MAKING MATTOX CRAWL

U.S. Rep. Jim Mattox has been fighting for his political life recently in Austin, but the incumbent Democrat was literally brought to his knees by the news media in his attempts to save his Dallas County district during the recent special session of the legislature.

Mattox, against all professional advice, stormed the capitol during the legislature’s redistricting session, twisting arms and calling in old political debts in an effort to conjure up a congressional district in which he would have at least a remote chance of being reelected in 1982.

“Everybody had advised him to stay away,” said a long-suffering Mattox friend. “Every time he comes down here, he makes people mad because of his insistence on petty items that nobody’s going to accept. His circle of friends has diminished.”

Mattox tried to keep his July 21 visit to Rep. Ted Lyons’ office a secret. But word leaked out that Mattox was studying census maps in Lyons’ first-floor office, which attracted the attention of Channel 8’s Austin reporter Carole Kneeland.

Mattox, who is still nursing a three-year-old grudge a-gainst Kneeland, refused an interview. Mattox, in fact, barricaded himself in Lyons’ office and refused to be photographe

“I told him that if he didn’t allow us to take his picture to at least show that he was there, we’d have to show the shut door he was behind, and he’d end up looking bad,” Kneeland said.

Mattox preferred to remain hidden rather than talk to Kneeland; meanwhile, the senate passed a bill that pulled Mattox’s district out from under him.

Mattox still wouldn’t talk, so Kneeland stationed cameraman Pete McKeeman on the grounds outside Lyons’ office window. If Mattox even stood up, Channel 8 would have its picture.

As McKeeman sweated in the July sun, clerks in Lyons’ office were startled to see Mattox crawling out of the office on his hands and knees so he wouldn’t be seen.

Mattox denies he crawled away from a fight. “I just left the office when they weren’t looking,” the congressman later said.

Mattox called Kneeland the next day and chewed her out for 45 minutes for making him look bad. Kneeland could only reply, “You make yourself look bad.”