ustxtxb_obs_1968_11_01_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

even in Texans’ minds, to provincial considerations. With the Democrats out of power the conservative wing of the Texas Democratic party will have far less stroke in Washington than otherwise. The result will be that the state’s business establishment will turn to Texas Republicans for influence in Washington, working most likely through Sen. John Tower for what they want from the federal government in the next four years. That will strengthen the fledgling Texas Republican party and hasten the day many liberals have helped work fora two-party Texas. LL THE foregoing is a complicated argument for liberals to follow and for the Observer and other public voices of the left to propose. But as we said at the outset, this year’s election, more than any other in this century at least, is to be determined by factors other than which candidate most nearly represents the views of blocs of voters. Rewarding the Democratic party after its vile and vicious war policy; after nominating a candidate who has championed that policy and not foresworn it in this campaign; after permitting the crushing of the legitimate revolts of the young and the disaffected, is quite unthinkable. Humphrey will not be able to govern well this country. We have no reason to believe or expect, as we are being entreated to do, that he will become his own man upon election; at the very latest \(and, indeed, it would have been achieved “own-man” status on August 28, when he was nominated. No, let us have four, even eight years of Nixon, rather than lose the hope of recalling the Democratic party from reaction. A Vole /republican in Statewide RaceJ The Observer, earlier this fall, had begun to harbor doubts about the practice that is developing among liberals of voting for Republicans in all cases where they are running against conservative Democrats. In the 1966 senate race, John Tower vs. Waggoner Carr, it made sense, we thought, to vote against Carr. But in a governor’s race, as this year’s, Preston Smith vs. Paul Eggers, wouldn’t liberal precincts just be diluting their strength at precinct conventions in 1970 by voting for Eggers \(since precinct convention delegate strengths are alloted on the votes cast for the party’s gubernatorial nomWe voiced our doubts in conversations with representatives of the Rebuilding Committee, the liberal organization that is, once again this year, urging liberals to support Republican candidates against tory Democrats. We were referred to the following statement which has appeared in letters the committee has sent out this fall to many Texas liberals: “[Some liberals may] cry that to not vote for the Democratic nominee for governor will cut down on our convention strength in 1970. What convention strength? Ask yourself what good party loyalty has done at convention time in the past? How tender is the mercy of the Shivers-Connallycrat credentials committee? In 1956 they stole it from us; 1958, 1960, 1962all lost. In 1964 we voted the straight ticket in record numbers while watching Will Davis, chairman of the State Democratic Executive Committee, running around telling people how to split their ticket for [Republican] George Bush against Ralph Yarborough. Senator Yarborough still crushed them but our record straight-ticket turnout of 1964 did us no good at the 1966 state convention. Everyone knows the governor controls the party. We will never have a voice in the Texas Democratic party until we real Democrats nominate a governor and we will do that under the one-party system only when hundreds of thousands of Re The Texas Observer publican-minded voters vote in the Republican primary rather than the Democratic primary … If a Republican candidate for governor is elected in November he will attract the reactionary element out of our party and into the 1970 Republican primary. Voters who have in the past voted in our Democratic primaries for candidates like Shivers, Connally and Smith will then be attracted into the Republican primary. . . .” This reasoning appears persuasive to the Observer. For those concerned about the possible charge that might be levelled against Texas liberals at the 1972 national Democratic convention, that this wing of the party is not loyal to the party’s nominees. \(Humphrey and the statewide ticktoday rule the Texas Democratic party, and have for 30 years, have a long record of bolting the party when it has suited their purposes, usually in the fall of the year. This has posed no problem for them in credentials fights at national conventions. Where they have been far more susceptible in credentials fights is in excluding progressive elements from participation in party affairsnot naming members of minority groups to county, state and national convention delegations, for example. It is true that Texas liberals used to get self-righteous about party loyalty; but there need no longer be worry about this, for the conservatives, certainly, have been guilty far, far more often of disloyalty to the party than have the liberals. The fact that both wings of the Texas party have proven disloyal at times simply underscores the imperative need of realigning the state’s two political parties. Too long Texas Republicans and Democrats have suffered severe fits of schizophrenia, holding themselves out as “Democrats for Eisenhower” \(or Nixon, Johnson.” Since the LBJ presidency the situation in the Texas Democratic party and in Texas politics generally has become well and widely known; the national credentials committee in 1972 likely will understand the intricacies of liberal strategy in supporting Republicans at times. Past credentials committees certainly have been indulgent of Texas’ conservative Democrats going into the Republican column time after time. Anyway, as the Rebuilding Committee people cogently contend, the selection of a governor is the imperative for Texas liberals, not recognition by the national credentials committee. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was seated in 1968, displacing the conservatives’ delegation at Chicago. But Mississippians went home to a state whose Democratic party still is controlled by conservative Gov. John Bell Williams and the same old State Democratic Executive Committee. The Republican gubernatorial nominee, Paul Eggers, is running a bit to the left of the Democrat, Smith. He has the endorsement of the Ripon Society, which represents many of the views of the progressive wing of the national Republican party. Eggers is no liberal, of course, and there really is not that much difference, ideologically, between Smith and Eggers. However, with Eggers in control of the Capitol the three-decades-long stranglehold that the state’s tory Democrats have exercised will be shattered, perhaps for all time. The election of Eggers could herald the beginning of a new, progressive era of Texas politics; one in which the state’s conservatives are attracted into the Republican party, as well they should be, and the Texas liberals then control of the Democratic party. Thus both state parites would be much more in line with their national counterparts and, most important, Texas would have the open political dialogue and debate that a two-party state provides, with resulting better government. The Observer recommends voting for all Republicans running for statewide office.