ustxtxb_obs_1963_10_18_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

are not backing the national ticket,” Locke told the AP. “The ticket and the national leaders are not driving people out of the party. A lot of Texans have voted Republican for national candidates and Democratic for state and local candidates.” g o of It is clear that Locke is expecting many people who are going to vote against Kennedy to vote for Gov. Connally. Lorraine Barnes, Austin American reporter, noticed relevantly interesting details on reportorial visits to the state GOP and Democratic Party headquarters in Austin. The walls of the GOP command post are covered with photographs of Goldwater; but at Democratic Hq., she observed: . . on the walls are autographed photos of John and Nellie Connally, Lt. Gov. Preston Smith, and Atty. Gen. Waggoner Carr, affectionately inscribed to State Chairman Eugene Locke of Dallas, and a photo of Vice President Lyndon Johnson. John Kennedy’s picture is in the workroom, a large room for mailing and mimeographing.” toof Tom Griffin, head of the “Old Frontier Democrats,” told the AP that Kennedy is “deserting the ideals of Texans” and What Is An LBJ? ought to be dumped from the ticket. Apparently Griffin, whose real target is Vice President Johnson, also bears at least a verbally strong grudge against Kennedy. Griffin was nominated for a U.S. post by Sen. Yarborough but was turned down by the administration. Dr. Davis Running Texarkana, Tex. Thomas R. Marshall, a gentleman from Indiana, was a man with retiring ways, at least from 1913 on. Although most people have long forgotten the fact, or never knew it, it was Marshall’s lasting legacy to the American political dialogue that “What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar.” Marshall was vice president of the United States during Woodrow Wilson’s two terms and had plenty of time to polish his quips. There is a good chance that 1,000 out of 1,000 people would fail to remember the late Mr. Marshall. Vice presidents seem to be easily forgotten, except in Texas. In California they are sometimes _even rather violently and efficiently rejected. In Texas it is more difficult to overlook the subject of the song “All the Way With LBJ,” what with news reports of goodwill visits to Iceland, Scandinavia, Middle Eastern camel drivers’ oases, and other exotic spots such as Fort Worth and Austin; but away from his home state the vice president’s is a name conjure with. Certainly the entertainers haven’t forgotten him. Vaughn Meador, the popular impersonator of the president and star of the bestselling record, “The First Family,” participated in .this exchange on a recent TV program: Q: “Well, Mr. President, it has been reported that the vice presidency can be expected to become an unprecedentedly strong office. I suppose you’ve assigned a great many special powers and duties to Lyndon B. Johnson, haven’t you?” Meador: “Who?” In the Army-spoofing comic strip, “Beetle Bailey,” this dialogue occurred between Plato, the strip’s intellectual GI, and Beetle, the goofing-up private: Plato: “You don’t hear much about the vice president any more. He’s almost a forgotten man.” Beetle: “Who?” Plato: “Lyndon Johnson.” Beetle: “WHO?” Recently the CBS-TV program, “Candid Camera,” devoted one of its sections to interviews aimed at answering the ques 8 The Texas Observer tion, “Who is Lyndon B. Johnson?” “Candid Camera” star Allan Funt, is a disclaimer at the outset, said most of the interviewed persons knew who LBJ is, but -after the next few minutes this was hard to believe. As Funt said, “many were very vague.” Here is how the session went. Q: “Who is Lyndon B. Johnson?” The replies: One old lady \(contorting her face as . . . I just can’t think who he is.” A younger lady: “Well . . . he’s not president. Am I getting close?” A man \(expressionless as Gromyko, tryI’m from New Jersey.” \(He succeeds in A lady: “I think he has something to do with the president.” A man: “There’s a lot of Johnsons around here. Does he live on a farm?” A thirtyish lady: “What are they? What do they do?” \(“No, it’s a man,” the questo know him? Hm . . . Lyndon Johnson. Well, that’s a very distinguished name!” A busy man in a warehouse: “I don’t know him: Why don’t you look in the phone book? There used to be a phone book over there” \(pointing to corner of wareOne of the conversations went thusly: Q: “Who is Lyndon B. Johnson?” A: “Should I know him?” Q: “He’s a very famous person.” A: “Well, God bless him!” You might think that the comedians would lay off, now that the vice president has endorsed the public accommodations proposal; but no. The night of Oct. 8, in a play within a play on the Red Skelton show, Ginger Rogers was supposed to be a phony Southern belle, and Red had been hired to be her Southern pappy. Miss Rogers laid down a sugary Southern accent, but now and again would get excited and lapse into a tough New York rasp. “Honey,” Skelton told her, “you change from North to South faster than Lyndon Johnson.” Then with a puzzled glance toward his writers off camera he said, “Lyndon Johnson ?who’s that?” JAMES PRESLEY por George H. W. Bush, the dapper Hous ton oilman who has announced for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate, has two practical concerns these days. The prospect of Lloyd Bentsen’s candidacy on the Democratic side has caused some people Bush hoped would give him contributions to decide to wait to see what Bentsen will do. And now a Dallas doctor, Dr. Milton V. Davis, has announced for the Republican nomination, too. On the surface, it would seem to be a serious matter for one GOP candidate to come from Dallas, another from Houston, when these are the two strongholds of Republicanism in the state. Asked about this, the Dallas surgeon told the Observer that it’s entirely falsesimple, and just not so. Davis says he’s going to “run a race like nobody’s ever seen.” Will his campaign be well financed? “Wellwe don’t talk about that. It’s going to be enough,” he told the Observer. The theme will be a stop to deficit and “backdoor spending.” He says Sen. Yarborough disagrees with what Texans believe in, as when he voted for the test ban treaty or medicare. “I really believe the people are ready to retire him,” Dr. Davis says. Davis has not run for office before, but he was state chairman of Doctors of NixonLodge and of Doctors for Tower. Davis says he knows of no vote Tower has cast with which he disagrees. Wright Weaving V Jim Wright’s confidantes have spread the word in Texas that the Fort Worth congressman is again seriously considering taking the plunge against Sen. Yarborough. This induced Lloyd Bentsen, the Houston businessman who has left a trail of news paper reports behind him around the state that he is a certain candidate, but who has not announced his candidacy, to drop in on Wright in Washington. A little story thereupon appeared in the Dallas News quoting Wright as saying that Bentsen had told him he was seriously considering running against Yarborough and as commenting that “Apparently it’s going to be a rough, mean race” and that there seemed to be some resentment in Texas over Yarborough’s attitude toward Lyndon Johnson. And, the News further quoted Wright directly, ” ‘A lot of people want more effective representation for Texas in the Senate. But I’ve tried to stay out of this.’ ” The Observer asked Congressman Wright if this story, including the remark about effective representation, was accurate or “in what, if any, particulars it is inaccurate.” Ducking, Wright replied: