ustxtxb_obs_1978_10_06_50_00010-00000_000.pdf

about Barnhart’s alleged exhibition of an intra-party partiality it mainly shared. \(The Young Americans for Freedom polled the delegates’ 1980 preferences by secret ballot; Reagan took 68 percent, with Phillip Crane of Illinois and our own John Connally tied for a distant second Unity, ah unity! The chairman did deny Butler’s charges of partisanship, and went on to tally 1,023.84 votes to his challenger’s 600.19. \(Yes, the Republicans really carried their vote tallies to the second decimal place. But don’t ask us where that was that. Butler conceded and also withdrew his neutrality resolution. In a 30-second post-vote statement, Barnhart said “the issue has been unity”were speaking ability the sole criterion, he rather than Bill Clements would be running for governor”and we have it!” Be it ever thus. \(At a Gerald Ford/Ronald Reagan/John Connally/ George Bush fundraiser for Clements three days hence, Butler and Barnhart When Barnhart said unity was the issue, he was only half right. Unity for Reagan was the issue. Neither Connally, who never fails to raise goosebumps in a Republican crowd, nor the Nixon administration’s all-purpose appointee Bush was invited to speak. Both, it’s said, covet the presidency \(Obs., and their presence could have detracted from the convention chiefs’ orchestrated Reagan radiance. The only way New York Congressman Jack Kemp, another talked-about possibility for 1980, snuck in was by accepting his invitation several months ago, before he began picking up national steam. Along with “unity” and Reagan, the delegates bought a proposal for a 1980 presidential primary, as a fiery Barnhart pledged to fight Democrats in the Legislature and in the courts, if necessary, to pull it off. Texas had its first statefinanced presidential primary in 1976, the Democratic-controlled Legislature having foisted on the state the lamentable “Bentsen bill” only to have Jimmy Carter snatch 92 of the state’s 98 Democratic delegates. Republicans, meanwhile, enjoyed an upheaval of new-found attention, drawing a half million voters as Reagan blew past Ford and took all 96 of their delegates. The minority party would like a repeat performance in 1980, another chance to draw big crowds of voters. The state law establishing the special primary expired after it was used once, and conservative Democrats are expected to squelch any attempts to resurrect it in the next legislative session. Many Republicans feared their primary 10 OCTOBER 6, 1978 wasn’t even safe from themselves Barnhart warned early in the week that “there are people within this party who want to destroy all chances for us to have a presidential primary.” A fail-safe primary But, after much haggling over details, the convention settled on a primary proposal under which any hopeful who collects the signatures of 5,000 registered voters on petitions gets his or her name on the primary ballot. The winner of a majority in each congressional district gets all three Of the district’s national delegates. If the leading candidate has only a plurality, he gets two of the district’s delegates and the third goes to the runner-up, unless the runner-up captures less than 20 percent of the vote, in which case the plurality winner takes all three delegates. And voters don’t have to choose an actual candidate; they can vote uncommitted. At stake are at least 78 delegates-80 if John Tower reclaims his Senate seat and Bill Clements is elected governor. Former state GOP chairman Ray Hutchison and his wife, former state representative Kay Bailey, who crafted the new primary proposal, have tried to anticipate all possibilities. Their plan comes equipped with a fail-safe mechanismit says if anything in it violates national party by-laws or if legal roadblocks loom, the party reserves the option of changing it to make it work. Mrs. Hutchison, head of the convention’s rules committee, termed this section the “no-matter-what-happens-westill-get-our-primary” clause. Foresight and aggression. One must consider every angle in girding for the Democrats, those rascals. Jack Kemp indicated as much. “If you tax something you get less of it, and if you subsidize something you get more of it,” he said, alluding subtly to Democratic tendencies to tax and subsidize. “In America today, particularly in my state of New York, we’re taxing the worker, the saver, the investor, the producer, the men and women of ambition and production and output, and we’re subsidizing non-work, unemployment, welfare, debt, borrowing, consumption, leisure, idleness and mediocrity, and we’re getting more of the latter.” Odd shots at elocution Of President Carter, Kemp, for 13 years a quarterback who led the Buffalo Bills to championships in the old American Football League, said, “It’s not a case of the emperor with no clothes” pause to survey the field, like moving up in the pocket”it’s a case of all clothes and no emperor!” Touchdown! Kemp, with his good looks and rousing laissez faire testimonials, definitely had an edge. “No government in history,” he said, “has been able to do for people what they’ve been able to do for them selves if they are free to produce and be rewarded.” After listening to Kemp for 30 minutes, you wanted to go out and start a business. Oil executive Clements likewise took the odd shot at elocution”We have sown the seeds of organization this summer. The crop is now germinating. During the coming weeks, sprouts will begin to appear, and by November we will harvest a bumper crop of votes for a better Texas”but twice he pronounced Copernicus “Co . . . Coperneas,” and that was that. His speechwriter, possibly a closet Democrat, had him open with “I want to talk to you today about things terrestrial and things celestial,” and you knew Or Bill was in trouble. The assembly, if they recognized it, forgave it.