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Speaker 1: The Michael Berry Show. Mark White served as the governor

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Speaker 1: of Texas from nineteen eighty three to nineteen eighty seven.

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Speaker 1: Growing up in a Democrat household, Mark White was a

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Speaker 1: very Democrat.

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Speaker 2: It was a very.

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Speaker 1: Different Democrat than the Democrat Party today. He had East

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Speaker 1: Texas values. He was far more conservative than Democrats of today.

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Speaker 1: This was a period of time when a number of

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Speaker 1: Democrats in Texas were moving over to the Republican Party,

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Speaker 1: people like Rick Perry, Phil Graham among them, and at

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Speaker 1: the time the conservative Democrat was being left out. They

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Speaker 1: gravitated to the Republican Party, leaving the Democrats to be

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Speaker 1: dominated by what called themselves progressive but their left wing nuts.

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Speaker 1: And it's sort of like what happens when you had

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Speaker 1: white flight out of the urban core. White flights no

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Speaker 1: longer white flight. Now it's white flight, black flight, Hispanic flight,

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Speaker 1: Asian flight, it is blight flight. People don't want to

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Speaker 1: live in these dangerous big cities any longer. Well as

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Speaker 1: the people who care the law abiding citizens leave. They

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Speaker 1: leave people who are apartment dwellers that don't vote, and

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Speaker 1: they leave these cities to be third world countries. Because

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Speaker 1: the kind of people that get elected in municipalities, and

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Speaker 1: that just makes it worse, it exacerbates it. Well, that's

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Speaker 1: what happened with the Texas Democrat Party. When the Mark

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Speaker 1: Whites left the party, it was left to the Beto O. Rourkes,

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Speaker 1: the nut jobs. So anyway, I always had a lot

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Speaker 1: of respect for Mark White. He was a former Secretary

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Speaker 1: of State and then governor, one of the last of

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Speaker 1: the Democrat governors, and he and I sat down for

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Speaker 1: just over an hour. I have a lot of respect

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Speaker 1: for Mark White. You'll probably figure that out. Mark White

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Speaker 1: was very good to me when I was a young

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Speaker 1: professional and gave me a lot of advice. He would

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Speaker 1: take my calls. He was at a firm called Keack,

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Speaker 1: Mahan and Kate, and I would go down and visit

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Speaker 1: with him. I really looked up to him. My parents

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Speaker 1: adored him. Some of his family is buried in the

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Speaker 1: same cemetery as my mom's people up outside of Tyler,

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Speaker 1: So we just had a lot of East Texas connections,

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Speaker 1: and I always admired him. When my wife was sworn

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Speaker 1: in as Secretary of State, I invited Governor White because

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Speaker 1: he had been Secretary of State as well. I invited

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Speaker 1: all the living secretaries of State George Strake. Anyway, So

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Speaker 1: they were waiting out in the lobby and Governor Perry

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Speaker 1: had invited me and Nunditta in the kids back so

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Speaker 1: that we could walk out together. They were waiting out

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Speaker 1: in the presentation room, the ceremonial room, and they came

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Speaker 1: in and they said, Governor Perry, Governor White is here.

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Speaker 1: And he said, what's Governor White doing here? Is he

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Speaker 1: here for a meeting or no, he's here to support

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Speaker 1: Nandita for secretary of State. And he said, why didn't

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Speaker 1: you tell me? And I said, well, I didn't know

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Speaker 1: I needed to tell you I was inviting And he said,

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Speaker 1: oh my goodness. He said, do you know that the

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Speaker 1: bible that I'm going to use to swear your wife

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Speaker 1: in is the bible that was left in the Governor's

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Speaker 1: office by Mark White, his personal family bible to be

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Speaker 1: used by his successor.

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Speaker 2: Do you know that? Which was Bill.

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Speaker 1: Clements, who he had himself beat four years earlier. And

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Speaker 1: he goes, what are the chances? So he called out

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Speaker 1: to his director of Appointments, Teresa, bring me that bible.

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Speaker 1: She brought it over there. It was from Mark White.

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Speaker 1: Great story anyway, So this isn't an archive. This is

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Speaker 1: an interview I did years ago. Mark White passed away sadly,

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Speaker 1: but he to gil Or, for my money, that the

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Speaker 1: best Democrat governors, the best Democrat governor and first lady

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Speaker 1: certainly that we ever had. And I really enjoyed this conversation.

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Speaker 1: It meant a lot to me, and I hope you

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Speaker 1: enjoyed it too. Governor. Here we sit in twenty seventeen,

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Speaker 1: and I want to rewind to nineteen eighty two. I'm

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Speaker 1: going to bounce around on time a little bit with you.

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Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty two, you're elected to forty six governor state

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Speaker 1: of Texas. That same year, Anne Richards is elected the

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Speaker 1: Texas state Treasurer, and two years later state representative from Haskell, Texas,

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Speaker 1: Rick Perry is elected a Democrat as well. You three

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Speaker 1: Democrats are serving in public life. We fast forward thirty

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Speaker 1: three years later and Rick Perry is the Secretary of Energy,

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Speaker 1: a conservative Republican, having served as governor, and Richards went

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Speaker 1: on to be, in my opinion, a very different Democrat

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Speaker 1: than you as governor as well. I think the three

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Speaker 1: of you make for an interesting contrast of what a Democrat.

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Speaker 2: Was in the early to mid eighties.

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Speaker 1: How has the Democrat Party changed.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's changed more by population shifts, I think, in

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Speaker 2: some political shifts, a couple of them that are predate

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Speaker 2: my time in office. You have to almost go back

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Speaker 2: to the Civil War to understand what's happening even today

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Speaker 2: in Texas because you see the changes. And this is

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Speaker 2: the sad part too, and there's good and bad associated

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Speaker 2: with this. The thing that bothers me the most is

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Speaker 2: to see the racism that still exists in our country,

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Speaker 2: and it shouldn't be. Can you can't ignore race? I mean,

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Speaker 2: your eyes will tell you someone is of a different race.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes your ears will tell you that. But the important

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Speaker 2: thing is is how we deal with it. And I'm

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Speaker 2: very disappointed we don't deal with it the way I

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Speaker 2: think we should, and that is, you know, we all

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Speaker 2: came here from different places, but we all came here

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Speaker 2: for approximately the same reason today and the values that

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Speaker 2: we have I found in my political life, we're pretty

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Speaker 2: much the same as the Hispanic and the African American

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Speaker 2: and other people that you deal with. The new immigrants

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Speaker 2: today in Texas. It's a beautiful thing to see if

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Speaker 2: you don't object to their being here in the first place,

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Speaker 2: and so how did it change for me? You go

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Speaker 2: back and look at how we back then politically, everybody

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Speaker 2: was a Democrat because of what happened in Reconstruction. They

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Speaker 2: weren't about to be a Republican. And then you see

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Speaker 2: those shifts that have occurred for a variety of reasons,

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Speaker 2: going back to Nixon with his policies and Regging with

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Speaker 2: his policies, and how they they the Republicans went into

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Speaker 2: the South and tended to pick up those people who

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Speaker 2: were unwilling to see the shifts that came with Lennon

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Speaker 2: Johnson and civil rights. They believed in everybody's civil rights

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Speaker 2: until it turned into, oh, my gosh, you mean we're

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Speaker 2: going to have to have dinner with them. And so

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Speaker 2: there was a real reluctance among older Democrats, and there

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Speaker 2: was also an influx. She should not ignore the influx

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Speaker 2: of people. Population moves into the South from the North

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Speaker 2: of Anglos, primarily Republicans who moved south. As I've said

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Speaker 2: to some of my Democratic friends here the other day,

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Speaker 2: I said, my god, we've been guarding the wrong border.

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Speaker 2: It's not the people coming in from the South it's

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Speaker 2: costing us our election. Is those that came from California

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Speaker 2: and New York and they came down here knowing Republican

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Speaker 2: Democrats in their community, they don't want to be near them.

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Speaker 2: But we weren't the same Democrats down here in Texas

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Speaker 2: that those people that had left those other parts of

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Speaker 2: the country were. I like to refer to Texas Democrats

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Speaker 2: today as being common sense Democrats that we don't let

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Speaker 2: ideology get in the way of what works. And let

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Speaker 2: me tell you, I wish more Democrats felt that way.

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Speaker 2: I don't think we have enough of that. I think

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Speaker 2: we have too many people that are still ethnic play

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Speaker 2: the ethnic chime as being the first bell they ring

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Speaker 2: when they ought to be ringing the American bell, and

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Speaker 2: the way in which you look at this, this business

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Speaker 2: that they're here and they do they revel in the

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Speaker 2: fact that they're Americans and I'm a citizen is the

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Speaker 2: first thing that comes from their mouth. And yet they

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Speaker 2: can be proud of their heritage. I guess proud of

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Speaker 2: my English heritage. They ran me out of there a

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Speaker 2: long time ago before anybody in my lifetime remember. But

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Speaker 2: we were run off for religious reasons, not for racial reasons.

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Speaker 2: And many people in the South were we were revolutionaries.

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Speaker 1: But let's talk about the change just within the Democrat party.

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Speaker 1: And I use the examples of you, Ann Richards and

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Speaker 1: Rick Perry because y'all were in the same party in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four. Yeah, and yet you went sort of

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Speaker 1: especially two of them went two different directions. And I

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Speaker 1: sort of see your career as being a punctuation mark,

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Speaker 1: sort of like a family that's been separated, because I

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Speaker 1: see a lot of your former friends that became Republicans

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Speaker 1: and some of them that stayed back, and you're sort

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Speaker 1: of in the middle of all this.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think that's a good analysis. Anne Richards was

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Speaker 2: always viewed as a liberal Democrat. I was viewed, I

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Speaker 2: guess overwhelmingly as a conservative Democrat. And that's because you're

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Speaker 2: kind of paired up by a virtue of who your

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Speaker 2: opponent was. You get kind of tagged by that. And

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Speaker 2: so my entry into Texas politics came under an appointment,

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Speaker 2: sort of like your wife Nandida did. An appointment from

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Speaker 2: yours being Perry's appointment as governor. Mine was Governor Briscoe's appointment.

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Speaker 2: So Briscoe was viewed as the conservative Democrat who had

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Speaker 2: just been elected. He defeated a very powerful and very

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Speaker 2: close race a Republican and had defeated Ben Barnes and

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Speaker 2: Cissy Farenthal. So here he is defeated the moderate and

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Speaker 2: liberal part of the Democratic Party, and he being represented

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Speaker 2: of the Conservative Democratic Party, and he was a rancher,

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Speaker 2: and he had all those characteristics, and so I'm his appointed,

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Speaker 2: I get identified with him. We get in a race

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Speaker 2: with Price Junior. I'm identified is the conservative, he's the liberal.

