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\(though, GR cautions, circulation figures have always trailed the growth rate of “Even if the right ‘wing in general does prove to have peaked in 1966,” GR goes on, “the magnitude achieved remains as impressive as the growth rate. If, as was hypothesized in [an earlier report], the operations included in this study represent only half of the total pictureand emphasizing again that right wing is broadly defined in this studythen the composite income level in 1966 would be in the $40-50 million range. Obviously a movement of that size can suffer substantial attrition and still retain a great deal of impact. “Finally,” the GR report concludes, “with another presidential election year in the offing, it is certainly too early to speculate on whether the data indicate a ‘peak’ to be followed by a downward trend, or a ‘leveling off’ that may be followed by another upward surge.” G.O. On Texas’ Governor’s Race Archer Fullingim in the Kountze News, before the filing deadline had passed: …. A few days before Ralph [Yarborough] announced his decision John Connally … was his usual obnoxious self. He threatened to run if anybody started saying before filing time that his administration stinks like a dead rat, which it does. A lot of people thought and said that Connally was warning Ralph not to criticize him. OK, Johnny boy, you have been the worst governor Texas has had since A. Shivers; in fact, you’ve been worse than A. Shivers. Compared with your record on education, labor, minimum wage, pollution, insurance, shell dredging, boot-licking, taxesShivers’ $25 million shortage has a halo around it. You’ve done nothing but shoot off your big fat mouth since you took office. No governor has talked more and done less than you. You’ve blabbed day and night what you are going to do and then you did nothingexcept favors for your campaign contributors. Now Connally wants to continue his inept administration in Eugene Locke! Furthermore, Juan \(and I apologize to Mexican-Americans for using the Spanish I double-dog dare you to run for governor. Oh, you would like to run, all right, but you are afraid you’d get beat. Ralph could have cleaned your plow, except he did not think it worth cleaning. So if you do get in, Johnny boy, Don Yarborough will take you to the woodshed. With the secretary of state gene Locke of Dallas \(never heard of him . . . all in the race, Don should win .. . All Don will have to do is run on Connally’s record …. I generate maximum enthusiasm for Don as a candidate. I remember his previous races. I have never given up the idea for a minute that he will be governor of Texas, that he will lead our great state out of the Connally mediocrity, that he will lead Texas education out of the Connally fog, that he will make Texas a state for Texans, not for Connally’s campaign contributors …. Just now thought of the secretary of state’s name: Hill. From the Economist, a liberal journal published in England: The panic pervading the Democratic establishment in Texas ever since Gov. John Connally sprang his surprise late last year, that he would not seek a fourth twoyear term, has not abated. The Democratic primary election on May 4, at which members of the party will choose their candidate for governor, looms as an exercise in utter chaos, quite out of the sure control to which the establishment is accustomed. A wealthy lawyer from Dallas who has been most generous in his contributions to the election funds of President Johnson and Governor Connally, Mr. [Eugene] Locke is a close friend of the governor and a pillar of the establishment. But he was scarcely its first choice to succeed Mr. Connally or even its second, third, or fourth choice. He still is regarded as a poor candidate unknown to the public and unskilled in the use of television. That he is the establishment’s best hope is a sign of its current political poverty. [B]ecause of the pleas of his family Senator Ralph Yarborough backed out [of the race]. Nevertheless, the establishment’s prospects remain bleak. Mr. Don Yarborough, no relation to the senator and not nearly as powerful, is perhaps the state’s most effective television performer and as such may well become the first liberal governor of Texas since 1939. He is opposed by an undistinguished band of conservatives in the Democratic primary, in addition to Mr. Locke. The possibility that Mr. Don Yarborough will win over all these is enough to terrify the state’s economic interests, who have blocked all liberal legislation in the state legislature and have protected the big oil companies for a generation. But, even if a Republican were to defeat Mr. Yarborough in November, the establishment would no longer have a direct line to the governor’s office …. [T]he departure of Mr. Connally is putting Texas back on the road to a two-party system … Mr. Connally’s prolonged popularity was derived almost entirely from his being next to President Kennedy at Dallas and being wounded by an assassin’s bullet. … The office of lieutenant governor is inordinately strong in Texas, having been invested after the Civil War with a virtual power of veto over legislation as a way of emasculating carpetbagging governors imposed by a victorious North. [Ben] Barnes as lieutenant governor would attempt to exercise de facto control of the state if Mr. Don Yarborough became governor … Mr. Barnes realizes that the state’s younger voters are dividing themselves, either into liberal Democrats or into conservative Republicans. That fact is also fully recognized by President Johnson, who has enraged some of the political chieftains of the establishment by refusing either to beg Mr. Connally to reconsider or to help find him a worthy successor. Barring a national catastrophe Mr. Johnson will carry Texas next November and that is what really matters to him. That his old financial and political backers may no longer run the machinery of government at Austin causes no concern nowadays at the LBJ ranch. H. M. Baggarly in the Tulia Herald The issue in the forthcoming campaign will . . . be, which segment of Texans will be closest to the heart of the prospective governor? Which segment will be accorded and red carpet treatment, which will get only the crumbs that fall from the table? Personally, we are not seeking the candidate who is “identified” with the Sacred Cows of Texas. We have only to read Texas history to find out who has been what during past state administrations. Let’s face it. What’s good for oil, private utilities, gas, insurance, the pipeline companies, Texas big business, is not good for Tulia, Swisher county, and the hundreds of other small towns and counties in the state just like us. What’s good for Southwestern Public Service and Phillips Petroleum Co. is seldom good for us. Yet, since the end of the administration of Gov. James V. Allred, we, the people, have been ruled by these powerful interests. ‘Representatives of the people have always been in the minority in Austin. These powerful interests, traditionally, have not been friends of education, lower or higher. It matters not to them that Texas has not a single first class university, that our public schools usually rank far down the line when compared with those in the other 49 states. But taxes is usually the big issue. These powerful interests work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, making sure that they pay less than their share of taxes while the people pay more than their share. So what kind of a governor would Gov. Connally like to have succeed himself? He wants one just like himself, one whose first love is oil, ranching, gas, utilities, big business, and one with the proper Feb. 16, 1968