Friday Signpost: "I Hate Losing When We Win"
An excerpt from 1998's "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos"
Hey there, Lowdowners! Our scouring of our archives continues, and we just keep finding gem after gem that we think you’ll really enjoy. This one comes straight out of Hightower’s 1998 bestseller, and the quote most often attributed to him; in it, he shares a story of a conservative judge out in East Texas, his frustration (to put it mildly) with Bill Clinton and the “New Democrats,” and even an Abe Lincoln tidbit. Enjoy! —dz
My first grab for the gusto of Texas politics came in 1980, when I ran for an oddity of an office called the Texas Railroad Commission. Despite its quaint name, this three-member outfit has zilch to do with railroads and much to do with regulating the powerful oil industry and utilities. I ran as a consumer advocate, making me about as welcome as a tornado in a trailer park.
One day as I was campaigning in Tyler (supposedly a bastion of East Texas business-minded conservatism), I was escorted by a local supporter into the office of a county judge who was one of the area’s power brokers. “Be careful here,” my escort cautioned. “This ol’ boy is terribly conservative, so don’t dump your whole load on him.”
The judge waved me in, leaned way back in his big swivel chair, propped his feet on the edge of his long desk, clasped his hands over his chest, and almost seemed to drift off as I made my newly modulated pitch on why Texas needed me on the Railroad Commission. When I got to the punch line—usually a fulsome tirade about how the incumbents are nothing but a pack of egg-sucking dogs running side by side with the thieves they’re supposed to be watching—I went all mealy-mouthed and mumbled that maybe some of the commissioners were acting kind of in a somewhat biased fashion against us consumers.