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Speaker 2: And Richards, who was elected to the state Treasurer's office

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Speaker 2: when I was elected governor, she was identified much more

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Speaker 2: liberal than I. But as those years went from seventy

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Speaker 2: two three when I was appointed, up until eighty two

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Speaker 2: when I was running for governor, the Texas Party had

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Speaker 2: moved significantly by virtue of probably McGovern who just about

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Speaker 2: sunk the Democratic Party ship here in Texas. Back in

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Speaker 2: that election, it was hard for Briscoe to survive the

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Speaker 2: cover that was being flown by mcgovernor. McGovern was terribly

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Speaker 2: unpopular here and he was put into a difficult posture

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Speaker 2: of having to be a Democrat running with him as

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Speaker 2: your presidential nominee. Anyway, he won, and all the other

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Speaker 2: Democrats won, and the change though that was occurring in

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Speaker 2: Texas a lot of factors. The Republicans became energized in

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Speaker 2: trying to reorganize conservative Democrats as Republicans. They did a

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Speaker 2: marvelous job of going into rural Texas and see, this

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Speaker 2: is where today's Democrat doesn't understand. And if all you

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Speaker 2: have to do is look back in the history of

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Speaker 2: every election in Texas history since eighteen seventy six, no

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Speaker 2: governor probably before that too, even more so, but for sure,

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Speaker 2: no governor has ever been elected governor of Texas that

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Speaker 2: did not carry rural Texas. And I'm talking not South Texas.

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Speaker 2: I'm talking everything east of I thirty five and now

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Speaker 2: everything north of Interstate ten. So if a Democrat can't

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Speaker 2: carry we carried those counties today. Woo. It has been

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Speaker 2: a complete flip flop for a variety of reasons. We

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Speaker 2: started with well, actually it really started back when John Tower,

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Speaker 2: when we had a break between Stevenson and Eisenhower over

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Speaker 2: the tidelands of Texas. Is very provincial about don't mess

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Speaker 2: with Texas. That came up as my mato that was

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Speaker 2: put out when I was governor, but it predates my governorship.

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Speaker 2: Don't mess with Texas has been a mato unspoken for

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Speaker 2: years generations. Nobody don't tell Texans what to do. That

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Speaker 2: is a big mistake. I don't care which party you're in.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned John Tower. Nineteen sixty one, Tower becomes Republican

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Speaker 1: Senator of post reconstruction. This is a big deal in Texas,

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Speaker 1: and you're starting to see this Republican spread across the

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Speaker 1: South that has continued more or less throughout those years.

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Speaker 1: So Tower is the US one of the two senators.

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Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty two, when you're elected, as you know, you

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Speaker 1: are the last governor Democrat governor to have an all

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Speaker 1: statewide elected officials be Democrats. Of course the senator was Republican.

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Speaker 1: Since then only one Democrat, Governor Ann Richards. I want

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Speaker 1: to go back, and I'm not trying to get you

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Speaker 1: to beat up on Democrats or betray Democrats. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you can look at nineteen eighty with Ronald Reagan and

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Speaker 1: George H. W. Bush. The party was looking or forward

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Speaker 1: in Reagan in seventy six. The party doesn't parties have

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Speaker 1: to we only have two parties. You have to accommodate

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Speaker 1: a lot of personalities. But when I go back and look,

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Speaker 1: I see a lot of guys who you talked about,

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Speaker 1: the conservative Democrats that left. You were a reformer, but

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Speaker 1: I think you were closer to a conservative Democrat than

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Speaker 1: you were this new way progressive and Richards and the

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Speaker 1: Democrat Party didn't hold on to enough of those folks.

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Speaker 1: And you've seen it statewide after Anne Richards and with

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Speaker 1: George W. Bush in ninety four, the Democrats have just

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Speaker 1: been meeting badly. Don't you think that is a function

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Speaker 1: of the Democrat Party moving away from what was anchoring it.

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Speaker 2: Which was Yeah, exactly. We've seen that trend in place

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Speaker 2: for a variety of reasons. Some is migration, in some

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Speaker 2: is attitudes that have been there for years. Conservative Democrats

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Speaker 2: have said, you know, I'm more comfortable being a Republican

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Speaker 2: than i am with those liberal Democrats. And that's a

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Speaker 2: large measure a fault of the Democratic Party to let

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Speaker 2: this occur. But then again, your nominee gets to be

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Speaker 2: the face of the party, and if your nominee appears

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Speaker 2: to be, well, she's a liberal, pro abortion female, then

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Speaker 2: I don't to be associated with that, and they don't

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Speaker 2: listen to anything that happens after that. And so that

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Speaker 2: was a difficulty for Wendy, and it was also something

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Speaker 2: Ann Richards came along and got elected. And you know,

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Speaker 2: elections are funny things. Sometimes you win and sometimes the

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Speaker 2: other side loses. So don't attribute too much to the

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Speaker 2: current victory as being a great victory for a new

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Speaker 2: president so much as my guide did you see what

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Speaker 2: our democratic nominee failed to do. So there's a lot

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Speaker 2: of that I'd liked. I think I had the best

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Speaker 2: of both worlds. I worked hard, ran a good campaign.

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Speaker 2: Then my opponent helped me by saying a few things.

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Speaker 2: Same thing for Ann Richards, she got some help from

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Speaker 2: her opponent.

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Speaker 1: Clayton definitely did her a favorite. Yeah, let me go

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Speaker 1: back to nineteen eighty two, and as I have warned

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Speaker 1: gentlemen to bounce around when you were elected, I went

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Speaker 1: back and looked at the things that you were pushing for.

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Speaker 1: Education is how I remember you, right. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: was twelve years old when you were elected, and educated

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Speaker 1: I did. I got a great education at Orangefield High School.

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Speaker 1: I said you were the forty sixth you were the

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Speaker 1: forty third goer. Yeah, forty sixth secretary of state or

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Speaker 1: attorney general. I forget anyway. At one point earlier today.

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Speaker 1: I knew that, but one of the big pushes of

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Speaker 1: yours was improving schools. And I looked and you made

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Speaker 1: note the fact that our SAT scores, we were underperforming educationally.

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Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people bought into your

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Speaker 1: vision of here's an area of reform that everybody can

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Speaker 1: be for, and you were aggressive about it. You brought

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Speaker 1: in Ross Perot, which I'll get to in a moment.

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Speaker 1: He chaired this commission and kind of became the face

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Speaker 1: of this. But you put all your political capital into

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Speaker 1: fixing public education in Texas, and that included no pass,

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Speaker 1: no play, and some very aggressive measures, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of people, well, let me, do you feel that that

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Speaker 1: was a success.

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Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, you can see an immediate success. And this

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Speaker 2: is the reason I applaud Governor Abbot for what he's

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Speaker 2: doing in trying to accent and putting finances along with

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Speaker 2: the enterprise of early childhood development and education. He's right

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Speaker 2: on target. I mean that is that's as much a

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Speaker 2: Mark White program as it is properly so a Governor

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Speaker 2: Abbot program. And that's something we're totally united on and

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Speaker 2: we ought to be and what we ought to be doing.

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Speaker 2: And I'd be willing to go up if it would

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Speaker 2: help him, and certainly wouldn't go if it didn't to

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Speaker 2: urge every member of the legislature to support his efforts.

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Speaker 2: What we did then showed if you will put the

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Speaker 2: money on the nose of the teachers and the students

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Speaker 2: and focus on it, give them the right tools, and

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Speaker 2: hold them to high standards. In other words, we're not

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Speaker 2: just playing. There's not a playground out here unless it's

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Speaker 2: going to be used for education in advancement. The initial

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Speaker 2: reaction to everything we did because of the emphasis on

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Speaker 2: student performance back then, teacher performance instantly, instantly, within the

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Speaker 2: period of time that I serve four years and I

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Speaker 2: was only three full years of test performance, we saw

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Speaker 2: SAT scores go up dramatically. The other thing we saw,

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Speaker 2: and you've got to look at all the numbers and

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Speaker 2: all the factors. We all had more people taking the test.

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Speaker 2: You know, the smartest kids take the test, and then

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Speaker 2: you start adding the others to it, which tends to

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Speaker 2: dilute the scores. But even with a dilution of scores,

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Speaker 2: by adding thousands of more people to take, the SAT

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Speaker 2: scores went up. That's what we all want. Nobody should

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Speaker 2: be against that.

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Speaker 1: It's funny you said you'd go up for Abbott or

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Speaker 1: either way the guy you beat for Attorney General in

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Speaker 1: seventy eight, James A. Baker the Third famously said, I'll

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Speaker 1: speak for you against you, whichever one will help you

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Speaker 1: the most. But you talk about improving public education, and

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Speaker 1: I think out of a lot of good intentions came testing.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know if it went too far. I

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Speaker 1: don't know if people just don't like being measured, but

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Speaker 1: I think there is almost a unanimous opposition to the

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Speaker 1: overtesting or teaching to the test. Where if it all

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Speaker 1: did that go wrong?

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Speaker 2: Well, let me tell you. In an effort to get

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Speaker 2: the teacher pay raise, which was everybody admitted teachers were underpaid,

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Speaker 2: but nobody wants to pay teachers that aren't doing a

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Speaker 2: good job. That it makes sense either. So the legislature

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Speaker 2: more than me insisted that teachers pass a test before

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Speaker 2: they qualify for the pay raise. And so everything that

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Speaker 2: happened in that reform effort I get credit or blamed.

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Speaker 1: For, including the tax increase to pay for it, which was.

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Speaker 2: By the way, well, everything that's in the package you

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Speaker 2: get blamed for. If it works fine, if it doesn't

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Speaker 2: too bad, and everything went well until I had a

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Speaker 2: decision to make, and I didn't think very law or

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Speaker 2: heart about it. Frankly, one of my staff said, do

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Speaker 2: you want to give the teachers their pay raised now

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Speaker 2: or after they take the test? And I said, give

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Speaker 2: it to them now. They need the money now. And

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Speaker 2: they did big mistake. By the time it comes around

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Speaker 2: to taking this test that was required by the legislature

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Speaker 2: before they would pass the money to pay the teachers,

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Speaker 2: they've forgotten about it. And so here the test is

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Speaker 2: essentially a ninth grade reading comprehension test that teachers were

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Speaker 2: permitted to study for and take it twice. In other words,

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Speaker 2: you didn't make it this time, you get to one

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Speaker 2: more try. And they failed twice. Some seven or eight

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Speaker 2: thousand teachers out of two hundred thousand we had at

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Speaker 2: the time couldn't pass a ninth grade reading comprehension test.

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Speaker 2: And I suspect every one of those who didn't pass

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Speaker 2: were probably voters of mine, and they probably were disappointed

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Speaker 2: and maybe never swore never to vote for me again.

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Speaker 1: Well, in nineteen eighty six the teachers organized and.

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Speaker 2: Worked again against me because of the test.

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Speaker 1: So here we are twenty seventeen. And I don't know

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Speaker 1: what you think of Betsy de Vos, a new education secretary,

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Speaker 1: and we'll get to school choice in time. But she

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Speaker 1: shows up at a school recently and she was blocked

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Speaker 1: to get in. And it's a school that was a

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Speaker 1: failing school in the past. And nobody protested when the

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Speaker 1: school got a failing grade, but they protest when the

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Speaker 1: education secretary comes. At some point. We all know of

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Speaker 1: our teachers, but it seems like to protect a few

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Speaker 1: bad teachers, we're avoiding good education reform.

