Neophyte Wins Texas Senate Nomination

Writing another chapter in his political fairy tale, high school civics teacher Victor Morales won a close runoff Tuesday for the Texas Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate, a Cinderella showing for a low-budget neophyte who put 60,000 miles on his Nissan pickup barnstorming the state.

Morales’ victory, a 51%-49% win over veteran Rep. John Bryant, sets up one of the most improbable David-and-Goliath showdowns of the 1996 political season: a genial, self-described “normal guy” versus Republican incumbent Phil Gramm, one of Washington’s best-funded, hardest-nosed power brokers.

While Democratic strategists focused on the Senate race, state and national Republican officials were embarrassed by the results of another runoff: The loss of Rep. Greg Laughlin to a former Libertarian presidential candidate who has urged the repeal of federal anti-drug laws.

Challenger Ron Paul claimed the Republican nomination in a largely rural central Texas congressional district by defeating Laughlin, 54% to 46%.

Laughlin, a conservative Democrat who made a well-publicized switch to the GOP last year, had received the full backing of Republican leaders, including House Speaker Newt Gingrich. And last week, Laughlin gained a rare endorsement from Texas resident former President George Bush.

Paul countered with endorsements by conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly and baseball great Nolan Ryan, who also helped manage his campaign. Paul, a former GOP congressman who then ran in the 1988 presidential election as a Libertarian, will face Democrat Charles “Lefty” Morris.

Even as Texans voted Tuesday, Richard Murray, a University of Houston political scientist, said: “The electorate obviously doesn’t think highly of professional politicians these days. Jerking the establishment’s tail is something a lot of voters seem to enjoy.”

The wins by Morales and Paul seemed to bear that out. “This whole thing has been an impossible dream from the very beginning,” Morales said as he celebrated his victory at an Austin restaurant. He thanked the ebullient crowd with a bilingual greeting.

“Viva la gente,” he said as his family waved miniature American flags at his side. “Long live the people.”

Morales, spurned by his party’s leadership and outspent nearly 100 to 1, stunned the pundits and delighted much of the public when he topped the field with 36% of the vote in last month’s four-way primary, forcing Tuesday’s runoff against Bryant, his own Dallas-area congressman.

Discussing his candidacy, Morales recently said: “The essence of my campaign is: I am who I am.”

He is the first minority candidate in Texas to win a U.S. Senate nomination this century.

A small-town city councilman on leave from his $35,000-a-year job at Poteet High School in the Dallas suburb of Mesquite, Morales, 46, presented himself as a simple--some might say simplistic--alternative to the traditional politician. Without a paid staff or advertising budget, he crisscrossed the state in his little white truck, spreading a populist gospel unencumbered by a voting record or ideological platform to defend.

Rep. Jim Chapman, an East Texas Democrat who finished third in last month’s Senate primary, predicted that Morales has a better shot of dethroning Gramm than Bryant would have. “He not only has a Bambi-like innocence, but he also brings the mantle of being the first Hispanic with a real chance of becoming a U.S. senator,” Chapman said. “I think that gives him enormous appeal.”

But other Democratic leaders have their doubts about Morales’ ability to go head-to-head with Gramm, who has turned his full attention to retaining his Senate seat since his bid for the GOP presidential nomination sputtered to an unexpectedly early end.

State Sen. Carlos Truan of Corpus Christi, when asked how Morales would fare against the incumbent, responded: “Do you mean before [Gramm] eats him up and spits him out?”