ustxtxb_obs_1967_12_08_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

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not concerning itself with ‘the number of 1967 voters that are being re-registered on forms sent out by the county tax assessor-collectors. Mrs. Lambert said that $7,500 had been needed to be raised for the committee but less than $1,000 has been obtained to date. She said Don Yarborough is planning a fund raising tour to support the committee’s work. The AFL-CIO executive board had voted at its meeting that afternoon to open a West Texas office particularly for the registration of Mexican-Americans; and an East Texas office to work in Negro precincts. Budgets of $1,000 monthly were approved for each office. The Committee for Better Voter Participation is largely supported by union money. Mrs. Lambert and co-worker Betsey Wright, the president of the Texas Young Democrats, reported that “the registration campaign in the Negro community is significantly ahead of past efforts.” In many counties, they said, “Negro registration committees are operating without financial or any other kind of help from outside the local Negro community.” Henry Munoz, the State AFL-CIO’s director of equal opportunity, says that there is considerable activity south of what he calls the “Mexican-Dixon Line”; that is, San Antonio southward. Munoz says there is a lot of quiet political organizing activity in Mexican-American precincts of South and West Texas. The confrontation during La Marcha at New Braunfels has triggered a political awareness among mexicanos that extends not only to the governor’s race next year, but to all statewide races, as well as legislative and Congressional campaigns. He said, for example, that in West Texas Mexican-Americans are talking of work ing against the reelection of Cong. 0. C. Fisher and State Sen. Dorsey Hardeman. G.O. The Race for Governor V A settling-out process has begun and the shape of the 1968 gubernatorial race has become a bit more clear. The main question now is whether Sen. Ralph Yarborough will run; you can find support for either opinion on this: National labor leaders are said to want the senator to stay in Washington; they are also described by other sources as wanting Yarborough to govern Texas, as the state still has a right to work law. Texas liberals are described variously as putting intense pressure on the senator to run and as keen on keeping Yarborough at work in Washington. “Sources close to the senator” are quoted both ways: he’ll run, he won’t run. The best guess remains that Yarborough still is undecided, ‘though it must be said at this point that he is leaning towards making the race. If he runs, Yarborough is expected to announce in early January. V Meanwhile, Establishmentarians are truly having their troubles trying to find and unite behind a candidate. Gov . John Connally evidently prefers Frank Ikard, a former Congressman who is now head of the American Petroleum Institute. There are reports that the governor asked Ikard to make the race; and Connally praised Ikard at some length during a press conference. But Ikard told Connally, the governor says, that he’s not interested in the race. V The booms for two other prospective inheritors of the Connally mantle are fading those of Dolph Briscoe, the Uvalde agribusiness leader; and of former Cong. Joe Kilgore. V Connally’s number one appointee, Secy. of State John Hill, will an nounce for the gubernatorial race in mid January, but Connally isn’t much excited by the prospect, it would appear. Connal ly and Hill have not been particularly close. Another Establishmentarian who likely will make the race is Waggoner Carr; Connally and many of his followers don’t get too worked up about Carr’s candidacy, either. Smith’s Campaign In the meantime, the only formally announced candidate, Lt. Gov. Preston Smith, continues to campaign around the state. There are signs he is picking up some of the pieces of the Connally political empire. He wrote 300 letters to leaders of the conservative wing of the party, including members of the state Democratic executive committee. Smith says he has received 200 favorable replies. But, the Houston Chronicle’s Bo Byers reports, there is a group of 40 key campaign leaders who have withheld their support, hoping, it is said, that a more likely winner will get into the race. Byers talked with 17 SDEC members, finding one who is behind Smith, the others waiting, mostly. Smith is said to have a charisma gap. Connallycrats are characterized as either uniting behind Smith or some other prospective candidate, waiting things out awhile, joining Connally in retiring from state politics, or turning their attention to electing House Speaker Ben Barnes as lieutenant governor. V Other Democratic candidates mentioned before are no longer considered in the gubernatorial race. V The Houston Post’s Bill Gardner re ports that a private poll made this fall by the SDEC shows, with. Connally out of the race, that Carr was the first choice of 24% of 1,047 Texans of voting age, followed in order, by Ralph Yarbor ough 22%, Smith 19%, Barnes 11%, Don Yarborough 7%, and Franklin Spears 3%. V An interesting feature of the pre-cam paign phase of the gubernatorial jousting are the rumors heard about Martin Dies, Jr., the son of the first chair man of the House un-American Activities Committee. The younger Dies is described as a moderate; he ran with some liberal support in an unsuccessful race against conservative Cong. John Dowdy, Athens, in 1964. One associate of Dies says that if Sen. Yarborough does not run, the former Congressman’s son may enter the race as a peace candidate. How, then, does one balance that speculation with similar talk that Dies has been approached by Democrats and Republicans to run for either governor or lieutenant governor? If Dies, Jr., is a dove he is a unique breed. V Though the chances of liberals cap turing the Democratic party machinery next year have generally dismissed quite perfunctorily, given the Connallycrats’ stranglehold on the apparatus at this point, there is speculation by the knowledgeable Jon Ford in the San Antonio paper that liberals might possibly pull it off. Ford notes that the Connally troops are in disarray and are disheartened; and the Establishment candidates for governor do not have the battle experience in convention warfare that Sen. Yarborough and many of his followers have. Republican Worries The Republicans, with Tower out and Houston Cong. George Bush standing aside, watching, are talking mostly these days about Albert Fay challenging for the governor’s job. But there is a conviction that Fay lacks wide voter appeal. Probably there is pressure on Bush to make the race. V US Sen. John Tower’s interest in a gubernatorial race m u s t be dis counted in view of the important role the Texas senator will play at next year’s Republican convention. Tower is ex pected to control at least 300 delegate votes at Miami Beach, an important bloc if the contest for the nomination remains December 8, 1967 3