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Speaker 2: Well, let me stress and you hear the problem we

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Speaker 2: have in our society today we didn't used to have.

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Speaker 2: Is everything now is nationwide. Everything you hear in New

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Speaker 2: York is heard in Texas. May be true, maybe not.

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Speaker 2: They say, oh, the teachers unions they're killing us. Not

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Speaker 2: in Texas, we don't have teachers unions like you do

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Speaker 2: in New York or California. You have no right to strike,

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Speaker 2: you have no right to have collective bargaining. You have

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Speaker 2: the essentially the only right you have as a teacher

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Speaker 2: in Texas is in the first three years of your

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Speaker 2: contract that you can be not fired, but just let

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Speaker 2: go for no reason. Now after you've been there three years,

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Speaker 2: they have to give you a reason for your not

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Speaker 2: being rehired. But that's a big difference in having teachers

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Speaker 2: unions like you have in the North, so that they

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Speaker 2: kind of here in Texas get smeared with that truth

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Speaker 2: of the matter is good leaders in any good corporation,

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Speaker 2: notwithstanding unions, if you're doing your job right, you ought

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Speaker 2: to be able to persuade those union members if they

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Speaker 2: are non union members, that this is a good, wise

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Speaker 2: course of action. I always trying to remind people the

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Speaker 2: most highly unionized airline in America is called Southwest Airlines,

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Speaker 2: one of the great consumer oriented airlines. So it's leadership

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Speaker 2: that's critical. Leadership is everything. I don't care how you

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Speaker 2: want to how you want to put the chairs on

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Speaker 2: the deck. If you got the wrong people in the chairs,

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Speaker 2: it never will get better. So we got to get

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Speaker 2: the right people in the leadership. That's why I like

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Speaker 2: what the Habit's done on early childhood education. That's good leadership.

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Speaker 2: I disagree with him on a significant number of other things,

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Speaker 2: but that's just because he had had a chin. Sit down,

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Speaker 2: let me convince it.

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Speaker 1: Just come, let us reason together.

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Speaker 2: So that's what we need to be doing. You mentioned

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Speaker 2: Jim Baker. Jim Baker is one of the countries really

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Speaker 2: great public servants. He never won an election. I showed

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Speaker 2: him about that, but let me tell you, he didn't

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Speaker 2: let that change his commitment to public service. Thank goodness.

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Speaker 2: Jim Baker and I get along fine. He's the sort

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Speaker 2: of fellow that if all Republicans were like that, they

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Speaker 2: would be very tough for Democrats. Fortunately they aren't all

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Speaker 2: that way. And basically that's the way this old country

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Speaker 2: kind of goes like a sail boat. The wind blows

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Speaker 2: this way, and we go this way until that doesn't

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Speaker 2: turn out well, and then we come back. And so

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Speaker 2: when you see the end of the Democratic Party, but

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Speaker 2: you know, they've just announced the end of the Democratic

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Speaker 2: Party about three weeks after we had announced the end

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Speaker 2: of the Republican Party. So don't listen to these.

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Speaker 1: The end of both of them.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's scary enough, No pass, no play.

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Speaker 1: I was twelve years old and that was put into effect,

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Speaker 1: and I went back and looked at the numbers, and

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Speaker 1: Al Dean School, Eisenhower High School here in Houston, lost

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Speaker 1: ninety of their one hundred and ninety players. Case goes

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Speaker 1: all the way to the Supreme Court. But let me

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Speaker 1: go back and.

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Speaker 2: Look, no, what of those coaches were made.

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Speaker 1: Fifteen percent of all varsity football players had to sit

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Speaker 1: during the football season, and forty percent of all JV

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Speaker 1: and freshman players were benched the first semester the rule

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Speaker 1: went into effect. High school football is a big deal

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Speaker 1: in Texas. A tross Perot said, if the people of

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Speaker 1: Texas want Friday night entertainment instead of education, let's find

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Speaker 1: out about it. Easy for him to say, people of

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Speaker 1: Texas want Friday night entertainment instead of education.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they did, and let me tell you we can

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Speaker 2: have both. And that's a mistake I made. I will

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Speaker 2: have to admit to being a little hard headed. Once

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Speaker 2: we set a standard of six weeks of sitting out

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Speaker 2: until you got your grades back up to a CEA

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Speaker 2: before you could go back and play, they offered up

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Speaker 2: the medium ground of three weeks of sitting it out,

434
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 2: and they made their position clear to me, and I've

435
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:22,240
Speaker 2: listened to them and I rejected it. I shouldn't have

436
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 2: big mistake on my part. I was fearful though of this.

437
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 2: I was afraid that if we gave back on any

438
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 2: portion of it. It would be not only a sign

439
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:35,439
Speaker 2: of weakness, but it would be more importantly unraveling of

440
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:39,200
Speaker 2: the reforms, which I didn't want to see. But we've

441
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 2: seen since then they did roll it back. I think

442
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:45,480
Speaker 2: now that three weeks of sitting out works fine. There's

443
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 2: too many ways to get around this rule, which is

444
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 2: too bad. But what I was trying to do in

445
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 2: my mind was to tell the coaches, here's what we

446
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 2: need you to help our kids not only perform on

447
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:07,639
Speaker 2: the athletic field, but to perform in the schoolroom. The

448
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 2: classroom is do exactly what you do to improve their

449
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:16,800
Speaker 2: athletic abilities. It will also, if you adopt those same principles,

450
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:21,880
Speaker 2: will improve their academic abilities. And it's called practice. Go

451
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:24,679
Speaker 2: back and try it again. Hey son, you want to

452
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:26,720
Speaker 2: make that tackle, Here's let me show you how you

453
00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:29,160
Speaker 2: do it. And you go back and say, hey son,

454
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 2: you want to pass that math test, here's how you

455
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 2: do it. And if you'll go back and practice properly,

456
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 2: both academically and athletically, it's a two way win, big win.

457
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 1: You said, Rossbro didn't have to face the voters, and

458
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:48,320
Speaker 1: you did. That's an interesting point because I think as

459
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 1: I truly believe what he did. Later, somebody can like

460
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: or not like, but I truly believe that he wanted

461
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 1: to make a mark, and he wanted to make a difference,

462
00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 1: and his heart was in the right place him sharing

463
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 1: that commission. Looking back, was that the right decision?

464
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let me tell you the reason for that.

465
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 2: The reason for it was was a recognition. If you'll remember,

466
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 2: when I came into office, I'd rolled in with a

467
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 2: pretty good majority of votes, over a quarter of a million,

468
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 2: against an incumbent governor who had defeated the first Republican,

469
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 2: who had been the first Republican to defeat a Democratic

470
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:28,520
Speaker 2: governor in the history of this past one hundred years

471
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 2: or more. And so I, whether it be too full

472
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:35,959
Speaker 2: of myself or what felt like, that's a pretty strong

473
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 2: comment from the people of Texas of what they want.

474
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:44,040
Speaker 2: The legislatory, albeit overwhelmingly democratic, they did not go along

475
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 2: with what I said about teacher pay raise, ignored it.

476
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:53,080
Speaker 2: Then I saw their resistance to change on the issues

477
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 2: of education that we were worried about, and it came

478
00:29:57,440 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 2: very clear to me that the only way to get

479
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:03,960
Speaker 2: this thing was bringing together the business interest of the

480
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 2: state and legislature in Texas historically has responded positively, both

481
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 2: Democrats and Republicans, to strong business leaders coming in from

482
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:20,440
Speaker 2: the community saying, hey, let's go Pale, let's get the

483
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 2: same done. And that's what we did in the year later,

484
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 2: after their inability to get that passed in nineteen eighty three,

485
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 2: we went back and had a one year study and

486
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:35,480
Speaker 2: let me compliment GiB Lewis, who was speaker then, because

487
00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 2: Gibbs said to me and Bill Hobby, we're not going

488
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 2: to pass anything here till we make sure we have

489
00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:47,719
Speaker 2: good teachers and we improve the quality of those teachers

490
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 2: in the classroom. Now that was good. I didn't particularly

491
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 2: care for his lack of enthusiasm for my program, but

492
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 2: I couldn't criticize what he was trying to do. Working together,

493
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 2: we got this bill passed. We raised taxes, and it

494
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 2: was then and now the most dramatic single change in

495
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 2: education in the modern history of this country. No other

496
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 2: state attempted to do so much. Everybody else did a

497
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 2: little bit of what we did. We did it all.

498
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 1: What did you not do that you wanted to get done?

499
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 1: I know one of the big accomplishments of that was

500
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 1: a twenty two pupil limit for elementary schools. Yeah, it

501
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:33,960
Speaker 1: was a big deal. Smaller classes, better education. Everybody knows

502
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:35,640
Speaker 1: that it's hard to do. It's hard to fund it,

503
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: it's hard to implement it. What did you not get

504
00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 1: done that you wanted.

505
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 2: To get done got? We got almost I think all

506
00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 2: of it done. As far as the reform package was concerned,

507
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 2: I would have, looking back, would have put even more emphasis.

508
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 2: And let me tell you, if we went to full

509
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 2: day kindergarten, that was a big, huge step nationwide. Nobody

510
00:31:56,360 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 2: did that we did. Now you see, thirty some years later,

511
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 2: the current governor is pushing for early childhood education pre kindergarten. Applause.

512
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 2: It's wonderful. We didn't do it then because my gosh,

513
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:17,360
Speaker 2: we were happy with full day kindergarten. So going back

514
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,840
Speaker 2: to do it over again, I don't since that we

515
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 2: did anything that I wouldn't do again. Except the three

516
00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:29,040
Speaker 2: weeks on no pass, no play. I would tell the

517
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:31,320
Speaker 2: teachers that yes, we're going to get you your pay

518
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 2: raise as soon as you pass the test, and I'll

519
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 2: help you pass the test. And those were the two

520
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 2: major changes.

521
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 1: Teacher pay raise and keeping taxes low are at odds right,

522
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:49,160
Speaker 1: because that's a big expenditure. At some point, every state

523
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: rep has to say, I got homeowners that don't want

524
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:55,760
Speaker 1: to pay more taxes, But everybody sort of generally thinks

525
00:32:55,800 --> 00:32:58,200
Speaker 1: our cops and our teachers ought to get paid more.

526
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 1: Do you think at the end of it, the taxpayer

527
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 1: was the bigger was the bigger interest than the teacher.

528
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:09,800
Speaker 2: I got blamed for raising taxes, but I raised taxes

529
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 2: at least once, if not more times after the education

530
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:17,400
Speaker 2: bill passed. We raised it then, and then I raised

531
00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:20,200
Speaker 2: it the taxes again just before the election.

532
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 1: And Clements raised taxes in early eighty seven, right after

533
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:24,440
Speaker 1: he comes into office.

