THE SCHOOLTEACHER AND GOLIATH

Victor Morales is tired.

Bone-tired, flat-out tired. You can see it in the new lines being etched onto his hawkish, handsome 46-year-old face, in the shade that falls over his dark eyes in his 16th month of running for a U.S. Senate seat against unfathomable odds; you can hear it in the weariness with which he answers the phone in his room at the Best Western motel in San Angelo, a stopover on his 10-day campaign swing through the drought-stricken ranching and farming country of West Texas.

“What time is it?” he asks, still groggy.

“It’s 8:30,” I say. “You’re missing the old farts’ meeting down in the coffee shop.”

On my earlier foray into the restaurant, the elderly waitress called me “honey.” Out of habit, I called her “ma’am,” though I am 50 myself. A dozen gray-haired men, their straw cowboy hats decorously beside them, sat together jawboning over their morning coffee--an identical version of the bunch that used to congregate at the corner drugstore in the little town where I grew up not far from here. It was the kind of gathering that Morales rarely passes up. But today he’s dragging.

“I can’t sleep,” explains the Democratic schoolteacher who has put 70,000 miles on his white pickup truck in search of votes. “I get so revved up, I can’t go to sleep before 4 a.m. I’m just lying there thinking.” He takes a long deep breath and lets it out. “It’s like--what next?” he says.

Political analysts believe they know exactly what’s next: On Nov. 5, Victor Morales, America’s most unlikely Senate candidate of the decade, will be defeated by the formidable Sen. Phil Gramm, an 18-year veteran of Congress with bottomless pockets and a smooth-running organization. Gramm, still smarting from his dismal showing in the GOP presidential primaries, has already raised $5 million. Morales has managed about $400,000, primarily in small donations of less than $100. (He refuses contributions from political action committees.) A Labor Day poll commissioned by the Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle indicated that Morales was gaining on Gramm but was still trailing, 39% to 50%.

“Morales is not gonna make it,” predicts a well-known political consultant who prefers anonymity. “He’s not gonna be close. The modern political campaign today is a multimillion-dollar process.” Morales lacks not only the funds to mount a big-league campaign, the consultant says, but also the wisdom to realize he needs expert help. “He has all the vanities of the fool and all the Latino arrogance of the political virgin.” And this is a Democrat talking.

But if conventional wisdom were always correct, Morales would still be teaching civics at Poteet High School in a Dallas suburb. Instead, he’s starring in the real-life version of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” With no organization, advisors or connections and almost no money, Morales stepped up to challenge Gramm while experienced Democratic politicians hung back. “They were scared of his money,” Morales says. By the time others filed, Morales was already on the road, campaigning from his white Nissan pickup.

Last April he defeated all three opponents, including two congressmen, to win the Democratic nomination. He became the Populist poster boy, getting written up in newspapers and magazines across the country and appearing on NBC’s “Today” and CNN. He got a prime-time speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention, where he delivered with startling aplomb one of his signature lines, a salute to Jacksonian democracy, if not conventional wisdom: “And for those who still question the right of an everyday working person to be a United States senator, I say ‘y por que no?’--’and why not?’ ”

He concluded by holding aloft a stone and a slingshot--the instruments of David against Goliath--as delegates whooped. “They loved it,” says Steve Jarding, communications director for the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee. “He clearly is the good story in 1996.”

Morales is often compared to liberal Democrats Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, Patty Murray of Washington and Russell Feingold of Wisconsin--erstwhile underdogs now serving their first terms in the Senate. Each of their campaigns also had a well-publicized image or gimmick: Wellstone traveled in a converted school bus; Feingold used funny ads in the style of the documentary “Roger & Me,” and Murray campaigned as a no-nonsense mom in tennis shoes. Though billed as newcomers, they were not political neophytes. Feingold and Murray had been state legislators; Wellstone was a member of the Democratic National Committee and chaired Jesse Jackson’s 1988 campaign in Minnesota.

