ustxtxb_obs_1994_07_01_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

T HE TEXAS server JULY 1, 1994 VOLUME 86, No. 13 FEATURES Evangelephants in the GOP By Louis Dubose 1 World Cup Metroperplexes By Vicki Mayer 10 Red Lines Through Minority Mortgages By James Cullen 13 The Risk of Acquittal By Dick J. Reavis 17 DEPARTMENTS Speech Setting Texas Right By George W. Bush Molly Ivins The Christian Right Arrives Jim Hightower Graduation Day; Long Distance Greed; Great Terrain Robbery 18 Books and the Culture Stranger at the Gate Book review by David Reed 19 Standing Firm Book review by Todd Basch 21 Shepard and Panther Reviews by Steven G. Kellman 22 Afterword The Bible vs. the Bill of Rights 23 24 By Maury Maverick Political Intelligence Cover art by Emily Kaplan Continued from cover China, on behalf of Jihong Lui, who, according to Hyde was compelled to have an abortion by the Chinese government’s onechild-per-couple policy. Pauken had his own roster of anti-abortion-rights supporters, and their backgrounds suggested where his campaign was coming from. It was not Washington. Endorsing Pauken were Jeff Fisher, president of the American Family Association of Texas; Steve Hotze, President of Citizens for American Restoration and one-time organizer of the Houston Straight Slatecity council candidates who came together in response to former Mayor Kathy Whitmire’s attempt to establish a city employment policy that included anti-discrimination protections for gays and lesbians; state executive committeeman Jimmy Morgan, who at the 1988 Republican state convention in Houston told a Christian leaders’ caucus that when he presides over party meetings, “I put all the queers and lesbians in the back of the room. Then, I put four or five rows between them and the rest who don’t want to get AIDS.” Most important on Pauken’s list of backers was Dick Weinhold, Chairman of the Texas Christian Coalition, who in his endorsement letter reminded delegates of his organization’s support of Oliver North in the Virginia Senate race. Weinhold’s endorsement, printed on Christian Coalition stationery, was, Barton later conceded, worth 300-400 of almost 6,000 votes. Not even the suggestion that Pauken was soft on the domestic anti-abortion issue and that he had no tested anti-abortion foreign policy could carry the day for Barton. Nor could the estimated $100,000 he spent on the race for the chair, nor did the endorsement of senators Gramm and Kay Bailey Hutchison and an ample majority of the party’s elected officials. The abortion debate was for the swing voters; the election was really about who would control the party machinery, as Tarrant County Republican Chairman Steve Hollern explained in a newsletter circulated by Pauken supporter and Tarrant County delegate John Mauldin. “The real issue in this race boils down to whether the party has influence or some degree of control over officeholders or whether the officeholders control the party,” Hollern was quoted in the newsletter. The vote was scheduled for Saturday but by Friday evening at a Barton hospitality room at the Worthington Hotel, it was evident in the tone and volume of Barton’s voice that he had lost. By 9 p.m. Friday, Barton, whose voice moves up a register or two when he gets angry, was into a highdecibel bark, shouting at supporters. “I’m getting tired of hearing what I can’t do!” he said. “I want to see their cards. I want them to prove that they can do it. I want to see one name, the name of one local official they elected.” Barton brought out Grand Prairie freshman state Representative Ray Allenwearing a “Pro-life/Pro-Joe” stickerwho told how Barton laid the groundwork to get him elected in 1993. Barton even argued that he really held a part-time job. “When Congress is in session, I’m in Washington,” he said. “But that’s only 130 days; two-thirds of the time I’m at home.” ‘ What Barton didn’t understand, or at least didn’t address, was the subtext of the Pauken supporters’ campaign pitch. Through a well-organized grassroots movement, they had already taken the Republican Party from the establishment. And, they saw the Barton candidacy for what it was: an attempt to run a candidate whose politics and religion were acceptable to Texas fundamental Christians but who was also connected to Washington. All they had to do was remind delegates that Barton was a member of Congress and that Congress meets in Washington. That was enough. “This race was won at the precinct conventions,” said Mark Sanders, a former journalist who works as a Republican political consultant. “The Christian conservatives turned out and did the work at the precinct conventions and they deserve to win. This is the way it’s supposed to work.” said Sanders, who for six years has worked for moderate or at least secular Republican candidates. He added that he sees no moderate or progressive Republican leaders organizing the way the religious right has. “After today, they’ve won almost every position on the executive committee. We might be out [of power] for a while,” he said, while watching the caucus in Pauken’s senatorial district. There was no official vote on the floor, because Barton and McKenna withdrew rather than put the convention through the tedious process of counting votes. But Pauken’s convention-center headquarters monitored votes as they came in from the district caucuses on Saturday morning and by midday, the election was over. Pauken received 3,076 votes for 52 percent, Barton received 2,162 for 36 percent, and McKenna received 635 votes for 10.8 percent. Thirteen votes were uncommitted. The McKenna candidacy was a measure of the strength of moderate Republicans, who controlled two-thirds of the Texas delegation when the Pat Robertson for President wave washed across the South six years ago. \(“These disparate elements come with growth in the Party,” former John Tower aide John Knaggs told me in 1988, and by now, to moderates that growth must Continued on pg. 4 Notes and Clarifications While the June 17 Observer, in “011ie Takes-a Powder,” was widely credited with breaking the account of a former DEA agent who tracked drug deals to an El Salvador airport hangar controlled by operatives of White House aide Oliver North in the 1980s, the story was first published in a shorter form in SF Weekly of San Francisco. Also, the Observer will be on hiatus next week. The next issue will be dated July 22. THE TEXAS OBSERVER 3