534
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 2: Well, let me say not only after he came into office,

535
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 2: but after he promised never to do that, and without

536
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:34,640
Speaker 2: talking about it someone who can't respond. The fact of

537
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 2: the matter is the biggest If I had one criticism

538
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 2: to make of all the Republican leaders in this state

539
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 2: is too often they go in with the first thing

540
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 2: they do is to say we're going to cut taxes. Well,

541
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 2: let's don't cut taxes. Do we figure out what we

542
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 2: need to spend money on. That's not let me say,

543
00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:01,240
Speaker 2: that's a bad business principle. If you were to be

544
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 2: given a new business to operate, the first thing you

545
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:07,800
Speaker 2: wouldn't do is to go in and say, let's cut

546
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:11,480
Speaker 2: revenue until you've had a chance to go in and

547
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 2: see what do we need. Can we cut prices and

548
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:20,359
Speaker 2: expand our base and sell more volume and make up

549
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 2: for the revenue reduction if we just stop there now

550
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 2: to see these are all moving parts. And if you

551
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 2: just do one thing, you put the pressure on the

552
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 2: balloon to blow out somewhere else. Here's the pressure. I

553
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:40,440
Speaker 2: admire the Bush family enormously. George W. Bush did what

554
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 2: Republicans apparently have to do. It's kind of like you

555
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:47,040
Speaker 2: have to play this tune of cutting taxes, so you

556
00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:50,800
Speaker 2: cut taxes. Well, let's go back and rebuild the model.

557
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:55,920
Speaker 2: Let's go back to when not when I quit, Just

558
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:59,920
Speaker 2: go back to when Clement's quit, and let's see what

559
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:03,759
Speaker 2: what the proportions were in taxes being paid from the

560
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:09,520
Speaker 2: state level and local levels to fund schools. What's happened

561
00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:12,880
Speaker 2: over time? And I can speak to my time about

562
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:15,359
Speaker 2: half of all the dollars in state budget when I

563
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 2: was there or spent on education today that numbers down

564
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:24,440
Speaker 2: around thirty six percent. When you start reducing the state

565
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:31,360
Speaker 2: contribution to local schools. Schools still need money. What happens.

566
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:34,279
Speaker 2: The only reaction you can get to that is the

567
00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 2: local bill goes up. And the only thing they can

568
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 2: raise taxes on you for in your school district is

569
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 2: your property tax. That to me is a false shift savings.

570
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 2: To me, the governor of taxes, looking here, I cut

571
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 2: your taxes. And then the guy goes over and says, well,

572
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:54,759
Speaker 2: look at my property taxes and don't blame it on

573
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:58,440
Speaker 2: the school district. That's what they do. The point is

574
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 2: here again, we need to start working together. Let's make

575
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 2: these schools work, and then let's figure out how we

576
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 2: pay for it. Let's fix things and then figure what

577
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 2: it costs. That's the way I've always looked at things.

578
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:17,600
Speaker 2: I've always my wife, we better cut this, we better

579
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:21,239
Speaker 2: cut that. I said, No, what we really have to

580
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 2: do is make it where I work harder, become more productive,

581
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 2: and we'll have more of what we need. So what

582
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:32,879
Speaker 2: do you do? How do you go about raising revenues? Well,

583
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:34,640
Speaker 2: there's a couple of ways you can do it. If

584
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:40,000
Speaker 2: all you do is raise taxes, that works, But does

585
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:43,800
Speaker 2: it have the impact of cutting down on people's ability

586
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:49,040
Speaker 2: to do business and generate new jobs and generate new taxes.

587
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:54,400
Speaker 2: If I sell one thing ten to ten people, I

588
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:58,319
Speaker 2: get at a certain level of taxation, I get a

589
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 2: lot of money coming in if I just if I

590
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:04,000
Speaker 2: have to go raise taxes, does that cut down on

591
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:07,320
Speaker 2: those ten people to five people? Well, wait a minute,

592
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:10,759
Speaker 2: I've hurt myself in revenue and I've hurt taxes. So

593
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 2: these are all have to be in balance. They need

594
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 2: to be coordinated. That's the magic of good leadership, and

595
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:22,799
Speaker 2: that's where the people of taxes are blindfolded, not just Texas, nationwide.

596
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:29,040
Speaker 2: Democrats are all too easy to say, let's just raise taxes.

597
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 2: Republicans are all too easy to say, let's just cut taxes.

598
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,440
Speaker 2: And neither one of those approaches is the answer to

599
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:40,239
Speaker 2: how we build good schools. So the easy tax to

600
00:37:40,400 --> 00:37:45,040
Speaker 2: raise today, and the one you see the state resisting,

601
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:49,440
Speaker 2: is sales tax. Just a little raised in the sales

602
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:53,120
Speaker 2: tax with all this growth of people, means such a

603
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 2: small number of dollars out of any one person's pocket

604
00:37:57,520 --> 00:38:00,439
Speaker 2: that it would be hard for you to know you've

605
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:05,800
Speaker 2: ever spent it. Texas is a unique place. We've gotten

606
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 2: people brag it on the Texas Miracle. And I love

607
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:11,759
Speaker 2: Rick Perry and I'm hopeful that he will bring a

608
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:15,320
Speaker 2: lot of good Texas ideas to this Department of Energy.

609
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 2: They need it and he'll do it. But you don't.

610
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:26,960
Speaker 2: You have to not overlook what the price of aill

611
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:30,279
Speaker 2: does on the Texas Miracle. Sure, I know I saw

612
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 2: nine dollars aill. He saw a hundred dollars. All let

613
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:35,239
Speaker 2: me tell you. I'll take his side of that. I

614
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 2: wanted to go to that.

615
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 1: You take office in nineteen eighty two. Let me one

616
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:42,320
Speaker 1: question before I'll take off. You take aufstin January of

617
00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:48,280
Speaker 1: ninety three or eighty three, you defeat Bill Clements for governor,

618
00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:52,120
Speaker 1: and then he runs against you again in eighty six

619
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:55,240
Speaker 1: and he beats you. I want to talk politics, not policy.

620
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 1: For a question, how did you not beat him over

621
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 1: the head with a thing that were going on at

622
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 1: SMU where he was part of the group that was

623
00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:09,319
Speaker 1: hiding what had happened under the Pony Express and led

624
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 1: to the eventual death penalty for that program. Clements is

625
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:15,880
Speaker 1: a sitting in the committee meetings. It's come out. ESPN

626
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:17,399
Speaker 1: does a great thirty for thirty on this. I don't

627
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 1: know if you've seen it. And Clements says, well, let's

628
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: keep this hush hush, because let's just keep paying the

629
00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 1: players that are already on a payroll, because we got

630
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 1: a payroll, right, we got a payroll to meet.

631
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:30,840
Speaker 2: Go get the date of when he said that was

632
00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 2: pre election, but when it came out it was post election.

633
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 1: Okay, did you know that at the time.

634
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:38,920
Speaker 2: I knew there were strong rumors of what he had done.

635
00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:44,160
Speaker 2: The federal judge that time in Austin kept that from

636
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 2: coming out.

637
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 1: It is surprising that it was as bad as it was. Yeah,

638
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 1: that there were that many players on the payroll, and

639
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: that when it came to the committee and the regents

640
00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:58,920
Speaker 1: and the president that they continued.

641
00:39:58,440 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 2: To allow that.

642
00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:01,760
Speaker 1: But I guess their thought was, will allow a little

643
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 1: to avoid the scandal, we'll cut back on the worst

644
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:05,440
Speaker 1: of it.

645
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 2: Well, you've seen a parallel to that some degree with

646
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:12,080
Speaker 2: what happened to SMU then and what happens to Baylor today,

647
00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 2: your alma mater. You have a leadership that's failed and

648
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 2: two different schools with two different results. Methodists have a

649
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 2: different program than Baptist. They have a bishop and they

650
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:28,719
Speaker 2: also have a guy who said, all of y'all are

651
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:31,640
Speaker 2: going to resign and we're going to restart the program

652
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:34,799
Speaker 2: that hadn't happened because we don't have the authority at

653
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:37,920
Speaker 2: Baylor to do that. And there were good people on

654
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:38,320
Speaker 2: the board.

655
00:40:38,440 --> 00:40:39,439
Speaker 1: What needs to be done better?

656
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:41,799
Speaker 2: Well, there were good people in the SMU board. They're

657
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:43,960
Speaker 2: good people at the Baylor board. Let me kind of

658
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 2: explain it this way. As much as you may love

659
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:49,440
Speaker 2: your school, you may not be the best one to

660
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 2: serve your school in the fashion that you might wish.

661
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 2: I tell this story on myself. When I went off

662
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:58,880
Speaker 2: to Baylor, I wanted to play basketball. I was a

663
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:03,320
Speaker 2: pretty good Church league basketball player, at least in my mind.

664
00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:07,880
Speaker 2: So I go out for Baylor basketball and I'm thinking

665
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:10,759
Speaker 2: I'm doing okay until coach Metafie comes over. He puts

666
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 2: his arm around me. He said, Mark, I know you

667
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:17,000
Speaker 2: love Baylor, I know you want to play for Baylor.

668
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:22,280
Speaker 2: But Son, you're just not quite tall enough for your speed.

669
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:27,720
Speaker 2: And that pretty well ended my basketball career at Baylor.

670
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:30,720
Speaker 2: But now I still yell just as loud, if not louder,

671
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:34,279
Speaker 2: in the stands and don't love Baylor less. I just

672
00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:37,480
Speaker 2: was told by somebody who knew that wasn't where I

673
00:41:37,520 --> 00:41:40,920
Speaker 2: can serve Bayla the best. And we have that problem

674
00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:44,160
Speaker 2: that everybody would love to be on the border regions

675
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:47,439
Speaker 2: of the University of Texas, but everybody can't be there,

676
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:49,959
Speaker 2: and some are better than others. Same way as true

677
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:53,319
Speaker 2: about Baylor, and how you go about getting those right

678
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:55,640
Speaker 2: ones in there and the ones that aren't supposed to

679
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,200
Speaker 2: be there into a better, more productive way is a

680
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 2: tough act to do. You've been involved with Baylor over

681
00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:02,760
Speaker 2: the years.

682
00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:05,880
Speaker 1: Obviously your passion for the institution is well known.

683
00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 2: What went wrong there, well, it boils down to the failure

684
00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:13,520
Speaker 2: of leadership. And you know, you saw the old movie,

685
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 2: We have a failure to communicate. My whole life has

686
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:22,439
Speaker 2: been an observing leadership, good and bad. And I don't

687
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:26,880
Speaker 2: care exactly how the chairs are rotated around or how

688
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:29,960
Speaker 2: they're situated. You tell me who's in the chair, and

689
00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:32,360
Speaker 2: I can fairly well predict what the result will be.

