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TE TEXAS b H server 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 mull, to human values above all interests, to the rights of human-kind 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. SINCE 1954 Publisher: Ronnie Dugger Editor: Louis Dubose Associate Editor: James Cullen Layout and Design: Peter Szymczak Copy Editor: Roxanne Bogucka Bad-Bills Girl: Mary O’Grady Editorial Intern: Carmen Garcia. Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Betty Brink, Warren Burnett, Brett Campbell, Jo Clifton, Terry FitzPatrick, Gregg Franzwa, James Harrington, Bill Helmer, Ellen Hosmer, Steven Kellman, Michael King, Deborah Lutterbeck, Torn McClellan, Bryce Milligan, Debbie Nathan, Gary Pomerantz, Lawrence Walsh. Editorial Advisory Board: David Anderson, Austin; Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, El Paso; Chandler Davidson, Houston; Dave Denison, Cambridge, Mass; Bob Eckhardt, Washington, D.C.; Sissy Farenthold, Cambridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, Austin; Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris, Oxford, Miss.; Kaye Northcott, Austin; James Presley, Texarkana; Susan Reid, Galveston; Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg. Poetry Consultant: Thomas B. Whitbread Contributing Photographers: Bill Albrecht, Vic Hinterlang, Alan Pogue. Contributing Artists: Michael Alexander, Eric Avery, Tom Ballenger, Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, Beth Epstein, Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin Kreneck, Michael Krone, Carlos Lowry, Ben Sargent, Dan Thibodeau, Gail Woods, Matt Wuerker. Managing Publisher: Cliff Olofson Subscription Manager: Stefan Wanstrom Executive Assistant: Gail Woods Special Projects Director: Bill Simmons Development Consultant: Frances Barton SUBSCRIPTIONS: One year $32, two years $59, three years $84. Full-time students $18 per year. Back issues $3 prepaid. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Any current subscriber who finds the price a burden should say so at renewal time; no one need forgo reading the Observer simply because of the cost. INDEXES: The Texas Observer is indexed in to Periodicals; Texas Index and. for the years 1954 through 1981, The Texas Observer Index. copyrighted, OD 1992, is published biweekly except for a three-week interval 477-0746. Second-class postage paid at Austin, Texas. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE TEXAS OBSERVER, 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Krueger’s not Gramm Your depiction of Bob Krueger on your April 9 cover as a Phil Gramm clone is seriously misleading. I write as a supporter of Lloyd Doggett in his 1984 contest for the seat now held by Gramm a contest in which Doggett opposed Krueger for the Democratic nomination. I am also a former colleague of Krueger, who held Rice University’s Tsanoff Chair in Public Policy for a while in the 1980s. I have not spoken to Bob in a couple of years, however, and I write this letter on my own initiative. The Bob Krueger I know is an intelligent, humane, hard-working man who is a moderate Democrat. By moderate I mean he is liberal on some issues, conservative on a good many others, and open to persuasion on still others. He has gradually moved, I believe, toward the center since his days in Congress, when he represented one of the most conservative districts in Texas. He is not only reasonable and well informed, but he is a genuinely learned man. He was popular among Rice students for just these qualities. Why should liberals vote for Krueger, given the fact that he is not, generally speaking, a liberal himself? The obvious answer is that he is the best candidate, by far, in the race. With one exception, the others who have any chance of getting into the runoff are either right-wing Republicans real Phil Granim clones or, in the case of Richard Fisher, another in a long line of rich Texans who would like to buy himself a public office. The exception is Jose Angel Gutierrez, who has two serious liabilities. First, if he got into a runoff against one of the conservatives, he would have virtually no chance of winning. Gutierrez would be the Republicans’ dream opponent. Second, his record raises serious doubts about his ability to perform well as a U.S. Senator. This is not the place to rehearse his involvement in South Texas politics during the turbulent ’70s I call your attention, however, to your own contemporary reportage on the shambles in which Gutierrez, as county judge, left Zavala County, and on the outrage expressed by many of his fellow Mexican Americans over his heavy-handed tactics against his numerous foes. The Houston Post’s Juan Palomo, him self active in the Chicano movement of the 1970s, wrote [recently] that “by the time he was forced out of Crystal City in 1980, he had become a mean, selfish and petty tyrant.” The real choice this year is simple. It is between hard-line conservatives, most of them reactionary Republicans, and a moderate Democrat. Yet if voters believe the message of The Observer’s cover \(and Louis Dubose’s chance that when the ballots are counted, one of the most right-wing Republican parties in the 50 states will have a lock on both of our U.S. Senate seats into the twentyfirst century two certain obstructionist Senate votes against almost any progressive program a Democratic president proposes. Is this what liberals really want? Chandler Davidson Houston Editor’s note: Davidson is a former Observer editor. Krueger for Gays I’m writing to you concerning the U.S. Senate race … There are many concerns regarding this race. However, I’d like to speak to you from the point of view of the lesbian/gay community. I’m sure we both agree that Krueger is not our ideal senator. But, Krueger is the first sitting U.S. Senator from Texas ever to seek the endorsement of the lesbian/gay . community. In 1984, liberal Lloyd Doggett didn’t want our support and sent us our money back. We have had more direct contact with Senator Krueger lately than we had with Lloyd Bentsen and Phil Gramm in the last 10 years. Upon being sworn in as a U.S. Senator, Krueger immediately signed on as a cosponsor of the Freedom of Choice Act and the first legislative vote he cast was for a bill increasing AIDS research funding by $600 million. He also supports [legislation to enhance punishment of hate crimes], ending arbitrary discrimination in the areas of adoption and child custody and expanding access to experimental drugs for women, people of color and children. Krueger also remains committed to ending the ban on gays and lesbians in the military. If he wins, we will have a friend in DIALOGUE Senate Election Debate 2 APRIL 23, 1993