Politics
What Makes Sissy Run?
It’s kamikaze time again for Texas liberals as Farenthold takes on an entrenched Governor Briscoe.
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Few Texas politico-watchers credit her with much of a chance to pull the rabbit out of Briscoe’s Stetson. Again, the mood of the times is not right for it. In 1972 she had going for her some identifiable villains, some clear-cut (and inexpensive) reform issues to expound, and the fresh memory of an appalling scandal to fuel the broadbased political movement which flocked to Farenthold. The absence of a credible bogeyman is perhaps her worst problem. Unlike Preston Smith or Ben Barnes, Briscoe does not easily conform to the outlines of villainhood. Sissy seems trapped by her own famous 1972 rhetoric: It would take Dr. Frankenstein years of extra study to find a way of making a monster out of a bowl of pabulum.
Dolph Briscoe may hardly be anyone’s paint-by-numbers ideal of a model statesman, but he unquestionably has given Texans the Eisenhower-like breather from past bad times they apparently wanted. And then there is the notion “he hasn’t made any mistakes.” That sentence wraps up the current popular wisdom about the governor and wouldn’t make a half-bad campaign slogan. The people of Texas didn’t want political revolution in 1972. They wanted decency, honesty, and no mistakes.
Perhaps Farenthold misread this message of 1972, even while she was actively proclaiming the message herself. When voters (45 percent at her peak) responded to her, it was principally because she offered a palpable alternative to the good-ole-boy way of running state government. She seemed honest, intelligent, warm and (perhaps largely because she is a woman) sincere. That was her basic appeal, and this sincerity, not the unreconstructed McGovernisms about “giving the powerless their spokespeople,” continues to be the root of her appeal.
Briscoe worked quietly to consolidate his mandate in 1973, making several well-received appointments (most notably those of former state senator Joe Christie for insurance commissioner and Athens attorney Mack Wallace for railroad commissioner), signing the reform package Speaker Daniel disgorged from the Legislature, and giving visible if not vigorous leadership during last summer’s child care uproar.
Farenthold is thus hard-pressed to find the emotional issues she needs to stir the Lone Star electorate out of its traditional lethargy. Hitting at Briscoe (and Hill) for appealing a federal court decision on single-member legislative districts just doesn’t have the requisite sex appeal. Once she gets into the bread-and-butter issues like school finance and Texans are reminded that Sissy Farenthold is not just a citizen-housewife but a liberal (as Briscoe’s people made sure they knew in the 1972 runoff), they likely will react in the time-honored way. Texas liberals, no one need mention, just do not have the votes by themselves to elect her or anyone else.
Something else working against Farenthold, ironically enough, is Watergate. The great long-playing scandal-upon-the-Potomac began to divert Texas eyes from state issues almost simultaneously with the start of the Briscoe administration. Even if Dolph has made some mistakes, they may well have been ignored while the press was focusing attention on what Richard Nixon was doing, not doing, or saying he would do, or not do, about magnetic tapes. Sharpstown was significant in that it did briefly draw attention to state politics and troubles, keeping it there long enough for the electoral process to do its job. It probably is not an oversimplication to say that for the average Texas voter, state scandals are a thing of the past-an attitude which Farenthold has to change by 180 degrees if she can at all.
Almost as if to demonstrate that politicians as well as voters are looking more to Washington this year than to Austin is the unusually high number of major congressional races in this year’s primaries and general election. The seats now held by Wright Patman, Jake Pickle, Alan Steelman, Bob Price and the retiring 0. C. Fisher are particularly bitter battlegrounds. Some liberals in these and other races feel Farenthold’s suicidal attack on Briscoe may siphon needed campaign funds from races they stand a chance of winning.
Not, of course, that any of this serves to discourage Sissy, to keep her from making the old speeches and from trooping around the state with her curious crowd of aides and groupies. Frances Tarlton Farenthold, it seems, will always do what she thinks is right and must be done. Not even her critics can fault her for dedication.
The Farenthold forces also hope that a favorable ruling by a state judge on her $3.5 million lawsuit against Briscoe will break just in time to yank around the gubernatorial campaign in her direction. At the same time she announced for governor she filed the suit, alleging that Briscoe had collected money for his campaign on October 19?before designating a campaign manager, as required by a new state law which Briscoe signed. It remains to be seen, though, how voters would react even to her victory in the courts: whether they would begin to shift toward her or against her for appearing like a troublemaker bothering good ole Dolph. That reaction may depend on the kind of image she puts across to Texans before the case goes to trial.
Some liberals see a shuddering parallel between Farenthold and Don Yarborough. Yarborough rose from obscurity ten years ago to challenge John Connally for governor, losing by only a few percentage points and giving the liberals a rare thrill?only to charge back in two years later against a post-assassination Connally and be decimated.
Sissy Farenthold may already have been Yarboroughized in another way: Like Senator Ralph, she has made politics a personal crusade for justice, and in her zeal to fight the old battles just once more she may not have noticed that her friends are following her out of loyalty for great times of long ago rather than in hope of victories to come.
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