POLITICS Of Primary Importance

JUST DAYS AFTER THE FILING DEAD-

line for the 1990 ballot, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Kent Hance of Lub-bock showed up in Dallas. The balding, newly bespectacled chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission was back trying to do what he could not in 1986 against Bill Clements: crack a solid Dallas base for a Dallas candidate for governor.

Hance held a press conference to propose a change in state law that would require DART to divert one-fourth of its sales tax revenues to fix existing roads and build new ones. It was an obvious attempt to appeal to the legions of Dallas voters who don’t like DART.

The next day, another Republican gubernatorial candidate, former Secretary of State Jack Rains of Houston, showed up in Dallas. His mission: hold a press conference to advocate hiring private consultants to buy land for, design, and build freeways, thus cutting down the time necessary to rebuild North Central Expressway. His true mission: get publicity in Dallas-and maybe votes from Dallas drivers weary of gridlock.

And Clayton Williams, the Midland oilman/rancher/banker with the cowboy demeanor and deep pockets, is buying time on Dallas television like-well, like a gubernatorial candidate on the TV show “Dallas.” His pitch is that there’s a simple solution to the drug problem: people who mess with drugs get to “bust up rocks.”

Now, all three of these guys would be doing everything they could to spread their appeal in Dallas under any circumstances. Dallas County is in a seesaw battle with Harris County (Houston) to see which will be the more important in Republican politics.

Both are right at 16 percent of the total GOP primary vote. Dallas was higher in 1986’s gubernatorial race featuring Bill Clements. But Houston was higher in 1988, with Houston hotel-dweller George Bush. Experts project Dallas to be slightly ahead in 1990 in voter turnout among Republicans.

Though the counties are almost tied, Dallas is the Number One television market in Texas, reaching almost a third of those who vote in the GOP primary. Five of the top nine counties in terms of Republican turnout are reached by Dallas TV through its signal and cable television-Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Deaton, and Smith counties. By contrast, Houston TV reaches one-Harris County.

That makes it considerably more cost-efficient for Republican candidates to buy television ads in Dallas than in Houston-about 57 cents per voter for 500 gross rating points, contrasted to 78 cents in Houston. “Your cost per thousand [voters) is lower,” says Republican political consultant Karl Rove.

While Hance, Rains, and Williams are all eager for Dallas votes, they don’t have the field to themselves. That’s because one of Dallas’s own-Ross Perot’s favorite lawyer, Tom Luce-belatedly sailed his hat into the gubernatorial ring.

Before that, Dallas newcomer and First Son George W. Bush came to town to help purchase the Texas Rangers, and maybe seek his political fortunes as well. Next came corporate raider T. Boone Pickens, who dispatched an autobiography and videotape to selected Republicans and indicated he was buying a house in Dallas. But then, both men apparently decided to pass up a political race, at least for now.

So, one of Dallas’s own, Tom Luce, wants to sit in the governor’s mansion. And that is significant, because Dallas has an outsize importance when it comes to picking the Republican candidate for governor.

It was not always so. In the days when Dallas was leaning Republican while most Texas counties were voting Democratic, no one much cared who was the Republican candidate for governor. For several years, political observers joked that the Republican candidate for governor was whomever then-state GOP Chairman Peter O’Donnell Jr. (also of Dallas) said it was. If sometimes there was competition for that nomination, it didn’t make that much difference who got it. The Democrats won in November anyway.

But in 1978, Dallas’s own Bill Clements upset Democratic Attorney General John Hill to become the state’s first Republican governor in more than a century. Since then, competition for the GOP nomination has picked up considerably.

Luce is the forty-nine-year-old attorney who helped Perot run Clements’s War on Drugs in 1981 and Democratic Governor Mark White’s Texas Select Committee on Public Education in 1983 and 1984. A little too modestly, Luce says he hopes his Dallas base will help him in his home town.

The numbers say he should get that help, Hance’s Lubbock base constitutes 2 to 4 percent of the GOP primary vote. Williams’s home base of Midland-if he can get it all, since Hance used to represent Midland in Congress as well as Lubbock-has less than 2 percent of the GOP primary turnout.

So Luce starts with a wealthier base than his better-known rivals. But he argues that his campaign for better jobs, education, and drug control is of more than local interest.

“I do not consider myself a Dallas candidate or a Houston candidate or anything other than a Texas candidate,” he says. “I feel very strongly that the issues that caused me to run for governor are statewide issues that have equal application all over the state in the need to solve them.”

While Luce’s focus on statewide issues is sincere, it is also pragmatic. Being the candidate favored by the Dallas Republican political establishment can be a double-edged sword. In some places outside Dallas, resentment against Dallas is significant.

Republican political consultant Rove, who worked for Clements in 1982 and 1986 and is with Hance in 1990, says Fort Worth, for starters, has no special love for Big D.

“There is a definite rivalry between Tarrant County and Dallas County,” Rove says. “And I think that if you harp too much on your Dallas-based roots, it offends the Republicans in Tarrant County.”

Luce political consultant Kevin Moomaw, a former political director for the state GOP, worked first for Bush, then for Pickens, before winding up with Luce. He says his current candidate’s support from people like Peter O’Donnell and Perot shouldn’t be interpreted as controlling.

“Luce is his own man, and he’s done a lot of things,” Moomaw says. “People know him and know that he’s been associated with Perot. . .and if Luce is connected with him, Luce has got to be one of the best.”

Bill Kenyon, the former Dallas Morning News reporter now serving as press secretary for Clayton Williams’s campaign, contends that Luce’s establishment connections aren’t a total plus, but he acknowledges that the Dallas/Fort Worth TV market is easily the state’s most important. Still, Luce’s potential advantage may be considerably lessened because he has never actually represented the city in political office.

How much difference these issues will make will be judged in the March 13 primary, and perhaps with an additional check in the runoff in April. The bottom line is that Big D is very important in deciding who will be the Republican nominee.