Friday, March 29, 2024 Mar 29, 2024
59° F Dallas, TX
Advertisement
Publications

POLITICS How Wallace Could Carry Texas

By Jim Atkinson |

Texas will give a majority of its 130 delegate votes in the Democratic National Convention next year to George Wallace.

Okay, it’s a three scotch and water premise, but indulge me. First, you have to allow a few givens. From all available reports out of Montgomery, Wallace is physically healthy. He will be able to make a number of personal appearances in Texas for next spring’s presidential primary. If this changes, my whole scenario is blown to smithereens. So we will assume the governor’s health and campaigning ability are as robust as they can be.

Second, we will assume no less than a three-way primary fight, including Wallace, Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen and, probably, an “uncommitted” slate representing Texas liberals.

Again, if the liberals fail to field a slate, my theory falls apart. Wallace would not have a chance against Bentsen one on one. But liberals seem firm about creating their own spot on the ballot. They are not in a mood, they say, to make deals with Bentsen. As one Dallas leader said: “The fact that we would go to the trouble to create an uncommitted slate shows we are not going to be co-opted by Bentsen. If that helps Wallace, too bad.” (Of course, Texas liberals always talk like that, even as they are in the process of backing down. We will assume they mean it.)

Additionally, we can expect anywhere from one to three more primary candidates, at least in some Texas senatorial districts: former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, Morris Udall and Scoop Jackson, most likely.

Okay. So how does old boogey-man George Wallace march into Texas and come away with more convention delegates than a favorite son senator? The answer has as much to do with Lloyd Bentsen’s blunders as with the Texas Wallace organization’s acumen. I would not even ponder the likelihood of a Wallace sweep had not Lloyd Bentsen already chosen to forfeit his favorite son status. He has publicly backed massive federal aid to bail out economically-anemic New York City and voted against the oil depletion allowance – which is not only left of center but in direct contravention to the sort of Texas chauvinism expected of Texas politicians. But Lyndon Johnson got away with it, you say. Lyndon Johnson nestled into that leather chair in the Oval Office and flat wigged out, proposing, shoving through, signing more federal legislation incompatible with Texas’ political sensibilities than could paper the living room of his ranch house on the Pedernales. You’re right. But Lyndon Johnson never, well, flaunted it. He was always careful to fling enough hayseeds back homeward to make us believe he hadn’t changed all that much.

Bentsen, on the other hand, seems to have consciously shed his political roots, like an ugly wart he just can’t afford to have the rest of the country see. He seems to be proud of the “new” Lloyd Bentsen, the Texan who can sound so much like Humphrey, Carter, Udall, et al. – why, landsakes! – you can’t even tell he’s from Texas! The last time I heard him on “Face the Nation,” I detected not one hint of East Texas twang, and even suspi-cioned I heard a tinge of that other twang from that other East.

None of this is to say Bentsen has forsaken every last one of his votes here. He will run strong in West Texas, parts of Houston, Austin and, of course, South Texas. It is to say, however, that he has managed to narrow his constituency in Texas. Those traditional Texas Democrats who might have reflexively voted for a favorite son in a primary, now, I think, feel betrayed, or bewildered, by Bent-sen’s shucking and jiving. They may be in a mood to do a little shopping around.

Enter busing and George Wallace. While Bentsen is scoring paper votes with the bosses on the Eastern seaboard, Wallace is calmly weitching Democrats and Republicans alike in Dallas, Houston, Waco, Midland-Odessa and other cities building into a rage over busing. Federal aid to New York City may not touch nerves in Pleasant Grove or the northside of Waco, but busing will.

Let’s look at the Dallas area: in 1968, Wallace carried 50 per cent outright in Pleasant Grove, Ellis and Navarro Counties (the 9th Senatorial District); Oak Cliffs 23rd District is plenty black, to be sure, but those votes should go to the liberal uncommitted slate, leaving Rose Renfroe territory to Wallace; the 8th Senatorial District probably has the best-oiled Wallace machine in the county (especially Irving and Walnut Hill) and should easily hand a plurality to Wallace; the 16th is a Wallace weak spot (because of the large number of Republicans who might stick with the GOP primary).

The Texas presidential primary will be a plurality winner take all, “all” being three, in some cases four, convention delegates from each state senatorial district. Three delegate nominees will be posted on the ballot for each presidential candidate in the primary. Wallace nominees will be listed “John Doe (Wallace)” etc. Voters may vote for all three delegate nominees attached to a particular candidate, or may split the ballot, voting for one delegate nominee for each of three candidates. The three biggest vote getters in each senatorial district will go to the national convention. Ballot splitting, while fun to speculate on over cocktails, is not very likely. Voters will express their presidential preference, most feel, by pulling a straight lever for all of a particular candidate’s delegate nominees.

This would give Wallace a veritable sweep of Dallas County, as many as 10 of 12 possible delegates. In Houston (Harris County), he could take at least 50 per cent (nine of 18 delegates); in Fort Worth (Tarrant County), three of six possible delegates (Wallace has traditionally carried the 10th District there; the 12th, like the 16th in Dallas, is partially Republican and almost entirely white collar); in Waco, which Wallace carried in 1968 and 1972, all three convention delegates; in Corpus Christi, where Wallace polled 25 per cent (a plurality) of the vote in 1968, possibly all convention delegates; in San Antonio, predictably, zip (one district should go to Bentsen, two to the liberals).

That represents a very clean, decisive sweep of the urban areas for Wallace. Rurally, he will split at best with Bentsen, carrying most of East Texas, while Bentsen cleans up in West Texas. Ironic that Wallace, a politician born and bred out of the Southern agrarian strain, will be looking to the cities for a powerbase, and Bentsen, a politician with roots in the white collar urban areas of Texas, will be counting on ranchers for his votes. Only busing, which has probably done as much damage to common sense in American politics as the war in Vietnam, could make such non-sequiturs political reality.

On the precinct-by-precinct bottom line, it is the liberals who will make or break Wallace. If the liberals field, as they claim they will, a non-committed slate, they will rob Bentsen of sorely needed intellectual-liberal pockets in urban areas. Given simply a Wallace-Bentsen choice, all of these folks would have no choice but to ride along with the junior senator, cutting Wallace’s possible take in Texas to less than half of the state’s 134 convention delegates. But with the liberals sucking away votes from the left, and Wallace pulling from both the urban and rural rights, Bentsen will be left with precisely the constituency he claims to represent, the middle of the road. The only problem is, in Texas in the 1970’s, the middle of the road is a lot narrower than it used to be.

Given a spirited non-committed slate by the liberals, Wallace could easily walk off with 90 of the state’s 134 delegates.

In any scenario, Wallace will not behere to play games. He will be charging hard into Texas, on the heels ofrespectable to quite good showings inFlorida, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, etc., and he will have bulgingcoffers. As one Dallas Wallace operative put it: “You ask how much is hewilling to spend to take Texas? Whatever it takes.”

Related Articles

Image
Arts & Entertainment

Here’s Who Is Coming to Dallas This Weekend: March 28-31

It's going to be a gorgeous weekend. Pencil in some live music in between those egg hunts and brunches.
Image
Arts & Entertainment

Arlington Museum of Art Debuts Two Must-See Nature-Inspired Additions

The chill of the Arctic Circle and a futuristic digital archive mark the grand opening of the Arlington Museum of Art’s new location.
By Brett Grega
Image
Arts & Entertainment

An Award-Winning SXSW Short Gave a Dallas Filmmaker an Outlet for Her Grief

Sara Nimeh balances humor and poignancy in a coming-of-age drama inspired by her childhood memories.
By Todd Jorgenson
Advertisement