Morales is a different story. For starters, he’s a Mexican American in a state that has never elected a Latino to the Senate. He’s been a schoolteacher and coach for 18 years. Except for a single two-year term on the city council of Crandall, a small community where he lives with his wife, Dani, and two young children, he has no political experience. Also no strategists, no speech writer, no campaign manager. Forget focus groups, forget polls, forget “bounce” and the obsession with spin that dominates “Primary Colors.” No one can recall ever having seen a campaign like the one Morales has waged during the past 16 months.

“A lot of times I hear people say, ‘I’m running a race just like yours, Victor,’ ” Morales says. “Aw, man, everybody I’ve met that runs a grass-roots campaign has a steering committee, has tried to get the backing of some local big shot. Everybody I know. I had none of that. No, just me. I’m very proud of that.”

Just me. Regardless of what you’ve heard, politics is not really a lonely business. It is more often a crowded one, conducted amid jostling packs of helpers, planners, plotters, confidants, hangers-on. Morales has run his race the way he used to train as a distance runner in high school--alone. Just the man and las ganas--the intense desire to see it through.

“It’s romantic and it’s naive, but it’s worked,” says 27-year-old campaign coordinator Greg Weiner, who was on Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey’s staff before coming to work for Morales after the primary. “Every question that has been asked--How can you do this without polls? Without image consultants? Without $10 million in TV ads?--we have a very simple answer for that. He already did. There’s no better proof than what the voters said in April. All the money and all those things that go along with it aren’t as important as this, democracy in its simplest form.”

According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, the average Senate hopeful spent $4.6 million to get elected in 1994 and will spend more this year, mostly for TV advertising. Gramm, who poured $16 million into his unsuccessful quest for the presidency and nearly $10 million into each of his two previous Senate races, has declared that he needs $12 million to combat the “free media coverage” that has been “showered” on his opponent.

It was widely reported that Morales spent $50,000 to gain the Democratic nomination, but that figure included the teaching salary he lost during the campaign. The real sum was actually closer to $15,000, according to his treasurer, Susan Hays. That’s beyond shoestring--it’s unheard of.

“I’m not naive,” Morales insists. “I’m still learning. But in terms of the general picture, I know what I’m doing. I know how the world works. I just said I was gonna do it my way--and see how far I go.”

*

IT’S NOON ON A FRIDAY AND THE AMERICAN LEGION HALL IN MINERAL WELLS is overflowing with people of all ages who have turned out to see Morales on the first stop of his 28-city West Texas tour. They’re dressed nicely, as if for church. The children are behaving. Beneath revolving ceiling fans, cameramen from two TV stations and a Japanese film crew are setting up.

Delores Rodriquez, a beautician and city councilwoman in nearby Millsap, personally distributed 700 leaflets advertising this gathering, and it was announced at a Spanish Mass by the local priest, but only a few brown faces (and fewer black ones) are in the crowd. “‘I think you’ll be surprised by how many Hispanics will be out to vote,” Rodriquez says. More than 1.5 million Latinos are now registered to vote in Texas, surpassing the goal set by the Southwest Voter Registration Project this year and bolstering Democratic hopes, since Democrats usually receive 75% of the Hispanic vote.

County attorney Phil Garrett, a lifetime resident, explains that Palo Pinto County (population 25,000) is one of the few remaining “yellow dog Democrat” counties in the state. (The term refers to a Democrat who’d sooner vote for a yellow dog than a Republican.) The last GOP presidential candidate to carry Palo Pinto County was Eisenhower, Garrett says. This county returned to the Democratic fold, but others didn’t; Texas now has two Republican senators and a Republican governor and hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 20 years.

When Morales gets up to speak, he seems taller than his 5-foot, 7-inch height. He is an accomplished dancer--he used to moonlight as an instructor and met his wife at a dance studio--and he carries himself with confidence. “They said without money, without power brokers, there was just no way for this to happen,” Morales begins, spreading his arms wide, his expressive mouth cracking into an ironic grin. “And here I am.”