690
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 2: I can go down a list of people who have

691
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:40,000
Speaker 2: served in this country, and I'll pick my leadership and

692
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:42,480
Speaker 2: you pick yours, and I bet you will have a

693
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:45,319
Speaker 2: lot of the same names on that list. I can

694
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:49,160
Speaker 2: look down the list in Texas As Democrats and Republicans,

695
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:52,879
Speaker 2: and I'll have a lot of good people. I don't

696
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 2: agree with every one of them. But then again, my

697
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:57,640
Speaker 2: wife and I don't agree on how good I am

698
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 2: or how beautiful she is. I think he's beautiful, she said,

699
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:06,000
Speaker 2: Oh I'm not. Yes she is. But what the point

700
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:10,239
Speaker 2: I'm trying to say is the beauty of America is

701
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 2: the ability for us to talk, to discuss, to decide

702
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 2: make choices. If we all have the same goal, and

703
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:21,479
Speaker 2: I think we really do. If you'll just scratch down

704
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:24,760
Speaker 2: below the politics of it all, who in this country

705
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:27,400
Speaker 2: doesn't want to have good public schools? Sure, Who in

706
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:30,319
Speaker 2: this country doesn't want to have a strong defense. Who

707
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 2: in this country doesn't want to have unbounded opportunity? We

708
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:38,040
Speaker 2: all agree on that. How do we do it? There?

709
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 2: In lives of difference? But I'll promise you this, If

710
00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:43,279
Speaker 2: you'll put Jim Baker sitting down there, and you go

711
00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 2: over here on this side, and put any number of

712
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 2: Democrats over here, We're going to work it out and

713
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:49,840
Speaker 2: make it work.

714
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:55,480
Speaker 1: You mentioned nine dollars a barrel oil nineteen eighty two.

715
00:43:55,520 --> 00:43:58,680
Speaker 1: When you get elected, everything that was going great in

716
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 1: Texas for that commodity goes down and you talk in

717
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:05,600
Speaker 1: your campaign about diversifying the economy and the things we

718
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: do to do that, and here we've gone through a

719
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:11,160
Speaker 1: tough time again. What do we ad about fifty five

720
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: a barrel today? Do you think Texas succeeded in your

721
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:18,319
Speaker 1: goal to diversify?

722
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:18,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did.

723
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 1: How was this one different?

724
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 2: Let me tell you what we did. If you go

725
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 2: look at my inauger of address, one of the things

726
00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:29,759
Speaker 2: I said is that the future of Texas is not

727
00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:34,920
Speaker 2: at the bottom of it all. Well, it's education. So

728
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:38,120
Speaker 2: we did that commitment to education, and it's been paying off,

729
00:44:38,160 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 2: continues to pay off. There have been some dips in

730
00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:43,440
Speaker 2: It was because well, if you just keep doing the

731
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:45,960
Speaker 2: right thing, we'll keep getting the right result. I can

732
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 2: promise you that nothing changes. Do the right thing, you

733
00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 2: get the right result. Okay, next, how did you diversify

734
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:58,760
Speaker 2: your economy? Went off the same day, Bibles in hand

735
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 2: hand up the same day. We started trying to attract

736
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:07,520
Speaker 2: not just new old business, but new new business to

737
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:10,960
Speaker 2: Texas and to open the door to create new business

738
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:17,480
Speaker 2: in Texas. And much of I don't claim credit for

739
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:21,400
Speaker 2: all the development of the technology in Texas. But with

740
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:27,200
Speaker 2: the leadership of Pike Powers, who was my chief of

741
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:30,880
Speaker 2: staff and also did an enormous amount of work on

742
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:38,799
Speaker 2: getting MCC which was a huge group, a not a conglomerate,

743
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:47,120
Speaker 2: but a team of companies came together to create research

744
00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:52,279
Speaker 2: on artificial intelligence under the leadership of Bobby Enman. They

745
00:45:52,640 --> 00:45:56,919
Speaker 2: brought companies from all across America to Austin. And when

746
00:45:56,920 --> 00:46:00,359
Speaker 2: they came, they saw, my gosh, what do we have here?

747
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:03,880
Speaker 2: A great place to live, We have low taxes, we

748
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 2: don't have an income tax. We have Oh, by the way,

749
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:10,600
Speaker 2: this University of Texas is not a cowboy operation. It's

750
00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:14,840
Speaker 2: a real school. And that ain't and ibsitting over They're

751
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 2: just not over there, you know, milk and cows. These

752
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:22,000
Speaker 2: people are over here really doing some dramatic things in

753
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 2: research by all science own and on. So when they

754
00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:29,560
Speaker 2: saw the assets that we've had here that have been

755
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:33,799
Speaker 2: developed through the years, in generations, and couple that with

756
00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:40,719
Speaker 2: the new technology about the internet, even the Internet, just

757
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:45,640
Speaker 2: look what that one thing's done to transform this whole world.

758
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:46,720
Speaker 1: I think I'll.

759
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:48,719
Speaker 2: Gore for that. Well, I don't know who you think

760
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:50,600
Speaker 2: for it, but let me tell you who your first

761
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:53,839
Speaker 2: governor in Texas in the first governor of the US

762
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:57,440
Speaker 2: to have an Internet address. Was that you me, and

763
00:46:57,520 --> 00:47:00,760
Speaker 2: let me tell you the whole truth. Second terry about

764
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 2: press secretary came in. Governor, you're the first governor in

765
00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:11,400
Speaker 2: America to have an Internet address. I studied that for

766
00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:14,239
Speaker 2: a few minutes, and I said, well, you explain what

767
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:18,160
Speaker 2: that is. And she explained it to me. And then

768
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:21,400
Speaker 2: I listened and I said, can you explain that again?

769
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:26,279
Speaker 2: I have an electronic mail, and then she explained. I

770
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:29,640
Speaker 2: finally got it. Embarrassed to ask her again because I

771
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:31,759
Speaker 2: still didn't understand it, because I didn't want to hear

772
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:34,279
Speaker 2: her to know how dumb I was about it, and

773
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:38,160
Speaker 2: she seemed to know what it was. And anyway, we

774
00:47:38,200 --> 00:47:41,840
Speaker 2: all know now what the Internet has done to transform,

775
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:44,919
Speaker 2: not just Texas, not just America, with the whole world.

776
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:53,480
Speaker 2: One technological shift has made more financial waves across the world,

777
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:57,799
Speaker 2: maybe than anything else since the Wheel, no doubt. So

778
00:47:57,920 --> 00:48:01,840
Speaker 2: what I'm saying is all we need to do is

779
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:04,279
Speaker 2: to give the people of Texas, and for that matter,

780
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:08,239
Speaker 2: the people of America the instruments that they need to

781
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:13,200
Speaker 2: do for themselves. And what's the most important thing they

782
00:48:13,239 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 2: have is their mind, and the ability to have that

783
00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:22,840
Speaker 2: mind be well trained starts off pre school pre K.

784
00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:26,759
Speaker 2: So when you want to know about the future of Texas,

785
00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:31,000
Speaker 2: you tell me how the governor's managing education. And it

786
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:33,400
Speaker 2: doesn't all happen that year, but you can see the

787
00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:37,360
Speaker 2: beginnings of it that year. And we're enjoying the benefits

788
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 2: of what we did back in nineteen eighty three, in

789
00:48:40,080 --> 00:48:43,600
Speaker 2: eighty four today, and I don't want to you know,

790
00:48:43,640 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 2: you can't take credit for all that occurred since then.

791
00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:50,879
Speaker 2: But you can also applaud all those other leaders who

792
00:48:51,080 --> 00:48:55,719
Speaker 2: joined in and said, hey, don't stop it. Full day

793
00:48:55,800 --> 00:49:00,279
Speaker 2: kindergarten like I did, go what Abbot did. Let's go

794
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:04,760
Speaker 2: to preschool. Let's fund that and see what happens. Abbot's

795
00:49:04,760 --> 00:49:09,359
Speaker 2: doing the right thing. Applauding. Let's make sure we're all

796
00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:12,640
Speaker 2: on the same problem. This is not Democrat Republican. This

797
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:15,720
Speaker 2: is American Texan, and it's our future.

798
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty two, you get elected. You've not lost an election.

799
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:22,720
Speaker 1: You've gone from being the Secretary of State to the

800
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 1: appointed obviously to be in the Attorney general where you

801
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:29,400
Speaker 1: beat James Baker. Nineteen eighty two, you beat the sitting

802
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:36,160
Speaker 1: Republican governor, and you're this whirlwind effect of a new

803
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:40,520
Speaker 1: Democrat that's kind of the conservative Democrat but a reformer.

804
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:43,879
Speaker 1: You've got your reelection coming up in eighty six, you

805
00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:48,000
Speaker 1: pull off the education reforms you wanted, the economy works

806
00:49:48,040 --> 00:49:51,360
Speaker 1: against you, the price of oil which you couldn't control,

807
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:54,279
Speaker 1: and all that happened with that, the savings and loan

808
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:58,359
Speaker 1: problems that occurred, and then, of course I think that

809
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 1: the education reform too, gets told because a lot of

810
00:50:01,120 --> 00:50:04,759
Speaker 1: people didn't want those changes nineteen eighty six.

811
00:50:04,840 --> 00:50:05,560
Speaker 2: If you get re.

812
00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:09,480
Speaker 1: Elected, everybody I've ever talked to says, if you get

813
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:11,719
Speaker 1: re elected in eighty six, you're running for president in

814
00:50:11,719 --> 00:50:15,640
Speaker 1: eighty eight. Well, was that a conversation that was held?

815
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:19,840
Speaker 2: No, I was it on your radar? Not really?

816
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:23,560
Speaker 1: Were people calling you and saying why you're because I

817
00:50:23,560 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 1: remember at the time my parents saying that he's our

818
00:50:26,160 --> 00:50:28,640
Speaker 1: governm's gonna be president. I can remember being a kid

819
00:50:28,680 --> 00:50:29,840
Speaker 1: and my dad saying.

820
00:50:29,600 --> 00:50:32,200
Speaker 2: That, well, I was pretty happy just being governed. To Texas.

821
00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:35,240
Speaker 2: That's a big deal, and that's a big job, and it's.

822
00:50:35,120 --> 00:50:37,200
Speaker 1: Something that's probably more fun truth.

823
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:39,920
Speaker 2: No doubt about it. Don't have to worry about nuclear

824
00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:44,040
Speaker 2: weapons and that sort of thing. And I even Trump

825
00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:46,320
Speaker 2: may want to make a switch, you get a chance.

826
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:51,959
Speaker 2: But the point is I never did envision ever being

827
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:56,200
Speaker 2: the governor, so that was quite accomplishment for me president

828
00:50:56,200 --> 00:50:58,600
Speaker 2: of the United States. I always kind of viewed that

829
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:03,359
Speaker 2: as a different place, a different time. You were being

830
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:05,240
Speaker 2: talked about. Yeah, there's no questions.

831
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:09,560
Speaker 1: Were their calls coming in from national folks. Was it

832
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:11,439
Speaker 1: a serious discussion, Yeah, there.

833
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:14,319
Speaker 2: Were others that were talking about that. But let me

834
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:17,080
Speaker 2: tell you. My problem was I want this to get

835
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:19,680
Speaker 2: done right. And then things over which I had no

836
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:22,720
Speaker 2: control had a big impact on the outcome of the election.

