Texas: Cactus-Nasty Campaign

Both candidates for Texas’ U.S. Senate seat are running fast and mean, like they had cactus in their chaps.

The two are liberal Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough, a native of East Texas cotton country, and conservative Republican George Bush, a New England-bred Ivy Leaguer (Yale ’48), son of Connecticut’s moderate former G.O.P. Senator Prescott Bush.

Houston’s Bush, who has made a modest fortune as a Texas oilman since 1948, insists that Yarborough’s “leftwing radicalism” is the basic campaign issue. In Bush’s entourage is a country music group called the Black Mountain Boys, and the lyrics to one of their favorite campaign songs are: “Sun is gonna shine in the Senate some day/George Bush gonna run them liberals away.”

Bush stands strong for right-to-work labor laws, cutbacks in foreign aid, increased tariffs. He stands against the 1963 nuclear test-ban treaty and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He is an attractive, articulate Goldwater Republican, even though he mentions Barry’s name with decreasing frequency these days, as it becomes apparent that Lyndon Johnson will carry his native Texas with relative ease.

In his attacks on Yarborough, Bush recalls rumors that the Senator got $50,000 in a brown paper bag from Billie Sol Estes during the 1960 presidential campaign. Yarborough denies the charge, although he has admitted getting some $7,000 in campaign contributions from Estes over a three-year period, long before Estes’ shenanigans came to light. But Bush tells his audiences: “The question is not whether Yarborough got $50,000 or $5,000 or whatever he has admitted getting from Estes, but do you want a man in the U.S. Senate who was involved with Billie Sol Estes at all?” And so another Black Mountain Boys campaign favorite is: “Oh where have you gone, Billie Sol, Billie Sol?/Oh, where have you gone, charming Billie?”

End of a Feud. Ralph Yarborough gives back every bit as much as he takes. “Let’s show the world,” he cries, “that old Senator Bush can’t send Little Georgie down here to buy a Senate seat.” He slams Bush’s membership in “the fat Houston clubs,” nags at Bush for his extensive billboard campaign, tells audiences: “You can find everything on those billboards except the word ‘Republican.’ He’s got it there so small that you’ve got to pull over to the side of the road, stop, get out of your car, and look for it with a magnifying glass.” The Senator also reacts emotionally to Bush’s criticism of the test-ban treaty: ”He doesn’t believe in clean air, doesn’t believe in keeping out all the strontium 90 and all the chemicals that pollute the atmosphere, that create cancer in babies, create leukemia, make sterile men and women.”

Yarborough has long been on the outs with such reigning Texas politicians as Lyndon Johnson and Governor John Connally. As late as August 1963, Yarborough, in a speech at Freeport, Texas, described Johnson as a “power-mad politician.” It was partly to help patch up this Democratic factional dispute that President Kennedy made the trip to Texas that ended in Dallas on Nov. 22. During that trip, Kennedy got Vice President Johnson and Senator Yarborough to shake hands, and the two were riding together in the same car when the President was assassinated.

Floating Chitchat. Since then, in private conversations, including some political chitchat while floating about together in the White House swimming pool, Johnson has made his peace with Yarborough. This fact obviously discomfits Governor Connally, who is one of Lyndon’s oldest and closest political associates. Connally just plain dislikes Yarborough. All but assured of re-election as Governor this year, Connally has yet to say a good public word for Running Mate Yarborough.

As a matter of fact, all other things being equal, Lyndon Johnson could undoubtedly console himself if Yarborough were to lose his Senate seat. But all other things are not equal. Among the other things: it would be a blow to L.B.J.’s personal vanity if his own home state were to elect Bush to join Republican Senator John Tower in an all-G.O.P. Texas Senate team.

If Lyndon would stay out of it, Republican Bush would have a chance. But Johnson is not about to stay out of it, which makes Bush the underdog.