His stump speech is a template for each one that will follow on this trip and is similar to those that preceded it. He uses no notes. To the chagrin of his staff--he actually has a staff now, consisting of seven or eight people working for modest salaries--he refuses to tailor the content to his audience. “I don’t play those games,” he says dismissively. Many farmers are unhappy that Gramm missed a crucial vote on the farm bill, but here in farming country, Morales doesn’t bring it up.

Instead he ticks off his positions on immigration (he objects to laws penalizing the children of illegal aliens), abortion (he favors abortion rights), gun control (he supports the Brady Bill), campaign reform (he would have voted for it), affirmative action (for it) and universal health care (yes on that, too). Though Morales calls himself a moderate, in Texas his views translate as frankly liberal. “I’m very concerned about the many people who need help--who, in my opinion, the United States government and city and state governments have a responsibility to help. Twice, the U.S. government has helped me in times of need. Once, after my dad left our family and we needed food stamps, the government helped us to eat. No one else did. The other time was the GI Bill [Morales is a Vietnam veteran], and they helped with my education. There are some people that tend to forget when the government helps them. We all know there are problems, but there’s nothing wrong with the government. It’s just certain people in government, and we have the power to remove them.”

Morales freely admits--too freely for his critics--that he is not well-versed on the intricacies of many policy issues. Most listeners don’t seem to care. Referring to himself in the third person, as he frequently does, he says: “Victor Morales has been criticized for not having the answer to Social Security. You see anybody else who does?” The crowd laughs. “I need to study that. Then I’ll decide. I can’t do that driving around Texas in my pickup truck.”

His liberal views apparently don’t faze the man standing next to me, who applauds once or twice. His name is Bill Ralph; he’s 51 years old and in charge of maintenance for the Mineral Wells school district. Ralph is irritated with the way Republicans handled the budget crisis--”I don’t believe they tried to work with the president”--and plans to vote a straight Democratic ticket for the first time in his life. “People are tired of what’s been going on in Washington,” he says.

As the crowd thins out, dozens of people press forward to meet the candidate. The first to reach him are Anglos and local politicos, who briskly shake his hand. This is the point at which most politicians take their leave, but Morales stays, meeting everyone. The last to come up are the Latinos, bearing cameras. They take his picture with their daughters, their wives, their husbands. They linger, talking. They reach out and touch his sleeve. Later, when he has finally detached himself and gotten into the truck, I look back at the Legion Hall. They’re still watching.

*

OUTSIDE THE EASTLAND COUNTY COURTHOUSE, ABOUT 25 PEOPLE are gathered to hear Morales speak; it’s the smallest rally of the day. Clouds trying to rain hover above us, and the big pecan trees droop in the hot, heavy air. Standing on the courthouse steps, Minh Huynh drains a cold can of Dr. Pepper. “Best Dr. Pepper I’ve ever had,” he says with a satisfied grin.

The cheerful Minh, 24, is the senior member of what could be called Morales’ children’s crusade. The son of Vietnamese immigrants, he attended Poteet High School, where Morales was his government teacher. Many students over the years told Morales he should run for political office, but it was Minh who promised to help out if he did. Last January, Minh dropped out of college to make good on that promise, working for free for the first five months. He knew nothing about politics but learned fast. “I thought, like, he’d run for the city council someday. I never thought this.”

We’re shed of the Japanese film crew, which disappeared yesterday, as fast and mysteriously as it came, in a Lincoln Continental. Also the other TV types. It’s just me, Morales and the kids now, driving two-lane roads through the little towns of my youth--Brady, Ballinger, Brownwood, where I was born--heading deeper into the drought that has parched the western half of the state. Out here, the countryside is deceptively green, the weeds and grass and greedy mesquite fed by spotty showers that moisten the topsoil. But the plows bring up dust too dry to plant.

Driving the pickup behind the kids, who are in a rented minivan, Morales is intent on telling me the story of his remarkable campaign. “I’ve always disliked Phil Gramm intensely. Not because he’s Republican. Not because he’s pulling for the conservatives. Because that man is just an egotistical, arrogant, self-centered, closed-minded . . . I’ll stop there. I’ve seen people like him. They think they know it all. And they are so ignorant of real life.”