837
00:51:24,120 --> 00:51:27,400
Speaker 2: We went from twenty five dollars all to nine dollars

838
00:51:27,400 --> 00:51:32,720
Speaker 2: all have to raise taxes. I don't know, seventy five

839
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:36,160
Speaker 2: days or less before the election, and I made a

840
00:51:36,200 --> 00:51:40,000
Speaker 2: speech before the legislature in which I famously got up

841
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:44,480
Speaker 2: and said that I want you to go raise these taxes,

842
00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:47,239
Speaker 2: and you can tell your people that you didn't want

843
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:49,160
Speaker 2: to do it, that I wanted you to do it,

844
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:51,799
Speaker 2: and I made you do it. And sure enough, they

845
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:55,560
Speaker 2: did exactly what I said. They raised the taxes and

846
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:59,760
Speaker 2: blamed it on me and so that had an impact. Surely.

847
00:51:59,880 --> 00:52:02,400
Speaker 2: I don't know whether i'd ever run for president or not.

848
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:05,680
Speaker 2: I don't know. I never would have cared to last

849
00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:08,879
Speaker 2: going and tell you that after what I said about them.

850
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:11,799
Speaker 1: I ran for mayor in two thousand and three when

851
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:13,440
Speaker 1: I was on council, and I pulled out at the

852
00:52:13,480 --> 00:52:16,120
Speaker 1: last minute and went back on council. So I didn't

853
00:52:16,239 --> 00:52:18,640
Speaker 1: lose the race, but I lost the race. When you

854
00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 1: get right down to it, it's a very public thing.

855
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 1: You know, when you're on the front page of the newspaper.

856
00:52:22,520 --> 00:52:25,480
Speaker 1: Everywhere you go, people either ridicule you or feel sorry

857
00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:27,279
Speaker 1: for you, and I'm not sure which one's worse. And

858
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:29,920
Speaker 1: it was very public, it was very painful. And I

859
00:52:29,960 --> 00:52:32,000
Speaker 1: was a young man. I was in my early thirties.

860
00:52:32,640 --> 00:52:36,880
Speaker 1: So here you were and Bill White just ran a

861
00:52:36,880 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 1: heck of a campaign. There's nowhere around that.

862
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:39,680
Speaker 2: But here you.

863
00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:45,399
Speaker 1: Were, forty five years old, the first failure you've ever

864
00:52:45,480 --> 00:52:48,799
Speaker 1: had in public life, to lose an election. You're going

865
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:52,319
Speaker 1: to go back and practice law. But as a man,

866
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:55,279
Speaker 1: what did you learn about yourself? How did you get

867
00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:57,799
Speaker 1: up in the morning. Because it's not like just a

868
00:52:57,840 --> 00:52:59,960
Speaker 1: deal going bad. Everybody knows it now.

869
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:02,239
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that wasn't fun. I can tell you that

870
00:53:04,640 --> 00:53:07,319
Speaker 2: it was one in which you keep thinking, well, what

871
00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:11,560
Speaker 2: could I have done differently? And I've told you that

872
00:53:11,719 --> 00:53:14,280
Speaker 2: may have made a difference. I'm not sure for certain.

873
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:21,880
Speaker 2: I never did think that. Well, I can tell you this,

874
00:53:22,080 --> 00:53:26,840
Speaker 2: going into the office of governor, I pledged to myself

875
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:29,439
Speaker 2: that we were going to do everything we could do

876
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:32,600
Speaker 2: to make sure that all our choices were the right ones.

877
00:53:33,160 --> 00:53:36,000
Speaker 2: And I'm talking about a personal pledge to myself. I

878
00:53:36,040 --> 00:53:40,279
Speaker 2: didn't announce it to anybody, maybe my wife, that we're

879
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:43,840
Speaker 2: not going to hold back. The worst thing that could happen,

880
00:53:44,080 --> 00:53:47,520
Speaker 2: the worst thing worse than being defeated, was to be

881
00:53:47,680 --> 00:53:49,919
Speaker 2: defeated and look up and say I wish I had

882
00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:52,840
Speaker 2: done this, or I wish I had done that. Why

883
00:53:52,880 --> 00:53:56,279
Speaker 2: didn't I do this? I could have done that, and

884
00:53:56,320 --> 00:53:59,759
Speaker 2: that would have been the worst thing. I never had

885
00:53:59,760 --> 00:54:03,200
Speaker 2: to do that. How did you get yourself through the disappointment?

886
00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:07,719
Speaker 2: Because it's difficult, Well, it starts back. It was one

887
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:10,319
Speaker 2: of the things was my pay raise went up. That

888
00:54:10,520 --> 00:54:13,839
Speaker 2: was pretty helpful. I didn't know. I would. Let me say,

889
00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:16,680
Speaker 2: if you look at the history of my economic climb

890
00:54:16,719 --> 00:54:19,799
Speaker 2: in life. Every job I had paid a little bit

891
00:54:19,800 --> 00:54:21,720
Speaker 2: better than the one before, So I didn't know anything

892
00:54:21,800 --> 00:54:24,080
Speaker 2: was wrong with being Secretary of State making thirty three

893
00:54:24,120 --> 00:54:27,040
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a year. That seemed pretty good to me.

894
00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:30,840
Speaker 2: And so then I became Attorney general, I got an

895
00:54:30,840 --> 00:54:33,279
Speaker 2: other little pay raise, and became government got another little

896
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:36,960
Speaker 2: pay raise. And there's nothing wrong with government housing. And

897
00:54:37,000 --> 00:54:40,640
Speaker 2: you have somebody there to, you know, look after everything

898
00:54:40,719 --> 00:54:42,839
Speaker 2: you might not want to, and even things you might

899
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:45,640
Speaker 2: want to they take care of. It was pretty nice living.

900
00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:52,600
Speaker 2: Even rich people like it. So I never did you

901
00:54:52,640 --> 00:54:57,880
Speaker 2: know it was I lived better than I guess I

902
00:54:57,880 --> 00:55:03,560
Speaker 2: had any reason to expect still do well. I'd say

903
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:04,520
Speaker 2: you live pretty well.

904
00:55:05,160 --> 00:55:06,480
Speaker 1: How long have you been married?

905
00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:12,040
Speaker 2: Well, fifty years and about six months.

906
00:55:12,600 --> 00:55:13,759
Speaker 1: What's the secret to that?

907
00:55:15,280 --> 00:55:20,200
Speaker 2: Having a very forgiving wife, that's a big start put

908
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:26,200
Speaker 2: up with you. Understand that she does her things are

909
00:55:26,239 --> 00:55:29,440
Speaker 2: important as well. And I know your wife, Nandita, she's

910
00:55:29,480 --> 00:55:33,360
Speaker 2: an accomplished lady. This woman can do anything she chooses

911
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:36,399
Speaker 2: to do, and she has the talent. And I think

912
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:39,319
Speaker 2: my wife as well. To know, my wife is a

913
00:55:39,560 --> 00:55:43,919
Speaker 2: very good antique dealer. She knows that business as well

914
00:55:43,960 --> 00:55:47,360
Speaker 2: as anybody. She's good at it, and if something happens

915
00:55:47,400 --> 00:55:49,879
Speaker 2: to me, she'd go make a real good living doing that.

916
00:55:51,080 --> 00:55:54,319
Speaker 2: And yet we balance those too, And let me tell

917
00:55:54,360 --> 00:55:55,600
Speaker 2: you how we do it. When we go on a

918
00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:59,200
Speaker 2: trip to buy antiques. The first thing she's very smart.

919
00:56:00,040 --> 00:56:03,239
Speaker 2: First thing she does is by a chair, and she

920
00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:07,640
Speaker 2: puts the chair in an air conditioned shop is we're shopping,

921
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:11,400
Speaker 2: and she says, you can sit there and I'll be

922
00:56:11,480 --> 00:56:13,239
Speaker 2: gone and i'll be back a little bit and pick

923
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:15,880
Speaker 2: you up. That way, she does put up with me arguing,

924
00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:19,720
Speaker 2: I'm very happy reading my book, taking a little nap. Cool,

925
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:25,359
Speaker 2: got a good chair. That's a perfect marriage. It's worked.

926
00:56:25,920 --> 00:56:28,160
Speaker 1: I think that's something to be very proud of. Yeah,

927
00:56:28,239 --> 00:56:32,799
Speaker 1: I think the longevity of a marriage will hit twenty

928
00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:34,920
Speaker 1: five years of marriage and twenty seven that we've been

929
00:56:34,960 --> 00:56:38,160
Speaker 1: together juneteenth this year, and I'm very proud of that

930
00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:39,600
Speaker 1: because it's not always easy. You.

931
00:56:40,239 --> 00:56:43,040
Speaker 2: Let me tell you. There's one thing more important for

932
00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:47,319
Speaker 2: your children, yep, if they turn out. Okay, man, you

933
00:56:47,360 --> 00:56:53,080
Speaker 2: talk about a blessing, that's the big blessing. You're absolutely right.

934
00:56:55,520 --> 00:56:55,600
Speaker 1: On.

935
00:56:55,680 --> 00:56:57,080
Speaker 2: In a second, is it level? Okay?

936
00:56:57,840 --> 00:57:00,040
Speaker 1: I absolutely lost what I was gonna say, hold on.

937
00:57:02,840 --> 00:57:05,080
Speaker 2: Well, you know the burdens of all those children, right,

938
00:57:06,080 --> 00:57:10,480
Speaker 2: trying to get them raised and everything. And once again

939
00:57:10,560 --> 00:57:13,759
Speaker 2: you want to talk about the compliment. My wife and

940
00:57:13,840 --> 00:57:19,000
Speaker 2: your wife have done that job. That's the hardest job anywhere.

941
00:57:19,040 --> 00:57:21,480
Speaker 2: Going to work for a man every day is a

942
00:57:21,560 --> 00:57:25,920
Speaker 2: simple deal with the complications that a mother has and

943
00:57:25,960 --> 00:57:29,200
Speaker 2: a wife has to run the household. And I don't

944
00:57:29,240 --> 00:57:32,400
Speaker 2: care how much money you have or how little. True,

945
00:57:32,440 --> 00:57:36,560
Speaker 2: it's the biggest job. I believe. It's exhausting available. Right

946
00:57:36,640 --> 00:57:39,160
Speaker 2: before I came old nine to five, No, right before

947
00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:39,640
Speaker 2: I came.

948
00:57:39,520 --> 00:57:42,080
Speaker 1: To talk to you, I was at my kid's school

949
00:57:42,120 --> 00:57:47,479
Speaker 1: for lunch, and there we are, and when we leave,

950
00:57:47,560 --> 00:57:48,600
Speaker 1: my wife and I both walk.

951
00:57:48,840 --> 00:57:50,280
Speaker 2: How do they do it? Those kids are?

952
00:57:50,600 --> 00:57:52,360
Speaker 1: They're exhausting. I know what I was going to ask you.

