24 Hopefuls Chase Texas Senate Seat; Free-for-All to Get Freer if Two Survive

The most pressing question to be answered in Saturday’s U.S. Senate election is who will come in second.

Robert Krueger, the newly installed, Shakespeare-quoting Democratic appointee is virtually assured of coming in first. And once there is a second-place finisher, the real contest begins.

Confusing? Perhaps. But that is sometimes the way of Texas politics. This particular scenario has not been played out since 1961, when Lyndon B. Johnson resigned his Senate seat to become vice president and a swarm of candidates battled to take his place.

Because of Texas’ odd electoral laws, the contest to claim the seat vacated by now-Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen has been a free-for-all, with a total of 24 candidates running in a wide-open contest to see who will finish in the top two spots. And those two, regardless of political party, will then square off for another special election to see who claims the Senate seat.

Thus far, interest shown by the electorate has been close to nil. But both political parties see the race as a critical contest. The Democrats fear this could be the first time in modern history that Texas is represented by two Republicans. When Johnson resigned in 1961, the Democratic Party so splintered that John Tower became the first Republican to represent Texas in the Senate since the days of Reconstruction. Now, since the other U.S. senator from Texas is Republican Phil Gramm, the Democrats want to keep Bentsen’s former seat at all costs.

And the Republicans see that a victory here would be a major jump-start for the 1994 elections, halfway through President Clinton’s first term.

Krueger, who was appointed by Gov. Ann Richards last January after much hand-wringing, has consistently held a lead of about 30% in the polls. But political experts in the state say it will be almost impossible for the former Texas railroad commissioner--often labeled as smart, dedicated and dull--to pull in the 50% of the vote needed for an outright victory.

So interest in this first go-around has focused on the front-runners for the No. 2 slot, which include a Republican state treasurer, two Republican congressmen and a Democratic millionaire who was an adviser to Ross Perot in his run for the presidency.

Of those four, the spotlight has focused most harshly on state Treasurer Kay Bailey Hutchison, the front-runner for second place by virtue of her being the only other candidate besides Krueger with statewide name recognition. Within the last two weeks, though, she has come under fire because of stories that she struck and pinched her employees in the treasurer’s office.

One of those who issued the charge was Sharon Ammann, the daughter of former Texas Gov. John B. Connally, who said Hutchison hit her repeatedly when she failed to look up a telephone number quickly enough. Hutchison has denied any misconduct, accusing the two Republican congressmen who are candidates--Jack Fields and Joe Barton--of promoting the stories. Both men have denied it.

If polls are to be believed, “Slapgate,” as it has been dubbed, has done little to hurt Hutchison. A Houston Chronicle poll on Wednesday had her solidly in second place with 19% of the vote, but far from Krueger’s 26%.

For their parts, Fields and Barton have taken stances to the right of Hutchison and, like all the candidates, with an eye toward the power of the Perot message that the federal budget is out of control and must be fixed quickly. Fields, for instance, calls for spending cuts in Washington as if he has not been a part of the political Establishment since 1980.

Barton has gone even further right, making gays in the military one of his major campaign issues. His ads claim that Krueger favors admitting gays into the military and say that would lead to soldiers sleeping in the “same bunks” as homosexuals.

Rounding out the field is conservative Democrat Richard Fisher, a Dallas millionaire who was an adviser to Perot but who has not been endorsed by him. Fisher has spent more than $2 million on ads to increase his name recognition and may at least be a spoiler in the race.

“Fisher is the wild card in all this,” said political pollster Richard Murray.

George Christian, a longtime political analyst and former press secretary in the Johnson Administration, said the race is not so much a referendum for Clinton as a case of good old hardball Texas politics. He said the runoff--the date of which has not been set--is sure to be well-funded, well-organized and as scathing as other races have been in Texas history.

“It may be the last guy standing who wins,” he said.

Even then, there is more to come. Whoever wins must run again in 1994.