ustxtxb_obs_1968_01_12_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

term issue, the disaffection of MexicanAmericans and some Negroes, and burgeoning voter registration all now appear to be persuasive in assuring that Connally will not be in the race this spring. Connally never seemed to encourage the notion that he was reconsidering. V Several reporters have written that President Johnson did not ask Governor. Connally to run this year and there to impose on his friend by asking him to make such a race when Connally has president can better use Connally in tending to matters throughout the nation during this election year \(as, for instance, the governor’s going to Georgia ably can’t be lost to the national party in November regardless of who the Democrat is in the gubernatorial race this fall, and if the state is lost it won’t matter anyway, as Johnson will be losing haps it would be better to let liberals have at least a chance at electing a governor, since that would energize the party’s most active precinct workers, which the liberals are. V One Texas liberal activist says doubt that Johnson can carry Texas unless the liberals have a strong incentive for a pull-one-lever [straight party ticket] operation; that is, good local and state candidates . .. Who would do the work in the Democratic precincts if not the liberals? I never knew a conservative or a moderate Democrat who was willing to go out in that cold, wet November day we’re going to have in 1968, go door-to-door and generate interest,” she says, There is more sentiment among conservatives these days, particularly since the Tower-Carr race in 1966, that the liberals are needed in the Democratic party. “You can’t antagonize Texas liberals and expect to win,” a conservative East Texas state representative said recently. “They are becoming a force to be dealt with. We can’t afford any more liberal ‘fishing trips’.” V There was some attention to the ac tions and words of President Johnson during his recent stay at the LBJ Ranch, but if he made his preferences for the gubernatorial race known to anyone the word has not yet circulated. Senator Yarborough has emphasized on several occasions that he has not conferred with LBJ about the race, and would not. V Because of Connally’s decision not to run, according to the January issue of Dun’s Review, Johnson men are now beginning to think that Johnson may lose Texas as conservatives go over to the fast-rising Texas Republican Party. V Connally has talked with eight or nine potential entrants in the gubernatorial race but has found no one willing to run or capable of winning, the Associated Press quotes one source close to the governor as saying. V Houston Mayor Louie Welch, who for a time during December appeared to be the heir of the Connally mantle, has said he won’t run for governor. Connally and Welch conferred in mid-December. Then a week later Welch began exchanging sharply-worded newspaper quotes with Senator Yarborough. A Welch strength, it was said, was his tough handling of the riot on the Texas Southern University campus last May. It was noted, moreover, that, last November, Welch polled more than two-thirds of the Houston Negro vote in overwhelmingly winning reelection. The Old Scotchman 1# The chances of Dallas broadcaster Gordon McLendon will not be very good in the gubernatorial primary if Senator Yarborough does not make the race. With the senator in, however, McLendon would have something of a head start on the other conservative candidates, as he could take up where he left off in the bitter 1964 senatorial primary which the two men fought, a campaign that revolved around the $50,000 story. The story is the Dallas News’ account of Yarborough’s alleged acceptance of a $50,000 contribution from the now imprisoned Pecos promoter Billy Sol Estes during the 1960 presidential campaign. Yarborough still gets angry when reminded of the story. McLendon expects Yarborough, should the senator enter the race, to be the favorite and to “set the mood and pace of the campaign,” so the $50,000 story would be a major issue in Texas politics once again. McLendon acknowledges this, adding that he would raise the question of why the results of 1964 investigations into the story by the Texas Dept. of Public Safety and the US Justice Dept. were not made public. McLendon evidently is of the opinion that the senator will make the race and that it will be reminiscent of the 1964 primary; “the mere idea of getting in that race with Brother Ralph again just intrigues him,” an aide said of the Dallas candidate. McLendon doubts that the senator could win without a runoff and has hopes of being the conservative who survives the first primary. He says he believes a businessman should govern Texas but predicts that if he is elected he would be able to be elected only to two terms, so sweeping would be the changes he would make in Texas government. Secretary of State John Hill will for mally enter the race later this month. He has been visiting with officials of local labor councils around the state on the basis that if Senator Yarborough doesn’t make the race, then labor people should support Hill. Despite the fact that Hill is Connally’s top appointee the secretary does not command much support among the governor’s backers in the upcoming race. Though Hill will be an attractive candidate, is an able speaker, and a competent administrator, the secretary upset some of the Connallycrats in 1966 when he was barely dissuaded from entering the campaign for attorney general against Crawford Martin, Connally’s choice. The governor made Hill his secretary of state as a means of keeping him out of the race. Hill is not fully acceptable to the Connally people, it is often said, because of his career as a plaintiffs’ attorney, a role that pitted him in court against some of the Establishment’s influential members. V Waggoner Carr, who was primed to leap into the race the week after Connally, said he wouldn’t run, but then hesitated, is now getting excited about getting in, once more, it is strongly indicated. One theory runs that Carr hopes that McLendon will cut into Lt. Gov. Preston Smith’s support and, since Carr is better known statewide than either McLendon or Smith, that Carr will run ahead in the race. Carr takes heart, too, from the SDEC poll that showed him ahead in a primary without Connally. There has been some talk that Carr might have a go at the lieutenant governor’s race, but this is now very doubtful. V Lt. Gov. Smith, meanwhile, continues to campaign very actively and there are signs he is doing better than most had expected. The Ambassadors 1,,r Three Johnson ambassadors have been mentioned for the governor’s race. Deputy ambassador to Vietnam Eugene Locke of Dallas is the most likely of the three men to enter. Ambassador to Australia Ed Clark, Austin, is another possibility, saying the race is “something I am seriously interested in.” Ambassador to Sweden W. W. Heath, Austin, is virtually certain not to make the race after some earlier speculation that he might. V Clark, saying he is “a great believer in local authorities having power over their own affairs,” has said he would favor local option parimutuel betting on horse races. V Locke, whose law firm represented Allied Finance Corp. while he was chairman of the State Democratic Executive Committee in 1963, has telephoned around the state from the Dallas offices of Lomas and Nettleton Financial Corp. Locke ran Connally’s first gubernatorial race in 1962. Several Dallas legislators, after meeting last month with Locke, emerged convinced that he’ll enter the race. V Clark, should he enter, could be billed as a compromise candidate to woo liberals and conservatives. He has maintained good relations with both President Johnson and Senator Yarborough. But most liberals, with the exceptions lying largely within the ranks of organized labor, are spoiling for a show down with the conservatives. Even if Clark or some other claimant to the middle ground should enter, he would be forsaken by liberals in favor of either of the two Yarboroughs. V Lately it appears that Cong. George Bush will not make the gubernatorial race for the Republicans. Sen. John Tow Jan. 12, 1968 3