Truckin’
On the road with Victor Morales, the schoolteacher from Crandall who hopes to drive Phil Gramm from the U.S. Senate.
(Page 2 of 3)
As has been reported, he was born in Racine, Wisconsin, to a struggling family that eventually found its way to Pleasanton, where Morales’ father worked on road crews for the highway department. But when Victor was in his teens, his father abandoned the family, plunging it deeper into poverty; Victor’s mother, Helen, took up work as a maid and sometimes relied on welfare and food stamps. Victor, the eldest son, set about raising his siblings and assimilating. In small-town Texas in the fifties and the sixties, no one talked about ethnic pride. Morales, chased out of whites-only barbershops and enduring epithets like “taco bender,” resolved that the one way to compete in Anglo society was to get an education and blend in. Punished for speaking Spanish in school, he dropped the language, to his mother’s dismay. “I told my mom, ‘Mom, it’s America, okay? It’s not Mexico.’” (Today he admits that his Spanish is not up to campaign standards: “My pronunciation is terrible.”) Morales put himself through San Antonio College on a track scholarship until the inevitability of his being drafted caused him to enlist in the Navy reserves. He served briefly in the Philippines and in Vietnam. He married, finished college at Texas A&I in 1976, and divorced after the birth of a child, who is now 21 and in the U.S. military in Germany.
Meanwhile, Morales began to distinguish himself as a teacher, the vocation he had long aspired to. He poured his energies into his students, proud that when he taught athletics, his kids excelled at the president’s physical fit-ness test; teaching kids from low-income families at one Oak Cliff elementary school, Morales made sure his students were not denied access to archery, gymnastics, and bowling. To earn extra money, he taught dance and, at one studio, met Dani Shoemake, a redhead he subsequently married. (“We used to be Lucy and Ricky for a long time,” he cracks.) From that time on, Morales’ life continued at a placid if steady pace. He appeared to be simply another hardworking striver whose climb into the middle class was inexorable. “Mr. Morales, you deserve better,” he says his students would tell him. “Mr. Morales, you are made for bigger things.” He let the comments pass, but he did not disagree.
AT FIRST GLANCE, VICTOR MORALES’ TRUCK FALLS a little short as a symbol of American aspiration. First of all, it is a Nissan—not hearty and homespun, like a Chevy or a Ford. There are M&Ms on the floor, a crack is snaking across the windshield, and Post-it notes are on the dashboard. Because on this day he has forgotten to cover the doors with the big “Victor Morales for Senator” signs, he passes down the highway, from the cloud-swept plains of Crandall to the suburban strip centers of Arlington, almost unnoticed. In the early days of his campaign such anonymity was the norm, but the fervor and the kindness of the few who knew and understood kept him going—the elderly Hispanic woman who confessed to lighting candles for him and the overalled spectator who, during a campaign stop changed one of the Nissan’s bald tires so that Morales would not soil his suit.
Now those people wind up in Morales’ speeches, and the cell phone, transferred to the car, continues to ring with courtiers. Morales answers, listens to the caller, and is noncommittal. It’s a Houston political type, pushing a media adviser. “He told me, ‘He worked in the Reagan-Bush campaign, but he’s for you,’” Morales says, evincing a glimmer of contempt. The snubs of the campaign’s early days are still fresh in his mind, the politicians who would not call him back or who urged him not to waste his time. “I remember goin’ to his office,” Morales says of one who has recently called to offer support. “He said, ‘We’ll keep you in mind.’” As the cell phone continues to ring in fresh demands for meetings, fundraisers, and staff jobs, Morales, hanging up from another call, slaps his hand to his forehead. “For the thousandth time, I didn’t get here with a buncha money or a buncha organization, so why do they focus on it so intently now?” he snaps.
Among the instant legends currently affixed to the Morales campaign is that his students dared him to run for office. While this is essentially true, it is also true that Morales sensed the field was open. Voter apathy had created a vacuum: During the 1992 presidential campaign, he attended his precinct convention and found himself the only one present. Morales elected himself captain and sent himself to the county convention. “I took a vote; it was unanimous,” he says. “It was a wonderful political day for me.” He thoroughly enjoyed the county and state events, but a lack of money kept him from going to the national convention. He turned his attention to the Crandall city council after a chance visit provided him with a startling insight: “My God, these people aren’t any smarter than I am.” Morales ran against “somebody I didn’t want to win,” won on a second try, and served on the council for two years. One day he caught Phil Gramm on TV. “I said, ‘Man, why won’t somebody run against this guy?’” Morales says. Then Victor Morales heard the call that fewer and fewer Americans are heeding: “Why not me?” He wondered, “Why not a schoolteacher?” Two other factors gave him hope: First, an unknown named Gary Espinosa had polled 230,000 votes against Ann Richards’ 800,000 in the last Democratic primary; second was a hunch that conventional wisdom can cut both ways. Politicos have long assumed that in a race with two minorities and an Anglo, the minority vote gets split between the minority candidates and the Anglo wins; in the 1996 Democratic primary, Morales assumed that candidates John Bryant, Jim Chapman, and John Odam would divide the Anglo vote. “The leadership,” Morales says slyly, “is never as smart as they think they are.”
I CAN’T GET THE TRUCK UP THERE. It’ll mess up my insides,” Morales grouses as Minh directs the candidate over a curb at UT-Arlington. Morales finally capitulates and drives over the sidewalk toward a group of about one hundred students wielding anti-Gramm placards. The leaders of the rally direct him to keep driving until he is at the center of the crowd; the truck, of course, has become a critical part of the act.
Morales does not have a speech prepared. “I’ve never written a thing down in eleven months,” he says. “It’s, like, ‘Live, it’s Saturday night!’” Even so, his opening remarks reveal a natural ability to satisfy the demands of anti-Washington voters—their distrust of established politicians—while speaking to the dreams of Mexican Americans, who sense that Morales has a chance to be the state’s first Hispanic senator. “My feeling was, as long as I had twelve bucks for gas, I would be all right,” Morales tells the crowd, describing his campaign’s early days. “I would ask people, ‘Share a taquito with me.’” Looking toward Washington he then says, “I want to teach but also to learn. But I won’t be an ambiache, a kiss-up.”
The question and answer session that follows has a desultory, obligatory feel, though Morales’ answers show some mastery over the thirty-second soundbite. Affirmative action, one of Gramm’s targets? “It’s not time to get rid of it yet.” Abortion? Morales is pro-choice but thinks there are too many abortions. Welfare cuts? Don’t confuse poor people with crooks. “That [Reagan administration] HUD scandal was big shots takin’ kickbacks.” Stricter immigration laws? “My grandparents came from Monterrey, Mexico. Let’s face it. A lot of people are coming because we’re hirin’ ’em.” A question about reducing the national debt, however, stops him cold. “Here we go,” Morales says. “I don’t know.” Instead of provoking derision in the crowd, Morales’ reply is met with slightly self-conscious cheers.
My Library
