ustxtxb_obs_1984_05_18_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

, 1,1 II t ononniin in nin I 111011111,1111;11 nixfaBSERvER CE; The Texas Observer Publishing Co., 1984 Ronnie Dugger, Publisher Vol. 76, No. 10 7a1 434:’ May 18, 1984 Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Democrat, which in turn incorporated the Austin Forum-Advocate. EDITOR Geoffrey Rips ASSOCIATE EDITOR Dave Denison EDITOR AT LARGE Ronnie Dugger CAREY McWILLIAMS FELLOW: Nina Butts CALENDAR: Chula Sims WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Al Watkins LAYOUT AND DESIGN: Alicia Daniel EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Frances Barton, Austin,; Elroy Bode, Kerrville; Chandler Davidson, Houston; Bob Eckhardt, Washington, D.C.; Sissy bridge. Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, Dallas; Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris. Oxford, Miss.; Kaye Northcott, Austin; James Fred Schmidt, Tehachapi, Cal., Robert Sherrill, Tallahassee, Fla. CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Warren Burnett, Nina Butts, Jo Clifton, Craig Clifford, John Henry Faulk. Ed Garcia, Bill Helmer, Jack Hopper, Amy Johnson, Laurence Jolidon, Mary Lenz, Matt Lyon, Greg Moses, Rick Piltz, Susan Raleigh, Paul Sweeney. Michael Ventura, Lawrence Walsh. CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Alan Pogue, Russell Lee, Scott Van Osdol. CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS: Jeff Danziger, Beth Epstein, Dan Hubig, Kevin Krenek, Ben Sargent. Gail Woods. 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 to the ignoble in the human spirit. Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we agree with them because this is a journal of free voices. Business Manager Frances Barton Assistant Alicia Daniel Advertising, Special Projects Cliff Olofson Editorial and Business Office 600 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701 The Texas Observer at Austin, Texas. years, $56. One year rate for full-time students. S13. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor. Michigan 48106. Copyright 1984 by Texas Observer Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Material may not be reproduced without permission. POSTMASTER: Send form 3579 to: 600 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. PAGE TWO Final Counts AS BASEBALL SAGE Yogi Berra has said, “It isn’t over ’til it’s over.” It will be weeks and perhaps months before the story of the final vote counts in the U.S. Senatorial election is finally told. Part of that story has to be the fact that out of 1.6 million votes cast, the first and third place finishers were separated by no more than 2,000 votes. At Doggett election night headquarters in Austin, as the vote totals came in from West Texas on May 5, former L.B.J. School dean J. Gronouski was an island of calm in a sea of nervous despair. He patiently watched as Doggett remained mired in third behind Hance and Krueger, and he concentrated on the areas not reporting. When the urban vote began to come in, Gronouski told those around him that “it will turn” and Doggett would end up at least second and possibly first. When returns from Harris and Travis Counties pushed Doggett into second place, he smiled sagely. When Doggett’s vote slipped a little with the Bexar County returns, Gronouski counseled his listeners that his 50 years of election-watching have taught him that “once a trend begins, it does not turn back.” The next morning the gap between Doggett and Krueger had closed to almost nothing. There were problems with the two boxes from Jim Hogg County had not been turned in. The Jim Hogg County Democratic Chair was also Krueger’s county coordinator. One of the two boxes was the absentee ballots, usually counted first. All the ballots were paper. The county chair and his clerk had decided to go to sleep on Saturday night without counting the boxes, which they thought could await counting until the following Monday. With the race still too close to call, however, they were awakened on Sunday by the press and by members of the Doggett and Krueger camps. Suspicions of vote stealing, misplacing, and buying were rampant. Lawyers from all three camps fanned out across the state to witness counts and recounts. There had not been such a close race since the 1948 senatorial election of Lyndon Baines Johnson. That election was on everybody’s mind. \(A joke circulated about a secret training school in Jim Wells Another part of the election story has to be how Kent Hance turned mean. Hance used to be a nice guy, the kind of guy you’d want for a neighbor. You could ask him to water the yard or feed the dog when you went out of town. You could ask him to a cook-out in the backyard. But it turns out that if your gay brother comes to that cook-out Kent Hance will turn mean. And don’t let anybody around him speak with any kind of accent that’s not a deep Texas drawl. The lust for power brings out the worst in some people. p ERHAPS NEVER BEFORE in the state had it been so true that every vote counted. Despite a heated campaign, the vote count was surprisingly low between 20 and 30 percent in most precincts. And the run 2 MAY 18, 1984