953
00:57:53,960 --> 00:57:58,000
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety one, you read a law firm, kack my

954
00:57:58,080 --> 00:58:01,600
Speaker 1: hand and Cake, I was student body president University of Houston,

955
00:58:01,920 --> 00:58:05,640
Speaker 1: and I came to visit you to ask you questions

956
00:58:05,640 --> 00:58:08,880
Speaker 1: about leadership. And you didn't know me from Adam, and

957
00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:10,919
Speaker 1: I didn't have a name to drop. I just called

958
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:13,440
Speaker 1: you out of the blue, and you took that meeting

959
00:58:13,600 --> 00:58:17,440
Speaker 1: and It's always meant a lot to me. And you

960
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:19,240
Speaker 1: may or may not be amused to know. What I

961
00:58:19,280 --> 00:58:24,040
Speaker 1: remember of our conversation is that you had post it

962
00:58:24,120 --> 00:58:27,880
Speaker 1: notes all over your office everywhere. Was you know, do

963
00:58:27,920 --> 00:58:31,400
Speaker 1: this call this person, return this phone call, write this

964
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:34,480
Speaker 1: work on this case because you were practicing law at

965
00:58:34,480 --> 00:58:36,640
Speaker 1: the time, and at we post it notes everywhere, And

966
00:58:36,640 --> 00:58:38,240
Speaker 1: that was when they were still kind of new, or

967
00:58:38,280 --> 00:58:41,160
Speaker 1: at least new to me. And I remember there have

968
00:58:41,160 --> 00:58:44,120
Speaker 1: been people like you who took an interest in me

969
00:58:44,520 --> 00:58:46,600
Speaker 1: at an early age that did.

970
00:58:46,400 --> 00:58:47,640
Speaker 2: Wonders for my confidence.

971
00:58:48,320 --> 00:58:50,480
Speaker 1: And I came here in eighty nine, and I used

972
00:58:50,480 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 1: to say that by nineteen ninety one, the end of

973
00:58:52,600 --> 00:58:55,000
Speaker 1: that year of being student body president, it was like

974
00:58:55,240 --> 00:58:57,880
Speaker 1: I had a Rolodex, like I was Ben Love's son,

975
00:58:58,320 --> 00:58:59,960
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I felt like I would

976
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:03,000
Speaker 1: as a member of Jesse Jones's family, who were a

977
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:06,000
Speaker 1: couple of mentors in your life that made a real

978
00:59:06,040 --> 00:59:07,040
Speaker 1: difference for you.

979
00:59:08,520 --> 00:59:12,320
Speaker 2: Well, at every turn there was always somebody who kind

980
00:59:12,320 --> 00:59:15,600
Speaker 2: of stood up and I was able to either ride

981
00:59:15,600 --> 00:59:18,680
Speaker 2: on their shoulder or they picked me up by the

982
00:59:18,720 --> 00:59:21,600
Speaker 2: back of the pants and lifted me over the hurdle.

983
00:59:22,520 --> 00:59:30,200
Speaker 2: And nothing better than your elementary school education. Then in

984
00:59:30,280 --> 00:59:33,600
Speaker 2: junior high school I was awful. I didn't do very

985
00:59:33,640 --> 00:59:38,400
Speaker 2: well high school. You look at my high school graduation yearbook.

986
00:59:38,760 --> 00:59:42,080
Speaker 2: I'm that guy that didn't have anything. We didn't have

987
00:59:42,080 --> 00:59:45,480
Speaker 2: any money. My dad had broken his back in the

988
00:59:45,480 --> 00:59:48,600
Speaker 2: car wreck. My mother was teaching school. Carl Smith gave

989
00:59:48,640 --> 00:59:50,960
Speaker 2: her a job down at the courthouse for the summertime.

990
00:59:51,480 --> 00:59:55,440
Speaker 2: I was working at the philling station over on Willowick

991
00:59:55,520 --> 00:59:58,200
Speaker 2: and West Tower, and there were two of them, go

992
00:59:58,400 --> 01:00:03,320
Speaker 2: station Phillip sixty six and we lived okay. I had

993
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:07,160
Speaker 2: a baby sister. She became a school teacher. I became

994
01:00:07,200 --> 01:00:12,040
Speaker 2: a lawyer. Along the way. I had cousins who helped

995
01:00:12,080 --> 01:00:15,439
Speaker 2: me get in a fraternity at Baylor that I might

996
01:00:15,480 --> 01:00:18,360
Speaker 2: not have gotten in, helped me get a job when

997
01:00:18,840 --> 01:00:22,040
Speaker 2: my uncle did get a job with his Attorney General's office.

998
01:00:23,160 --> 01:00:24,880
Speaker 2: I tried to make sure I did a good job.

999
01:00:24,920 --> 01:00:29,520
Speaker 2: Didn't want to embarrass them or myself. If there's not

1000
01:00:29,760 --> 01:00:33,520
Speaker 2: just one person, if you want to look back, you say, well,

1001
01:00:33,560 --> 01:00:35,800
Speaker 2: how did you get to be governor? Is there any

1002
01:00:35,880 --> 01:00:40,080
Speaker 2: one thing I can tell you? His name, his name

1003
01:00:40,160 --> 01:00:43,640
Speaker 2: is Calvin Guest, And how did you get to be governed.

1004
01:00:43,680 --> 01:00:46,240
Speaker 2: What did he do for you? Well, it all started

1005
01:00:46,280 --> 01:00:49,480
Speaker 2: in the Battle of ewo Jima and you say, well,

1006
01:00:49,560 --> 01:00:54,440
Speaker 2: my god, you were four years old. How did that happen? Well,

1007
01:00:54,480 --> 01:00:56,600
Speaker 2: he was in the Battle of Ewojema in a marine

1008
01:00:56,640 --> 01:01:00,600
Speaker 2: corps with a guy named Joe Reynolds who was became

1009
01:01:01,760 --> 01:01:06,000
Speaker 2: my senior partner in laws, Alan Cook. And what happened

1010
01:01:06,000 --> 01:01:10,240
Speaker 2: to Calvin Guests, Well, he met a guy when he

1011
01:01:10,280 --> 01:01:13,360
Speaker 2: got out of World War Two named Dob Briscoe, and

1012
01:01:13,400 --> 01:01:16,360
Speaker 2: they he was in the state Auditor's office and Briscoe

1013
01:01:16,440 --> 01:01:18,479
Speaker 2: was a legislator and they got to know each other.

1014
01:01:18,880 --> 01:01:21,880
Speaker 2: And then one day Briscoe decides to run for governor

1015
01:01:21,880 --> 01:01:24,240
Speaker 2: and he says, Calvin, will you help me run for governor?

1016
01:01:24,480 --> 01:01:26,880
Speaker 2: Calvin says, Joe, I need the lawyer up here to

1017
01:01:26,920 --> 01:01:30,280
Speaker 2: help on some education issues. And so Joe says Mark.

1018
01:01:31,160 --> 01:01:33,080
Speaker 2: Since the two of us were the only two in

1019
01:01:33,120 --> 01:01:35,120
Speaker 2: the firm that were from Briscoe, it made a pretty

1020
01:01:35,120 --> 01:01:39,320
Speaker 2: easy choice. I go up there, get to know Calvin

1021
01:01:39,360 --> 01:01:42,600
Speaker 2: Guests even better. He was a client of the firm,

1022
01:01:43,240 --> 01:01:46,760
Speaker 2: and next thing you know, Calvin's over saying, you know, Briscoe,

1023
01:01:46,760 --> 01:01:48,760
Speaker 2: you ought to point that guy White to be your

1024
01:01:48,800 --> 01:01:52,920
Speaker 2: secretary of state, and so then you've seen that happen

1025
01:01:52,960 --> 01:01:58,600
Speaker 2: and you were the youngest ever. Yeah, maybe I believe that. Yeah. Anyway,

1026
01:01:58,600 --> 01:02:00,720
Speaker 2: then I would come and he said, you say, well,

1027
01:02:00,720 --> 01:02:02,520
Speaker 2: how did you get to be governor? I said it

1028
01:02:02,560 --> 01:02:06,960
Speaker 2: all started at the Battle of Ewell Jima. Simple as that.

1029
01:02:06,960 --> 01:02:10,200
Speaker 1: That rentals Allen Cook group. Every time I meet somebody

1030
01:02:10,280 --> 01:02:12,160
Speaker 1: that was ever. It was quite the powerhouse firm.

1031
01:02:13,080 --> 01:02:16,800
Speaker 2: Little bitty Fern had a lot of good friends around,

1032
01:02:17,080 --> 01:02:17,880
Speaker 2: a lot of stroke.

1033
01:02:18,840 --> 01:02:21,800
Speaker 1: Well, you mentioned secretary of state and later you were

1034
01:02:21,840 --> 01:02:24,160
Speaker 1: the governor. In nineteen seventy eight, you run for Attorney

1035
01:02:24,240 --> 01:02:25,840
Speaker 1: General against James A.

1036
01:02:25,920 --> 01:02:28,360
Speaker 2: Baker the third I remember, I had to get past

1037
01:02:28,440 --> 01:02:32,920
Speaker 2: the primary first, right christ Daniel, Christ Daniel. That was

1038
01:02:32,920 --> 01:02:34,800
Speaker 2: the race in which they said I couldn't win.

1039
01:02:35,240 --> 01:02:41,240
Speaker 1: So John Hill beats Briscoe right in that primary, and

1040
01:02:41,360 --> 01:02:42,720
Speaker 1: you beat Christ Daniels.

1041
01:02:42,960 --> 01:02:43,560
Speaker 2: That's correct.

1042
01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:49,680
Speaker 1: And so you're running against Baker. He's come back from

1043
01:02:49,760 --> 01:02:53,040
Speaker 1: running Ford's campaign for president where they narrow the gap

1044
01:02:53,080 --> 01:02:57,880
Speaker 1: but can't win. And Peter Russell, who's very close to

1045
01:02:58,200 --> 01:03:02,600
Speaker 1: Jane to mister Baker, tells me the story because he

1046
01:03:02,640 --> 01:03:07,000
Speaker 1: worked on that campaign running for attorney general, and they

1047
01:03:07,080 --> 01:03:10,400
Speaker 1: say they think they're winning, and he says, out of nowhere,

1048
01:03:10,440 --> 01:03:14,840
Speaker 1: Mark White does this ad and he says, I'll be

1049
01:03:14,960 --> 01:03:17,200
Speaker 1: as your attorney general. I'll be tough on crime. And

1050
01:03:17,240 --> 01:03:21,200
Speaker 1: he said, you slammed the door on the prison door,

1051
01:03:21,600 --> 01:03:23,959
Speaker 1: and he said Baker lost his mind because he says

1052
01:03:24,080 --> 01:03:26,640
Speaker 1: he don't have anything to do with crime. And so

1053
01:03:26,800 --> 01:03:29,200
Speaker 1: they just sat back and waited and lo and behold,

1054
01:03:29,240 --> 01:03:31,080
Speaker 1: you shoot up in the polls Now, I'm sure there's

1055
01:03:31,080 --> 01:03:33,880
Speaker 1: more to it, but that's the lower of that story.

