governor himself in the Louisiana general election held on February 1 , 1972 . He faced the prospect of running on the American Party label without his father 's support , as the elder Lyons was the finance chairman for Republican nominee David C. Treen , then of Jefferson Parish , where Hall Lyons subsequently spent his later years . Lyons cited " corruption in high places in Louisiana ... a cancer that must be cut out in an emergency operation . " However , a few weeks before the election , Lyons abandoned his candidacy and endorsed Treen , in his words , " so the cause of conservative unity might best be served . " Treen went on to lose the general election that year to Democrat Edwin Edwards , then the U.S. Representative from Louisiana 's 7th congressional district , since disbanded . Treen nevertheless later became the first Louisiana Republican since 1891 to hold a seat in the United States House of Representatives . Treen represented the same but revised Third District in which Lyons had run six years earlier against Edwin Willis . In 1979 , Treen was elected as his state 's first Republican governor since 1877 . In 1972 , Lyons ran as the American Party Senate candidate though the state GOP offered its own nominee , Ben Toledano , a lawyer and conservative author from New Orleans who had run unsuccessfully for mayor early in 1970 against the Democrat Moon Landrieu . The Senate seat had been occupied since 1936 by the Democrat Allen J. Ellender of Houma , who died during the primary campaign . Victory in the November 7 general election went to the regular Democratic candidate , J. Bennett Johnston , Jr. , a former member of the Louisiana Senate , a gubernatorial runoff candidate against Edwards in 1971 , and an attorney from Lyons 's native Shreveport . Former Governor John McKeithen , who had defeated Charlton Lyons for governor in 1964 , ran as an Independent in the general election because filing in the Democratic primary was not reopened after Ellender 's death . With 250,161 votes ( 23.1 percent ) , McKeithen finished second to Johnston , who prevailed with 598,987 ( 55.2 percent ) . Lyons drew 28,910 votes statewide ( 2.6 percent ) ; Toledano , 206,846 ( 19.1 percent ) . Neither Lyons nor Toledano polled a plurality in a single parish , but Toledano 's best showing was his 30 percent in Jefferson Parish , a frequent base parish of the Republican Party in Louisiana . In his 49-state sweep that year , President Nixon secured Louisiana 's then ten electoral votes , having won all parishes except West Feliciana . Nixon was only the third Republican to have won in Louisiana since Reconstruction
1968 Republican National Convention
1968 Republican National Convention
Hall Lyons