He started with $8,000 in savings and a promise to his wife that he’d not borrow a dollar more. He hasn’t. “When it runs out,” he says, “I’ll walk.”

He was rebuffed by the Mexican American and Anglo Democratic establishments; even the liberal Texas Observer, champion of lost causes, ignored him. When the State Democratic Executive Committee failed to ask him to attend its candidate forum, he showed up anyway. He made his own phone calls, licked his own stamps. His wife, a hospital administrator, handled the few donations that dribbled in. Their children traced his travels on a map of Texas on the kitchen wall. (An older son from Morales’ first marriage is with the U.S. Army in Germany.) Slowly--with a column here, a local radio or TV story there--word of his quixotic candidacy got out.

In an age of widespread disgust with politicians, Morales was the ultimate outsider, one whose very presence upset the established order. People liked his guts, his sincerity. “They’re crying for that, they’re dying for that. That’s what I want, too,” he says. Politicos, however, wanted more conventional currency. Recalls Morales: “It frustrated me so much to hear people talk about the money, the money. I went to see a state representative, and he said, ‘How much money do you have?’ First thing he said. Not a single congressman, state representative, state senator, county judge--nobody was giving me the time of day. But all that did was fire me up.”

In the town of Brady, we pull up at another courthouse square shaded by ubiquitous pecan trees. This is McCulloch County, the geographical center of Texas. Despite its long Democratic tradition, this county, like Eastland, votes Republican in statewide races. The people gathered to hear Morales are overwhelmingly Anglo and elderly; many of their questions reveal worries about immigration. Since 1980, the Hispanic population in McCulloch County has increased by 50% while Anglo population has dropped. Statistics from nearby counties reflect the same trend; some are nearly 40% Hispanic. In the rural heart of the state a transformation is taking place, and people here are uneasy.

“There’s a little friction, no violence; it’s mostly just talk. You grow up singing ‘Ring Around the Roses,’ you grow up thinking ‘wetbacks will be the end of us,’ ” says Virginia Gray as she waits to meet Morales. She’s a former social worker who’s worried about the effect of welfare reforms on struggling single mothers. Her own adult children, she sighs, “are yuppies and Republicans. I don’t know--the good life hit them young.”

Seventy miles down the road, there occurs one of those illuminating moments that can still happen in an unscripted political campaign. Inside the beautifully restored Carnegie Library in Ballinger, Morales is confronted by James Studer, a prominent local businessman and an opponent of abortion rights, who has erected a large cross on the outskirts of town. Studer disagrees with Morales’ view that abortion is an issue best left “between a woman and God.” Back and forth they go, Studer relentless, Morales resolute.

Later a plastic gas can is passed around for donations (Morales’ “gas money”), and someone teases Studer to contribute. Slowly he opens his wallet, withdraws a crisp $100 bill and drops it in. Why? “So he can do what he’s doing,” Studer says. “I don’t want this to be a rich man’s government. We need the diversity, I guess.” But will he vote for Morales? He reflects for a moment. “Maybe a moderate is OK.”

We step out of the library into a brief shower. “Everywhere I go, I bring the rain,” Morales says. “Maybe God is raining on your parade,” Studer retorts. But he’s smiling. “Vaya con Dios,” he says.

*

AS THE ELECTION NEARS, THE polls point up Morales’ dilemma. If he can trim Gramm’s lead in the polls to eight points or less in October, he could get up to $1.6 million from the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee--money the DSCC is holding back for races it feels Democrats can win. The only way to boost his numbers is with TV advertising, but he needs DSCC money to buy enough of it. Texas is an expensive, complex state in which to run for office. There are 27 media markets scattered across 260,000 square miles and regions more culturally and demographically different from one another than, say, Illinois and Iowa.

