ustxtxb_obs_1972_08_04_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

they went Larry Goodwyn, a former Observer editor who teaches at Duke; Ralph Collins, the Farenthold effort’s Mr. Unflappable; the Brain Trust; quiet Emilie Farenthold. Goodwyn commandeered an ancient portable typewriter and set to work on the speeches. They were a stirring lot, salted with suggestions from Sam Houston Johnson, two Observer editors and Nick von Hoffman of The Washington Post. Steinem and Abzug, both delegates, worked the floor. Collins managed to shake three floor passes loose from the national committee for himself, Drue and Friedan. They set out to firm up the nominators. Galbraith lobbied the Massachusetts delegation, eventually getting 27 votes for Sissy. Gov. Dale Bumpers made the mistake of going backstage, and, while he was gone, some Arkansas women managed to swing 19 of the state’s 27 delegates to Farenthold. Von Hoffman seemed to be in six places at once, always saying the same thing: “Now, this woman carried 45 percent of the vote in Texas.” Imamu Baraka got involved somehow. The candidate strolled elegantly around the floor, granting interviews from time to time. The count for Farenthold in the New York delegation rose to more than 100 at one point. Gary Hart of McGovern’s staff intervened and talked it back down to 79 votes for Sissy. The McGovern people also had to pull California and Oregon back into line. The Texas delegation a capitol reporter dubbed it “the Daley delegation from Texas” gave Clay Smothers, a professionally patriotic Negro Wallace alternate from Dallas, twice as many votes for the vice presidency as it gave Farenthold. That pretty well sums up the Texas delegation. Steinem did the nominating: “Unless you dare to give her your vote and support, you will have wasted an opportunity to tell the country what is different about the 1972 convention.” Houston School Board member David T. Lopez, a McGovern delegate, actually read one of the prepared speeches. Ms. Hamer’s message was short and sweet: “If she’s good enough for Shirley Chisholm, she’s good enough for Fannie Lou Hamer.” Tearing along at about 78 rpm’s, Allard Lowenstein gave his regulation #2 state-of-the-Nixon-economy speech, adding that to defeat the incumbent, Democrats must “multiply” their ticket with Sissy Farenthold. For a half-day campaign, the results were pretty good. Farenthold, with 407 votes, came in second behind Eagleton. The women had shown they weren’t necessarily going to go along with McGovern at any cost, and .they got more votes than George Wallace. Sissy was pleased. She’d asserted her sense of independence once again. And besides, it’s not every day you can get a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of network time for the price of a hairdo. Before going out to celebrate, Sissy asked Pierre Salinger, the McGovern liaison man for the Texas delegation, if she could have her McGovern telephone back. Salinger just smiled. “Gloria kissed me. Gloria, Gloria . ..” Drue was heard to mutter before he Miami Beach Out .of the 15-hour state convention in San Antonio on June 13 came 130 delegates to the National Democratic Convention pledged as follows: uncommitted 30; Wallace 42; McGovern 34; Humphrey 21; others 3. On July 12 those same people voted for the Democratic nominee thusly: McGovern 54; Wallace 48; Jackson 23; Chisholm 4 and Muskie 1. And in the meantime, in between times, ain’t they had fun? Probably the Texas delegate who had the most fun was the famous or infamous lobbyist Jimmy Day. Day kept cheerfully announcing until the last possible moment that he had come as an uncommitted delegate and intended to stay that way. “Being uncommitted is great,” he said. “All these people want to wine me and dine me. After all the years I’ve spent wining and dining other people, this is just dandy. Am I ever uncommitted! I’m so uncommitted I’ll take food, booze and flattery from McGovern, Wallace or King George the Third.” Day eventually voted for Sen. Henry Jackson. The Texas delegate who had the least fun was Dolph Briscoe. On Monday the 10th, Briscoe was leaning toward Humphrey. On Tuesday he signed a petition for Henry Jackson. On Wednesday he came out for Wallace and early Tuesday morning he voted for McGovern. It was not an inspiring performance. THE TROUBLE with trying to analyze why Briscoe did what he did is that Briscoe and his merry men have done considerable instant historial re-write. The first part is easy enough Briscoe leaned toward Humphrey, Humphrey withdrew and so Briscoe leaned toward Jackson. The Wallace-McGovern switch can be most kindly described as a mistake, an unnecessary mistake of such stupidity as to stagger even those who were beginning to think they understood Briscoe. Briscoe announced his decision to support Wallace at 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon. staggered back to close down campaign headquarters. The candidate finally reached George the husband by phone about 7 a.m. He’d been working late and had turned on a radio about 10:30 p.m. “I heard something about Farenthold . vice president,” he said. “I thought it was one of your whims.” “It was more than that,” she assured him. And then she settled down for a long summer’s nap. K.N. “I believe that my support of Governor Wallace in the presidential balloting can be of important value in demonstrating to all factions of our party that those ideas and principles which he represents have widespread support throughout Texas,” Briscoe said. “Governor Wallace and his supporters are needed as full partners in the Texas Democratic Party today and in November and throughout the many future struggles where a balanced Democratic Party is needed for the good of our country.” The official Briscoe line on the decision is that Briscoe was afraid the Wallace people would walk out of the party, leaving him to face a September state convention comprised of liberal delegates. The official theory #2 is that Briscoe didn’t think the Wallace people would walk out, but he wanted an I.O.U. from them so he could either control them at the September convention and/or get their help in writing a conservative platform in September. In point of fact, angry Wallace supporters have been holding post-convention meetings on how to take over the September convention from Briscoe. Briscoe won the gubernatorial nomination as a moderate or moderate-conservative. George Wallace does not fit in with anyone’s idea of a moderate. Getting shot has upped his respectability quotient considerably and his speech to the convention was sane. But some of those who heard Wallace say, “I am for equal educational opportunity and always have been” remember a girl named Autherine Lucy. If Briscoe wanted simply to prove to the folks back home that McGovern was too far left for him, he could have voted for Jackson, Terry Sanford or Wilbur Mills, all of whom were still officially in the running. That is what most people expected him to do: it would have occasioned neither surprise nor disappointment. All hell broke loose after Briscoe announced his Wallace support. August 4, 1972 5 How Texas voted and, more or less, why