Texas: Senate, Everyone?

Fire a shotgun into a crowd of Texans, and sure as shootin’, a candidate for the U.S. Senate will say ouch. Up for a vote next week is the Senate seat vacated by Vice President Lyndon Johnson,* and under Texas rules for special elections, there are no nominating primaries and no party labels. It costs only the filing of an application and a $50 fee to become eligible for the honor, and $50 is not hard to come by in Texas. No fewer than 71 men and women are looking for the job.

There is Mary Hazel Houston, a shabby little old lady in sneakers, who padded into the Secretary of State’s office to plunk down her $50, and has scarcely been heard from since. There is Harry Diehl, a Democrat, who took a leave of absence from his job as a clerk in a Houston supermarket and filed as “Harry Republican Diehl.” There is a woman named Jonnie Mae Eckman, pastor of the House of Prayer in Brenham (“I do declare, now catch your breath, that I am the Christ prophesied of to come”); and one Delbert E. Grandstaff, whose chief distinction is that he is the father of Kathy Grant, in private life Mrs. Bing Crosby.

Above and beyond this varied crew are the “Serious Six” candidates, who for one good reason or another lead the herd:

¶ John Tower, 34, a onetime government professor at West Texas State College—at Canyon—and the only authentic Republican of the lot—is a Nixon-endorsed Goldwater conservative, ran against Lyndon Johnson for the Senate last November and pocketed 41% of the statewide vote, a record in Texas.

¶ William Blakley, 62, Dallas millionaire and conservative (“Cowboy Bill” to his friends, “Dollar Bill” to others), who has warmed Johnson’s seat by appointment and likes Washington too much to give it up. He plays the Texas headlines adroitly from Washington.

¶ Jim Wright, 38, Fort Worth Congressman, is a middle-of-the-roader who at this stage has the private backing of both Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn.

¶ Will Wilson, 48, gangling state attorney general, who is credited with cleaning up sin in Galveston, is the only candidate who has won a statewide race, backed the Kennedy-Johnson ticket down the line, has an efficient political organization to help him, stands to share the bulk of Democratic votes with Blakley.

¶ Maury Maverick Jr., 40, son of the late rip-roaring New Deal Congressman, grandson of the rancher who let his cattle run unbranded (and thus made his name a world-known synonym for “stray”), has the support of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., which means that he will probably get the maverick vote and little else. Warns Maverick: “If I don’t get a lot of votes, we may not have another man willing to run this liberal in Texas for another ten years.”

¶ Henry Gonzales, 45, another liberal, is a state senator of Latin American ancestry, ran a successful campaign for Kennedy among Mexican-Americans last fall, and boasts a notable frankness: “Some call me a chili-eating, nigger-loving Mexican. I’m guilty on all counts.”

With such a disparate force in the field, no one candidate is likely to get a majority of all the votes cast on the April 4 election, so Texans will have to vote again in a runoff between the top two winners. So far, none of the Serious Six looks like a runaway candidate, but Republican Tower hopes to get into the runoff by winning the Republicans and those Democratic conservatives who are disillusioned or confused by the babble of oratory among the Democratic rivals.

*Under a state law passed especially for his benefit, Johnson ran for both the vice-presidency and the Senate, won both offices.