A Campaign With Shades of Forrest Gump

It didn’t start as a gimmick, this dinky Nissan pickup that Victor Morales hopes to drive right into the U.S. Senate.

A high school civics teacher on the political lark of a lifetime, he could afford no other vehicle for spreading his populist gospel, putting on 60,000 miles so far in the Democratic race to unseat Republican incumbent Phil Gramm.

“Believe me, it wasn’t for sympathy or symbolism,” said Morales, his windshield wipers battling a Central Texas rainstorm last week on the road from Waco to Austin.

But somewhere along the way, between the Dairy Queens and the Stop N Go’s that sustain him, the 46-year-old neophyte became Everyman in a truck. Virtually unknown, unfunded and untested, he barnstormed like Forrest Gump on a cross-country marathon, winning over voters with his seemingly naive disregard for the norms of modern campaigning and his disarmingly humble appeals for another $12 to fill the tank.

“If people like the truck, so be it,” said Morales, who serves as his own campaign manager, treasurer, scheduler and receptionist. “It’s not fake. It’s me.”

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Riding a wave of underdog sentiment--as well as Latino pride and, perhaps, some confusion with Texas Atty. Gen. Dan Morales--Victor Morales scored a stunning upset in last month’s Democratic primary, topping the field with 36% of the vote. Suddenly he has become that most unusual of species in American politics--the little guy who actually won--and even though he still faces an April 9 runoff against veteran Rep. John Bryant, who came in second with 30%, his story has clearly caught on here.

Although neither Democrat is given much chance of toppling Gramm in November, pundits say, Morales could prove to be the more vexing opponent. Unlike Bryant, a career politician who has received most of the race’s major endorsements, Morales is the rare contender who can truly boast of being an outsider--and who didn’t spend millions to make that claim.

“Everything that you would normally consider a weakness--lack of experience, inability to raise funds--is actually part of his strength,” said Bill Miller, an Austin consultant who has worked for both parties. “He’s the quintessential American in a lot of ways.”

On a recent three-day road trip, during which he allowed a reporter to ride at his side, it was easy to catch the spirit of Morales’ quixotic campaign. Genial and unself-consciously candid, he believes that he can win by virtue of being “a normal guy,” a middle-class taxpayer and third-generation Mexican American “who doesn’t kiss up and who doesn’t lie.”

He stumped for votes at a Tejano dance hall in Waco and a University of Texas cafeteria in Austin, greeting people every day in the same wrinkled pinstripe suit. At a news conference, he announced his intention to reject all PAC money--not that any had come in. While refueling at an Exxon station, he took time to chat with the owner, flashing a broad smile that filled his cheeks with craggy dimples.

“I’m honored,” the Exxon man said.

“I’m honored you let me gas up here,” Morales replied.

When a film student asked to shoot some footage of him walking down the state Capitol steps, Morales hammed it up, playing to the camera with a mock, self-important voice: “Well, the, uh, Senate bill that I’m considering is, uh, quite difficult to ascertain.”

A state trooper spotted him and waved a thumbs-up sign. “My wife’s a teacher,” the officer explained.

“I think I give people hope,” said Morales, who is on leave from his $35,000-a-year job at Poteet High School in the Dallas suburb of Mesquite. “Not that I’m going to bring answers, not that I know all the issues--but that I’m sincere, that I don’t owe favors, that I’m going to be who I am.”

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If that homespun charm has catapulted Morales into the race, it has also begun to wear a little thin as the runoff approaches. When asked to define his position on, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement or Social Security, Morales can sound surprisingly uninformed. When pushed on the question of federal funding for abortions, he admits he is too personally conflicted to decide. “If I had to vote on that right now, I’d go nuts,” he said.

Some have found that candor invigorating, mirroring their own internal debates. Certainly, they insist, it is far better to confess ignorance than to profess false knowledge. “I haven’t heard anything so far that I don’t agree with, including his ‘I don’t know’ answers,” said a caller to KVET-AM in Austin, where he spent more than an hour fielding questions.

But others, even those who say they are intrigued by his candidacy, sometimes find themselves exasperated. When Morales waffled on the abortion issue during his radio appearance, another caller lost her patience: “People have been asked to vote on it before,” she snapped. “It’s a pretty simple question.”

At the University of Texas, a 21-year-old government major named Matt Miller asked Morales about balancing the federal budget. He responded with a vague reference to cuts in tobacco subsidies and space exploration before finally admitting that he was unprepared to outline a plan.

“So, you don’t really know?” the student asked incredulously. “I mean, with all due respect.”

“It depends what you’re saying I don’t know,” Morales retorted on another occasion. “There’s 535 guys in Washington--with all their knowledge and expertise and staff--and they still don’t have any solutions.”

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By any conventional standard, of course, Morales shouldn’t have made it this far. The eldest child of an itinerant carpenter and a motel maid grew up in the South Texas town of Pleasanton, enduring an adolescence that saw his father abandon the family and his mother apply for welfare.

After serving two years in the Navy during the Vietnam War, Morales graduated with a degree in education from Texas A&I; in rural Kingsville, launching a career in the public schools that has spanned the last 18 years. At Poteet High, he is one of the few minority instructors in a mostly Anglo and conservative district, where his ebullience is credited with scaling almost any barrier.

“You may not always agree with him,” Principal Lanny Frasier said, “but Victor’s personality is such that you’re going to like him.”

Although he has taught civics the last several years, Morales concedes that his own political awakening came rather late in life. He did not vote until he was 27. He has held only one elected position--a two-year term on the City Council in Crandall (population 1,776)--that expires next month.

By his own reckoning, he was drawn into the Senate race by Gramm, whose reputation for big money, realpolitik and deal-making offended Morales’ idealistic notions of government.

After consulting with his wife, Dani, a hospital risk-manager, he withdrew $8,000 of their life savings last summer and drove his white 1992 Nissan into the history books.

Since then, he estimates he has raised between $30,000 and $40,000, with no single contribution larger than $500. He says all of it has gone toward his travel expenses--fast-food lunches, Motel 6 accommodations--with nothing left over for advertising and staff.

His finances, however, have been coming under greater scrutiny in recent weeks. Despite federal requirements, he has failed to report any of his campaign contributions, claiming his frenzied pace on the road has left him no time. His wife also is in default for a $27,000 student loan, although she has been seeking a hardship waiver and the matter is not yet resolved.

Bryant’s campaign, which has raised more than $400,000, is not amused by Morales’ sloppy bookkeeping. “It’s no longer cute,” said Bryant’s press secretary, Margaret Justus. “It’s breaking the law.”

Gramm, even after his failed presidential bid, has about $3.5 million in the bank.

“I’ve never lost sight of what a humongous jump this is,” said Morales, maneuvering north on Interstate 35 as stacks of newspapers slide precariously back and forth across his dashboard. “But ordinary people like myself need to be allowed to dream. Maybe the next guy won’t have to be a novelty to get noticed.”

A short while later, his cellular phone rang, a radio talk show from San Antonio on the line. Worried about the cost of a long-distance conversation, Morales asked if he could call back. Then he pulled up to a Dairy Queen and dialed collect from a pay phone, making his case to become Texas’ next U.S. senator as he shivered in the morning cold.