Less Is Mauro
Sagging polls, empty coffers, Democratic defections: It seems like it couldn’t get any worse for gubernatorial candidate Garry Mauro. So why is he having the time of his life?
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I speculate that perhaps his spirits have been rejuvenated by the trip ahead: Bill Clinton is sweeping through the Rio Grande Valley, and Mauro is going to join him. The two have been friends since they worked on another quixotic quest—George McGovern’s 1972 bid for the presidency. But as Mauro settles back into the plane’s leather seats, I begin to appreciate that his mood has a more solid foundation: He is doing what he always wanted to do. He can say what he thinks, and people have to listen. Behind the conventional good looks he harbors a technocrat’s soul; in many ways, he’s more like Al Gore than like Clinton. For the next two hours, Mauro delivers an expanded version of his stump speech to an audience that consists of his press secretary and me. He decries cynicism toward government and rails that the state should do more for the public, sounding as if he were preaching to a throng. As I listen, I realize with dawning surprise that Garry Mauro is happy. It’s not such a bad deal—running around Texas on other people’s money, traveling with the president, getting your name in the Texas Almanac for eternity. The worst he can finish is second. Ahead of him lie ten good months and just one bad day.
His ebullience fades only when I bring up Bullock’s defection. “He was someone I looked up to,” Mauro concedes. “Someone I relied on. That was disappointing.” Otherwise he shrugs off the talk at the Chili Parlor, where Austin insiders condemn him to certain failure. “Let me tell you something,” he says. “In politics, the conventional wisdom is always wrong.” And Mauro has a plan. Step 1: Raise money. Step 2: Generate press by attacking Bush on issues. Step 3: Speak to as many voters as possible. Step 4: Mount a campaign of TV advertisements. Step 5: Use his extensive connections to help get out the vote. “I have a very clear road map,” says Mauro. “It just requires execution. The hard part of this campaign is over.”
MAURO HAS ALWAYS RUN WELL IN SOUTH TEXAS, where he says his Sicilian roots help him identify with Hispanics. Before his swing through the region with President Clinton, we drive to a restaurant in McAllen for a late supper with some of the region’s power brokers. The evening provides my first look at the elaborate vote-getting apparatus that Mauro has spent the past two decades assembling. At a long table we find former congressman Kika de la Garza; State Representative Richard Raymond, who’s running to succeed Mauro as land commissioner; attorney and fundraiser David Oliveira; Ramon Garcia, the Democratic chairman of Hidalgo County; and one non-border politico, State Senator Carlos Truan of Corpus Christi. Although the ever-increasing power of the mass media has eroded their control over elections, they still wield influence here. Mauro hopes these people will execute Step 5 of his election plan and produce a big South Texas vote come November.
Mauro is greeted like family. He orders a steak. The meal is a chance to renew old bonds: After bantering with Oliveira about a case, he asks Raymond about his new baby. “Let me tell you how small the world of politics is,” Mauro says to me. “I’ve known
these guys since the late seventies.” Mauro has also gotten help from his own agency. The following day, for example, we are driven around the area by Annette Muñiz, a ten-year employee of the Land Office who has taken the day off to be at our disposal. Muñiz oversees loans to veterans in the area and describes how Mauro’s expansion of that program has won him many converts in military-oriented South Texas. “Veterans really approve of him in the Valley,” she says. “When I call on them for political things, anytime they hear the name Garry Mauro, they say, ‘Yes. Yes.’”
It is a well-oiled system, a stellar example of old-style politics—even after four years, Bush has nothing like it in place. And perhaps that’s just as well: The line that separates public business from political business is easy to cross. When Mauro ran Clinton’s campaign in Texas in 1992, he came under fire because he and nineteen employees made 1,775 politically related calls using state phones. (Mauro fully reimbursed the state $104 for the calls.) The extensive web of relationships Mauro maintains outside his agency has also entangled him in questionable behavior. Last year he was accused of cronyism for hiring Ruben Johnson, a friend and convicted felon, to run a $52 million program to build centers for disabled veterans. Aside from these kinds of moral hiccups, Mauro is widely hailed as having been a good, even visionary land commissioner—he promoted the use of alternative fuels, started a volunteer program to clean the state’s beaches, mobilized the response to oil spills, and hit up oil companies for higher lease payments. That’s the central contradiction of the man: His background contains the kind of dirty laundry you wouldn’t expect from a politician concerned with bettering the state.
Here in South Texas, anyway, politics, especially Democratic party politics, is still something ordinary people have faith in. For Bill Clinton’s visit, Mission High School is surrounded by an ocean of parked cars; in the bleachers, 18,000 Valley residents energetically wave little plastic American flags. Oblivious to the cynicism sweeping other parts of the media-weary nation, the announcer says, “Let’s give a warm welcome to the national press corps!” The assembly delivers an electric cheer. “And the Secret Service!” Another roar. Clinton seems bowled over by the crowd’s stomping response. “I’d like to thank land commissioner Garry Mauro for being here today,” he intones. Later Mauro slips away for a private talk aboard Air Force One. When I get back in the car, a cell phone rings. It’s Mauro, on board the nation’s most famous plane. “The president’s really jazzed,” he tells me, sounding jazzed himself. “He says it’s like being in Arkansas.”
“THERE’S LOTS OF TALK ABOUT HOW the Democratic party is in trouble!” cries then–party chairman Bill White to the assembled stalwarts. “But did you notice who won the Houston mayor’s race? That’s because ordinary Texans decided to get out and vote!” It’s several days after Mauro’s trip to the Valley, and he’s speaking at the State Democratic Executive Committee meeting in Austin. There’s an attempted show of unity: A man who was recently ridiculing Mauro has now plastered his suit with “Mauro for Governor” stickers. Noticeably absent, however, is state comptroller John Sharp, who’s running for lieutenant governor. Neither Sharp nor state comptroller nominee Paul Hobby has endorsed Mauro. Belatedly recognizing that the desertion of Mauro by fellow Democrats gives the impression that the party is in complete meltdown, its leaders now scurry to make much ado about Mauro’s candidacy. He’s warmly introduced as the next governor.
The room abruptly fills with brassy rhythms played at earsplitting volume. Mauro cranks up the theme from Rocky before all big speeches—another Italian American underdog—apparently unaware that music so identified with the seventies makes him appear out of step. But then Mauro confounds the room with a stem-winder of a speech. He has always been weak behind the podium—a classic policy wonk, he typically benumbs his audiences with facts and figures. Lately, though, Mauro has been working on his speechmaking with longtime friend Roy Spence, a partner in Austin’s GSD&M advertising agency. Somehow Spence has wrought a transformation: This time Mauro seamlessly subordinates numbers and definitions to his main themes. He wants to give teachers a pay raise, he wants to guarantee the residents of Texas the right to choose their own doctors, he wants to hire more cops, and he wants to repeal the tax on motor vehicles. (This helps inoculate him against the “tax-and-spend” label.) Mauro does not charm—he doesn’t reveal enough of himself to do that—but he does convince. Everyone glows at his improved performance. “We have forty-three weeks!” Mauro thunders as he wraps up. “If we talk to average families about how we can be relevant in their lives, we’ll win this election! We’ll win it walking away!”
Behind this public bravado lies another story. Inside Mauro’s campaign’s offices, the biggest issue is money. By February Bush has $13 million in his war chest; Mauro has a measly $1 million. In the weeks leading up to the March primary, the biggest priority is Step 1 of the campaign plan: raise money. Unopposed in the primary election, Mauro spends those weeks asking for donations rather than votes.
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