ustxtxb_obs_1975_10_03_50_00014-00000_000.pdf

Retrogressive law Austin Political types are now coming to the practical realization that Lloyd Bentsen’s primary law has destroyed proportional representation in the Democratic Party in Texas for 1976. The candidate whose delegates get the highest number of votes 14 The Texas Observer Our new romances for the steak-lover. Tonight fall in love with our delicious continental steaks. Choose from the German, French, Russian, Japanese, Greek,. Italian. and Hungarian steaks, each prepared in its own special way and served with an appropriate crepe and salad. ihe Old Pecan St Cafe 314 Eost 6th St. Classified advertising is 20d per word. Discounts for multiple insertions within a 12-month period; 26 times, 50%; 12 times, 25%: 6 times, 10%. BOOKPLATES. Free catalog. Many beautiful designs. Special designing too. Address: BOOKPLATES, P.O. Box 28-1, Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387. PLAYING THE RECORDER IS EASY. Free catalog, best recorders, recorder music. Beginner’s Pearwood Soprano Book, $11.95. Amster Music, 1624 Lavaca, Austin. GUITAR PICKERS. Buy your guitar strings from us and save 20%. Mail orders accepted. Amster Music, 1624 Lavaca, Austin. JOIN THE ACLU. Membership $15. Texas Civil Liberties Union, 600 West 7th, Austin, Texas 78701. BOOK-HUNTING? No obligation search for rare or out-of-print books. Ruth and John McCully. Austin, Texas 78703. Observations ial district will get all that district’s presidential delegates chosen by the primary. There is no way, thanks to Bentsen, that the opinions of Texas Democrats about the presidency can be proportionally represented in the Texas delegation to next year’s national convention. The dilemmas this retrogressive law presents people who are for anybody but Bentsen or George Wallace are complicated and entail many guesses. Bentsen’s assumption is that being the home-state boy, he will have the best chance of getting the bare plurality when advocates of other candidates split up their forces. Fred Harris people are planning to field delegate slates in some districts, despite the considered belief of Billie Carr that the best course is for the progressive voters in each district to select persons they trust to run as slates of uncommitted delegates. Others are waiting for Frank Church or Sargent Shriver, and still others prefer a favorite son or “standin” effort rallied around Ralph Yarborough \(Bob Eckhardt, Sissy Farenthold, and Carr she has the agreement of major progressive candidates, except Harris, to follow the uncommitted strategy, but if the Harris people go forward, maybe Church, Shriver, Jimmy Carter, and others will decide they have to come in, too. NEW ORLEANS ON $8 A YEAR. The Weekly Courier, 1232 Decatur, 70116. GENERAL HOME AND AUTO REPAIRS. Jim THE NEW YORK TIMES Sunday edition delivered to your home in the Dallas area. Call 239-5235 for rates and information. WANTED. Political campaign buttons and memorabilia. National or state. George Meyer, 2204 Matthews Dr., Austin 78703, or phone 478-2848. JOIN COMMON CAUSE. Only one person can make democracy work again… YOU. $15 \($7 Lavaca, Austin, Texas 78701. MICHAEL HARRINGTON’S NEWSLETTER of the Democratic Left: political, labor, feminist developments plus informed analysis of energy, economic crisis and future of socialism $5/year. Newsletter, 853 Broadway, Room 617, New York, N. Y. 10003. It is possible that a free-for-all would turn out well for progressive candidates. However, the problem is that the more candidates there are, the fewer votes any candidate will need to make up a plurality in a district, and if the advocates of the different approaches of a progressive kind say to hell with everybody else and just do their thing, the state’s formidable progressive Democratic forces will be fragmented and Bentsen and Wallace will probably sweep different districts with pluralities. Do you see what a long sentence ittakes to describe the danger? Whatever whoever wants to do, the Bentsen law is a brilliant trap and the way to fall all the way into it is for the progressive people to split up four or six or eight ways. That is what Carr is trying to get people to understand. People have every right to go ahead for their favorite candidates right now progressives are constitutionally incautious, and it may be quite unreal to think they might be able to act together in Texas this fall and next spring. At this point, one has two choices. One may resign oneself to the fragmentation of the progressives as unavoidable and plunge on in according to one’s preference. Or one may forebear until, say, Thanksgiving one may decide to think not twice, but five or six times, and then try to get everyone to act so as to reduce the fragmentation as much as it can be reduced. I advocate the latter course. Nut’ should resign While this is a regional periodical, nuclear war is a regional issue since there’s not a region in the country it wouldn’t devastate. Therefore, permit me to here declare my opinion that Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger should resign. Like many nuts, Schlesinger sounds rational, but then one realizes what he is saying about the United States dropping nuclear weapons first on Russia. “First use,” he said, “could conceivably what we define as strategic forces and involve a selective strike at the Soviet Union. We do not necessarily exclude that, but it is indeed a very, very low probability.” Translated, this means that President Ford would be willing to make a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union first. Three times he simply did not answer reporters’ questions whether he would strike first with nuclear weapons. Finally he said, “I’m not either confirming it or denying it.” His Secretary had spoken for him. What this means is that the military high command has concluded from Vietnam CLASSIFIED