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Two Delegations to Atlantic City? Connally Balks at OK for LBJ Program Austin The significant thing so far in the Democrats’ party conventions this spring is the fact that Gov. John Connally’s forces are determined to avoid any endorsement of President Johnson’s program or the national Democratic platform and Democrats associated with Sen. Ralph Yarborough are just as determined that such endorsement shall be secured. In this situationwith three major bolts muddying the prospect for the state convention June 16 in Houstonthe President can be expected to intervene in search of some compromise solution. The import of the dispute, which took different forms at various county conventions last Saturday, was easily seen in the Travis County convention in Austin, because the abstract controversy was there embodied in Gov. Connally, seated at the side of the hall, and Sen. Yarborough, seated in the middle. Liberals were outmanned, so there was no distracting disputation. For Connally, Will Davis, attorney, was nominated to run the convention as a “Lyndon Johnson-John Connally Democrat.” Nominating John Henry Faulk for the liberals, Texas AFL-CIO secretarytreasurer Roy Evans said the issue was “whether you are really for the President and the programs he is fighting foror against him.” Faulk said he’d heard some delegates were for Johnson but against his program, which Faulk . said was like a young man telling a father, ” ‘I’ll live with your daughter, but I won’t marry her.’ It ain’t a’gonna work and he won’t like it,’ ” Faulk said. Faulk, knowing he couldn’t win, withdrew. The scene was set to shut off floor amendments to resolutions by adoption of rules requiring a majority committee report for any such convention action. \(In other words, amendments from the floor were attempt to have one delegate to the state convention designated from each precinct with at least five votes at the county convention: Connally’s men had refused to share seats in the state convention with liberals. In the resolutions committee, Frank Denius, an attorney in Ed Clark’s law firm in Austin, presented the Connally resolution, which pledged delegates to work for the enthusiastic nomination of Johnson and for Connally’s election and his state program. The resolution did not mention Johnson’s program. It pledged support to all party nominees. Liberals tried to add several amendments to specify support of Johnson’s program 8 The Texas Observer and the committee killed them all, 5-0. Andrew Shuval, state president of the Young Democrats, told the committee this was tantamount to “repudiation” of Johnson’s program, but this was denied by committee members. A resolution endorsing Sen. Yarborough’s re-election was defeated 4-1 on grounds that named candidates should not be singled out. The committee “slander and character assassination” in Democratic primaries. Liberal Democrats had acknowledged conservatives bolted rather than accept endorsement of the “national” principles of the Democratic Party. Liberals claimed conservatives bolted rather than accept rulings of the liberal credentials committee, whose composition had been upheld earlier by the county executive committee. In Republicans Falter The Republicans’ turnout, while improved about 30,000 over their 1962 total of 116,000, was substantially lower than every going prediction. Why? Peter O’Donnell, the Texas GOP chairman, gave three reaagainst Sen. to vote for James Langdon for the Railroad terest in sheriffs’ races among Democrats. In the June 6 runoff between George Bush and Jack Cox for the Senate nomination, O’Donnell foresees an even smaller turnout. The ordinary Texas conservative did not find it plausible that a Republican nominee will be able to defeat Sen. Yarborough in November with a Texas Democrat on the ballot for President and the state already represented by one Republican senator, John Tower. In a negative sense, the primary fell short of its expected significance because, despite write-in drives for Lodge and Nixon, the presidential straw vote was perfunctory. Everyone knew Goldwater would win it going way, and this very fact corroded its importance nationally. Lodge made a 12,000-vote write-in showing, but Goldwater’s 101,000 votes gave him unchallenged claim to Texas’ 56 national convention votes at San Francisco. The Observerwill discuss the Bush-Cox matter next issue. 0 Dallas County, where both sides contended they controlled, liberals bolted before a test vote was called on grounds that convention hanky-panky was delaying a confrontation on credentials disputes so that the liberals would lose a convention division that they would min if the disputes were settled promptly. In addition, liberals controlled Randall and Hutchinson county conventions, but the conservatives bolted them. The Observer is well advised that leaders of the Democratic Coalition are considering. “a bolt to Atlantic City” from the state fuses to endorse Johnson’s program and Bexar are in some manner excluded from the state convention. Connally said last March 9 that he wants the delegates to the state convention to be people “who will be as strong for Connally in September as they are for Johnson in June.” Sen. Yarborough released a statement of his standards for the state convention May. 7. He called for an open, honest, and fair convention “with all legally elected delegates participating.” All delegates should affirmatively pledge to support all party nominees and “the national and state platforms,” and the first plank of the state platform should be the national platform to be adopted in August, and all senatorial caucus nominees to convention committees and to the State Democratic Executive Committee should be honored, he said. Responding, Connally repeated that he wanted delegates as strong for him as for Johnson and added he is sure the delegates will “conduct themselves and their affairs in the best interests of Texas.” The Travis County convention’s adoption of a resolution that the national Democratic platform should serve “the best interests of Texas” accidentally afforded Sen. Yarborough an occasion to comment on this principle. “I think what’s good for America is good for Texas,” he said. “The idea that what’s good for Texas and what’s good for the national are inimical is juvenile. We’re one nation, one people, we’re one great indissoluble nation of indestructible states.” The Austin delegation includes President and Mrs. Johnson, the Connallys, and the Yarboroughs. Two years ago Yarborough was left off the delegation by the prevailing conservatives and had to be put on in a bargain of some kind while ex-Gov. Allan Shivers was made a delegate as a matter of course. This year Shivers is not a delegate from Austin. crats caucused extensively in advance of their convention and agreed on endorsement of Johnson’s program, a number of