argumate:

prophecyformula:

prophecyformula:

Until he had run for Governor [in 1938], W. Lee [”Pappy”] O’Daniel had never had the slightest connection with politics—not as a candidate, not as a campaign worker, not even as a voter; he had never cast a ballot. He was a flour salesman and a radio announcer….

[D]oubts about Pappy’s sincerity were occasionally raised in print by commentators who noted that the first of his fervent paeans to Texas had been composed when he had hardly arrived in that state, having previously lived in Kansas, and that even now he was occasionally prone to minor errors about Texas history—such as confusing the Battle of San Jacinto with the Alamo. Those closest to him knew that his country-boy image was a pose; he was actually a business-college graduate and a businessman who dealt not just in Hillbilly Flour but in Fort Worth real estate… Intimates also had some doubts about the depth of his religious feeling; although he was constantly urging his listeners to go to church, he seldom went himself….

O’Daniel’s candidacy was not taken seriously by politicians or by the press, who noted his total lack of political experience (since he had not paid his poll tax, he was not even eligible to vote); reporters treated it as a joke, if they mentioned it at all; newspaper articles lumped this “radio entertainer” and flour salesman…with the numerous other fringe candidates who regularly people Texas politics. Then the campaign began. O’Daniel’s first rally was held in Waco. When he drove up in his red wagon, the crowd waiting for him was possibly the largest crowd in the history of Texas politics—tens of thousands of people….

To his opponents’ charge that since he had no platform, he had no reason for running, he replied that there was indeed a reason; the reason, he said, was them. The principal reason he was running, he said, was to throw them—the “professional politicians”—out of Austin….

Press and politicians had predicted that once the novelty of seeing him in person had worn of, O’Daniel’s audiences would get smaller. They got larger: crowds unprecedented in Texas politics—20,000, 30,000, 40,000—came to hear him in the cities. Crowds followed him from town to town. They barricaded the highway to force him to stop and speak to them….

According to the press, the leading candidates in the race were two of the state’s best-known politicians, onetime State Attorney General William McCraw and Colonel Ernest O. Thompson, chairman of the Railroad Commission. McCraw received 152,000 votes. Thompson got 231,000. O’Daniel got 573,000. Polling 30,000 votes more than the eleven other candidates combined, he won the Governorship without a run-off….

Almost totally ignorant of the mechanics of government, O’Daniel proved unwilling to make even a pretense of learning, passing off the most serious problems with a quip; asked once what taxes he was proposing to keep the deficit-ridden government’s head above water, he replied that “no power on earth” could make him say….

“He just got up at his rallies. and said, in effect, ‘I’m going to protect you from everything.’” And the people believed he would. In 1938, he had gotten 51 percent of the vote; in 1940, he got 53 percent, winning re-election as he had won election, by beating a field of well-known politicians without even a run-off.

The reason O’Daniel shows up in Robert Caro’s LBJ bio is that he ran against LBJ for a Senate seat in 1941. And that election was, um, kind of crazy?

To begin with, Pappy was a late entrant to the race. He declared six weeks in, after he’d personally assured Johnson that he wasn’t going to run. Unsurprisingly, Johnson was not very happy about this development. He had enough money to beat any of his other opponents, but a popular incumbent governor with his own radio show would be a challenge. And Pappy O’Daniel was a much better campaigner than LBJ.

So Johnson decided he was gonna copy Pappy’s campaign style. He hired a six-man swing ensemble, two singers, blackface comedians, dancers, a fifteen-year-old harmonica champion and “the best master of ceremonies in Texas,” and took them on tour all across the state. Also there were lotteries. (Johnson himself, in fact, was the least interesting part of his rallies—to the point that by the end of the campaign, he would hardly be mentioned in the pre-rally advertising.)

At the same time, Johnson endeavored to keep O’Daniel from campaigning. He had lobbyist connections in Austin, and these connections had some clout with most of the state legislature, and the state legislature had to pass appropriations bills before they could recess—and before the Governor could go on the road. So Johnson and his lobbyist friends had the legislature delay those bills… and then delay them again… and again.’

Johnson also deployed a stratagem to win over rabid O’Daniel fans; he asked: do you really want Pappy to go “way up there to Washington?” Or do you want him to fight for you in Austin? If you really love Pappy O’Daniel, Johnson’s men said, you should vote to keep him close to home.

Johnson also fully expected to win because he, unlike O’Daniel, had a political network in place to buy votes where there were votes to be bought. And there were a lot of places to buy votes in Texas. Johnson was right that O;Daniel couldn’t buy precincts on the scale that he himself could—but there was another force in the state that was very much in the election-buying business.

O’Daniel was “a rabid Prohibitionist,” and he’d been pushing hard-line anti-alcohol policies for most of his time as Governor. And he had a lot of power to make such policies, especially by making appointments to the state Liquor Control Board. Obviously, the beer and liquor lobby had strong incentives to get Pappy O’Daniel out of the Governor’s mansion, and the easiest way to do that would be to get him into the Senate.

This might not have been enough to put Pappy over the top, but on election night, Johnson committed an unforced error. He allowed the precincts that he’d bought and paid for to report their results early. And as the night ended, Johnson had a comfortable lead of 5000 votes over O’Daniel, with close to 95% of precincts reporting – and most of the uncounted votes were in an area that had gone strongly for a third candidate, Representative Martin Dies. But since Johnson’s votes were all in, the liquor lobbyists knew exactly how many votes Pappy O’Daniel needed to win, and they intended to get him those votes. All through the weekend, liquor lobbyists visited the county judges in the precincts that had yet to report their vote totals, and when those totals were reported, support had dramatically shifted away from Dies and to O’Daniel. When the final count was made official, Johnson was behind the Governor by just 1,311 votes.

And that is the story of how Pappy O’Daniel almost lost a Senate race because his own base voted against him, before his political enemies cheated to ensure his victory.

goodness modern politics is tame.