Jim Schutze brought up Goldblatt in his column this week. He compared Goldblatt’s monorail idea to the Trinity Project (both, according to Jim, are worthless). A politically active FBvian who worked with Goldblatt spins a few yarns about all that:
I signed on to Max Goldblatt’s campaign for Mayor back in the early ’80s because Max was really into the vision of mass transit. He was fixated on a monorail and had gotten Disney to produce a short film showing what it might look like whizzing above the streets of Dallas. I told Max we should use the slogan “Viva Max” and we’d scare incumbent Starke Taylor with an aggressive race that plastered it everywhere.
Turns out Jim Lehrer, formerly of Dallas, still had the copyright on the old book he’d written by that name and also knew Max. Jim gave his blessing, and the DMN–without knowing this–then editorialized that we may have stolen a copyright. Heh Heh Heh.
We had Max on Central at morning rush with a banner saying “Max says you should be at work by now!” and “Max says you should be home by now” at evening rush. We also couldn’t afford billboards or radio/TV, but we quietly contracted to put “Viva Max” on city buses (moving billboards!). It was the first time that had ever been done, amazingly, and the DMN–weighing in again–editorialized that because other campaigns didn’t have the necessary lead time to contract for competitive DART space, DART should perhaps outlaw ads on buses as unsightly! Heh Heh Heh.
We missed the run-off against the incumbent by a screwy 475 votes, the closest mayor’s race in Dallas history at that time. May still be.
The people caught the wave, but the anti-mass transit sentiment in the civic body politic was strong, and it included the paper of record. Schutze was at the Herald at the time, and he hated Max because, well, because Max hated him. Schutze wasn’t opposed to forward thinking on mass transit, but his voice had no clout.
The message of that race, mass transit beyond mere buses, took hold immediately after we lost. Ironically, Max got sour that the future wouldn’t include his beloved monorail and died bitching about DART’s big plans. Oh, well, he always was an aginner.