Morales won the nomination on the rising tide of Hispanic voting strength. An estimated 47.5% of the 897,000 votes in the Democratic primary were cast by voters with Spanish surnames, according to Dan Weiser, a demographic analyst. Nearly 90% voted for Morales. Most of the Anglo and black vote was split among the three Anglo candidates. “There’s been a lot of growth here,” Weiser says, “but we didn’t see the tremendous Hispanic presence in the primary until this time.” But that presence will be diluted in November, when up to 6 million people go to the polls.

To be elected, Morales must first inspire an unprecedented turnout (75%, versus the average of of 53%) among the Hispanic voters in Texas, and he must also attract 40% of the Anglo vote. That’s more than the popular former governor, Ann Richards, got two years ago when she lost to George W. Bush Jr.

However, there is a scenario for another Democrat, Bill Clinton, to wrest a surprise victory in Texas, thanks at least in part to the large number of Hispanic votes that Morales is expected to generate.

By the year 2000, Hispanics, African Americans and other minorities will constitute 45% of the Texas population; by 2010, Anglos may no longer be a majority. Next to blacks, Hispanics are the Democrats’ most reliable voters and largest growth segment, “the hope of the Democratic Party in Texas,” says George Christian, former press secretary to Lyndon B. Johnson.

“We should be 12% of the total votes cast in California this year; we’re talking about 1.5 million votes,” says Antonio Gonzalez, president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project in Los Angeles. “We’ve been at 15% in Texas; we’re moving up. We used to be a swing vote. Now we’re shifting to a base vote.”

And Morales? “Victor’s not a flash in the pan,” Gonzalez says. “He’s the first of a whole new school. What Morales represents is a new reality in Texas politics--that Latinos will dominate the Democratic primary. It will change Texas politics forever.”

*

IN SAN ANGELO, A PICTURESQUE town on the Concho River, a party for Morales is underway at a restaurant called Mejor Que Nada. The band is playing on the patio, fajitas are sizzling and southeasterly gusts of wind have lifted the blanket of heat off the evening.

For the first time on this trip, I’m surrounded by Hispanics. At my table are Pete Chapa, a barber whose son works for Goldman Sachs in New York; Joe Holquin, a city councilman; Manuel Lujan, dean of admissions at Angelo State University, and the restaurant’s owner, Ray Zapata, who went to law school at the University of Michigan. In San Angelo, the assimilation of Hispanics into middle-class American culture is complete.

“The Mexicans in Texas are quintessential Americans,” says Rodolfo de la Garza, a University of Texas government professor who specializes in Latino politics. “They’ve fought here for their claim for 150 years. They can’t be Mexicans. What else can they be?”

And Morales, who quotes John Donne on the campaign trail, whose Western dancing would put most cowboys to shame, personifies the striving, cross-cultural Everyman. Says De la Garza: “Victor is what most Mexican Americans of his generation want to be. He represents the successful dream of the working-class generation: to go to college, get a degree, have a profession, be somebody.”

On the morning I check out of the motel, I glance into the coffee shop. Sure enough, Morales is giving his spiel to the same group of old men I’d seen at breakfast. His back is stiffly erect in a fresh white shirt laundered by Bastardo’s wife, his voice strong again, with none of the weariness that flattened it when we spoke on the phone.

As he leaves, I ask how it went. Maybe six or seven seemed interested; maybe four or five were potential voters, he figures.

“Only 5,000 more to go,” I say.

He smiles. “Don’t be like that. You gotta think positive.” The kids are waiting in the van and pickup, and he turns to go. He’s almost out the door of the motel before he suddenly comes back and shakes my hand.

“Good luck,” I say--an echo of the sentiment I’ve already heard countless times. Wishing Morales luck has become so commonplace it no longer implies partisanship.

For if he wins in November, political scientists will spend years figuring out how it happened. And if he doesn’t? “My mind is not concerned with winning,” he says. “It never could be. It was about making my statement.”

It’s the same message of empowerment he used to give his students, and the same one he carried to West Texas: that ordinary people can make a difference. “We are the strength of this country--the everyday working people,” he told a cheering crowd in Abilene. “We have proved in a big way that we can do it if we want.”