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OBSERVER Texas kJBSERVER The Texas Observer Publishing Co., 1978 Ronnie Dugger. Publisher Vol. 70, No. 20 October 20, 1978 Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Demo crat, which in turn incorporated the Austin Forum-Advocate. EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITORS EDITOR AT LARGE Jim Hightower Linda Rocawich Eric Hartman Ronnie Dugger PRODUCTION MANAGERS: Susan Reid, Beth Epstein ASSISTANT EDITORS: Vicki Vaughan, Bob Sindermann STAFF ASSISTANTS: Margaret Watson, Margot Beutler, Beverly Palmer, Harris Worcester, Larry Zinn, Jamie Murphy, Lisa Spann, Helen Jardine, Karen White, Viki Florence, Charles Lohrmann, Martha Owen CONTRIBUTORS: Kaye Northcott, Jo Clifton, Dave McNeely, Dori Gardner, Warren Burnett, Paul Sweeney, Marshall Breger, Jack Hopper. Stanley Walker, Joe Frantz, Laura Eisenhour, Dart Hubig, Ben Sargent, Berke Breathed, Eje Wray. Roy Hamric, Thomas D. Bleich, Mark Stinson, Ave Bonar, Jeff Danziger, Lois Rankin, Maury Maverick Jr., Bruce Cory, John Henry Faulk. Chandler Davidson, Molly Ivins, Ralph Yarborough. Laura Richardson, Tim Mahoney, John Spragens Jr., Sheila R. Taylor, Doug Harlan, David Guarino, Susan Lee, Bob Clare BUSINESS STAFF: Cliff Olofson, Ricky Cruz A journal of free voices We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of humankind as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater w the ignoble in the human spirit. The editor has exclusive control over the editorial policies and contents of the Observer. None of the other people who are associated with the enterprise shares this responsibility with him. Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them the editor does not necessarily imply that he agrees with them because thi.s .is a journal of free voices. Published by Texas Observer Publishing Co.. biweekly except for a three-week interval between issues twice a year. in January and July; 25 issues per year. Second-class postage paid at Austin, Texas. Publication no. 541300. soe prepaid. One year, $14; two years, $25: three years, $36. Foreign, except APO/ FPO, SI additional per year. Airmail, hulk orders, and group rates on request. Microfilmed by Microfilming Corporation of America. 21 Harristown Road. Glen Rock. N.J. 07452. Editorial and Business Offices: 600 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701 OCTOBER 20, 1978 A guide to Hill, Krueger, Austin Who stands to benefit from John Hill’s election? Family farmers and ranchers, consumers, industrial workers, Main Street entrepreneurs, retired Texans, taxpayers, independent oil and gas operators, service employees, minority business owners, teachers, artists and their appreciators, farmworkers, backyard inventors, solar energy developers and advocates, working women, co-op organizers, small industrialists, and the other solid, innovative, everyday people who are the guts \(and If you find yourself in that list, now is the time to get up and out to help put Hill in the governor’s chair. This is a historic electionit marks the first November ballot in 42 years to be headed by a Democratic nominee who can be supported with enthusiasmrather than nose-holdingby the state’s little people. Hill’s a moderate-conservative, that’s for sure, but he’s an honest and pragmatic one, not the reactionary ideologue we’ve grown accustomed tohe cares about people and wants government to work for them. He can be counted on to end, at long last, Austin’s total preoccupation with the care and feeding of wealthy interests, and he will begin to turn the state’s attention to the limitless, productive potential of the millions of workaday Texans. Then there’s Bill Clements. By putting him up, the Republicans did the impossiblethey nominated someone worse than Dolph Briscoe. \(Indeed Clements is so backward and silly that had Briscoe won renomination last May, we would now find ourselves having to saddle up with Dolph for another four-year got to be considered a real threat. With his multimillion dollar PR budget, the Republican nominee’s campaign is the biggest advertising account to hit Texas TV since light beer, but he’ll need every dollar of it, because, like the lights, Clements is all fizz and no beer. Good grief! Is Bob Krueger better than John Tower? Yes. Lord, have mercy Jim Baker, the GOP nominee for attorney general is smart, personable, sophisticatedand very Republican. Mark White, who has the Democratic nomination, is not as smart, personable or sophisticated as Baker, but neither is he quite so hard-core Republican, and that’s enough for us to give him a nod in this race. The White-Baker contest has been the second most dismal of pealing to the worst instincts of the electorate. For example, both are going to By God sue Montana for its audacity in attempting to tax the coal Texas utility companies want to haul out of that state, and both also are going to By God sue the feds for attempting to take “our” oil and gas \(most of which is owned by Wall Street and practically none by what could be called the arm and leg charged down here. Neither of these latter-day defenders of the Alamo are talking about lowering the gas and electric bills of Texans, mind you, even though that’s what their jingoistic rhetoric would lead voters to believe. What they actually are supporting is the right of the big oil and gas firms to gouge Easterners just as they now gouge Texans.