1056
01:03:34,240 --> 01:03:38,640
Speaker 1: And so Baker tells Peter Russel, if I'd been tough

1057
01:03:38,640 --> 01:03:40,400
Speaker 1: on crime, I probably never would have made it to

1058
01:03:40,440 --> 01:03:44,280
Speaker 1: the White House, right, But that's got to be kind

1059
01:03:44,320 --> 01:03:47,320
Speaker 1: of neat Ronald Reagan gets elected in eighty and Baker

1060
01:03:47,800 --> 01:03:51,320
Speaker 1: ascends to these great positions. He's so well respected and

1061
01:03:51,360 --> 01:03:53,959
Speaker 1: you obviously respect him as well. And you can say

1062
01:03:53,960 --> 01:03:54,920
Speaker 1: his one race.

1063
01:03:54,720 --> 01:03:55,320
Speaker 2: I beat him.

1064
01:03:55,560 --> 01:03:59,440
Speaker 1: And that was also the year that a young guy

1065
01:03:59,560 --> 01:04:03,560
Speaker 1: is running for Congress in Midland and he lost his

1066
01:04:03,640 --> 01:04:04,640
Speaker 1: only race, George W.

1067
01:04:04,760 --> 01:04:05,080
Speaker 2: Bush.

1068
01:04:05,120 --> 01:04:07,560
Speaker 1: So seventy eight interesting things happened.

1069
01:04:07,760 --> 01:04:09,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was a good year for me,

1070
01:04:11,400 --> 01:04:14,000
Speaker 2: and it didn't turn out bad for the others. So

1071
01:04:15,400 --> 01:04:19,080
Speaker 2: that was a fun race. The attorney general's race was

1072
01:04:19,360 --> 01:04:23,800
Speaker 2: important general election race, but it really points out something

1073
01:04:23,840 --> 01:04:27,480
Speaker 2: that I don't think anybody has recognized, and that is,

1074
01:04:27,520 --> 01:04:30,120
Speaker 2: if you go look at the election results that night,

1075
01:04:32,280 --> 01:04:38,640
Speaker 2: Jim Baker, this was the first time a Republican governor

1076
01:04:38,720 --> 01:04:45,600
Speaker 2: is elected in Texas since eighteen seventy six, and he

1077
01:04:45,640 --> 01:04:48,760
Speaker 2: won by about he Clement's won by about fifteen thousand

1078
01:04:48,840 --> 01:04:53,720
Speaker 2: votes twelve eleven. The same night, John Tower is getting

1079
01:04:53,760 --> 01:04:57,440
Speaker 2: re elected by about the same number of votes. And

1080
01:04:57,480 --> 01:05:02,080
Speaker 2: this is not to demean Jim Baker, but somewhat advanced

1081
01:05:02,080 --> 01:05:05,920
Speaker 2: my claim to victory as that same night I'm went

1082
01:05:05,960 --> 01:05:10,000
Speaker 2: in by about two hundred thousand votes. And how do

1083
01:05:10,040 --> 01:05:12,480
Speaker 2: you account for that? Well, it wasn't because Jim Baker

1084
01:05:12,520 --> 01:05:16,360
Speaker 2: and Mark White were underqualified candidates one or the other.

1085
01:05:17,520 --> 01:05:20,960
Speaker 2: But I submit to you it was over the issues

1086
01:05:21,000 --> 01:05:26,760
Speaker 2: that I was involved with, including utility rate regulation, representing

1087
01:05:26,840 --> 01:05:31,040
Speaker 2: Texas on some big cases against Howard Hughes for one,

1088
01:05:31,120 --> 01:05:35,560
Speaker 2: and then the crime issue that and the Attorney General

1089
01:05:35,600 --> 01:05:41,040
Speaker 2: does have a element in criminal enforcement, primarily on a

1090
01:05:41,120 --> 01:05:48,960
Speaker 2: pellet cases. So I kept the door closed on those people. Yeah, absolutely,

1091
01:05:49,320 --> 01:05:52,760
Speaker 2: by virtue of we did not let their cases be

1092
01:05:52,880 --> 01:05:56,360
Speaker 2: reversed on appeal, and so we kept them in the penitentiary.

1093
01:05:58,200 --> 01:06:02,480
Speaker 2: But anyway, we had a very effective campaign. His campaign

1094
01:06:02,600 --> 01:06:07,920
Speaker 2: was much more similarly situated to the race between Lloyd

1095
01:06:08,000 --> 01:06:14,080
Speaker 2: Benson and George H. W. Bush. Several years earlier, George H. W.

1096
01:06:14,200 --> 01:06:18,560
Speaker 2: Bush was running for the US Senate against what he

1097
01:06:18,680 --> 01:06:22,920
Speaker 2: thought his opponent would be was Ralph Yarborough. Well, lleyd Beholds,

1098
01:06:23,040 --> 01:06:26,920
Speaker 2: some guy from nowhere came out of nowhere and defeated

1099
01:06:27,000 --> 01:06:32,240
Speaker 2: Ralph Yarborough. His name was Lloyd Benson. Well, then H. W.

1100
01:06:32,360 --> 01:06:35,320
Speaker 2: Bush looks up and said, my gosh, where's Yarboro? He's

1101
01:06:35,360 --> 01:06:37,800
Speaker 2: not running. He was the liberal I was going to

1102
01:06:37,920 --> 01:06:41,080
Speaker 2: run against. And then Benson shows up and he's more

1103
01:06:41,080 --> 01:06:44,720
Speaker 2: of the conservative Democrat with strong business support, and he

1104
01:06:44,800 --> 01:06:51,560
Speaker 2: winds up winning. Rewrite later, Jim Baker's running against everybody

1105
01:06:51,640 --> 01:06:55,960
Speaker 2: knows price Daniel Junior is going to win. The worst

1106
01:06:56,160 --> 01:06:59,440
Speaker 2: thing that ever happened politically was the announcement of one

1107
01:06:59,480 --> 01:07:04,480
Speaker 2: of our commentators here in Houston three weeks out saying, well,

1108
01:07:04,720 --> 01:07:07,720
Speaker 2: he predicted who was going to win in the governor's race,

1109
01:07:07,760 --> 01:07:08,520
Speaker 2: Senate race, and.

1110
01:07:08,440 --> 01:07:09,360
Speaker 1: Black dam Murray.

1111
01:07:09,840 --> 01:07:13,120
Speaker 2: Murray, I love him, but he says, the only thing

1112
01:07:13,200 --> 01:07:16,240
Speaker 2: left in the race for attorney General is how badly

1113
01:07:16,280 --> 01:07:20,000
Speaker 2: will Mark White be defeated by Price Daniels Junior. Well,

1114
01:07:20,040 --> 01:07:24,680
Speaker 2: that tended to drive up my campaign contributions Immediately, who

1115
01:07:24,720 --> 01:07:26,880
Speaker 2: wants to give to a guy that everybody knows I'm

1116
01:07:26,880 --> 01:07:32,560
Speaker 2: going to win. My parents quit contributing, so that was

1117
01:07:32,600 --> 01:07:35,440
Speaker 2: the end of fundraising. So we just had to get

1118
01:07:35,480 --> 01:07:37,720
Speaker 2: back and just run the race, and we won by

1119
01:07:37,760 --> 01:07:41,120
Speaker 2: a pretty good number. But then that he had to

1120
01:07:41,160 --> 01:07:45,800
Speaker 2: look up, he Bush, just like h. W. Bush. He Baker,

1121
01:07:46,120 --> 01:07:49,160
Speaker 2: like h. W. Bush, looked up and says, where is

1122
01:07:49,200 --> 01:07:55,600
Speaker 2: my liberal Democratic opponent? And here's Mark White? So similar results.

1123
01:07:55,440 --> 01:07:58,880
Speaker 1: Similar race. No I have thought that. I will tell

1124
01:07:58,920 --> 01:08:03,880
Speaker 1: you one of the guys that sparked my passion for

1125
01:08:03,960 --> 01:08:08,680
Speaker 1: Texas politics was Dick Murray. And he was my professor

1126
01:08:08,840 --> 01:08:16,080
Speaker 1: in nineteen let's see nineteen ninety when you're looking at

1127
01:08:16,280 --> 01:08:19,800
Speaker 1: running for governor again, and he tells the story about

1128
01:08:19,800 --> 01:08:22,880
Speaker 1: a conversation he'd had with you just before that, and

1129
01:08:22,920 --> 01:08:25,080
Speaker 1: he's not sure if you're going to run or you're not.

1130
01:08:25,240 --> 01:08:28,360
Speaker 1: And then you did in the primary, in that brutal primary,

1131
01:08:28,360 --> 01:08:32,760
Speaker 1: between Maddox and Richards, right, what were you thinking coming back?

1132
01:08:32,800 --> 01:08:35,040
Speaker 1: Did you think that those two would split and there might.

1133
01:08:34,920 --> 01:08:38,160
Speaker 2: Be a Well, first of all, I didn't think it

1134
01:08:38,200 --> 01:08:41,000
Speaker 2: was going to lose the reelection effort, which I did

1135
01:08:41,880 --> 01:08:45,160
Speaker 2: back the number I had won by four years earlier,

1136
01:08:45,200 --> 01:08:52,360
Speaker 2: but then the comeback was a tougher deal. But I

1137
01:08:52,400 --> 01:08:56,479
Speaker 2: thought I would have the you know, we should have

1138
01:08:56,560 --> 01:09:00,360
Speaker 2: had him last time, let's have him next time kind of.

1139
01:09:00,400 --> 01:09:04,160
Speaker 2: I was thinking maybe there'd be bygones, be bygones in

1140
01:09:04,240 --> 01:09:08,439
Speaker 2: some regrets to get some support. In any event, we

1141
01:09:08,520 --> 01:09:10,960
Speaker 2: got down to this is the importance of television and

1142
01:09:11,000 --> 01:09:15,519
Speaker 2: the message that comes, and that's partly I get credit

1143
01:09:15,600 --> 01:09:18,479
Speaker 2: for her some days, and I get the demerits on

1144
01:09:18,520 --> 01:09:21,960
Speaker 2: the other. Here's what happened. The three of us are

1145
01:09:21,960 --> 01:09:26,559
Speaker 2: in this tight race, Maddox, Richard's and White, and we

1146
01:09:26,600 --> 01:09:30,680
Speaker 2: were running all about thirty thirty one, thirty two, one up,

1147
01:09:30,680 --> 01:09:34,000
Speaker 2: one down, side by side, and so the question was

1148
01:09:34,080 --> 01:09:37,479
Speaker 2: pretty apparent two of you will be in the runoff,

1149
01:09:37,680 --> 01:09:42,639
Speaker 2: which two? And so Ann Richards put out a TV

1150
01:09:43,000 --> 01:09:48,160
Speaker 2: ad that did a couple of things. She attacked both

1151
01:09:48,200 --> 01:09:52,080
Speaker 2: of us in the same ad. I don't remember what

1152
01:09:52,240 --> 01:09:55,759
Speaker 2: she said about Maddox, But she said about him first

1153
01:09:57,040 --> 01:10:00,920
Speaker 2: in the thirty second ad. Then she attacks me, he saying,

1154
01:10:01,080 --> 01:10:03,200
Speaker 2: and I think it was along the lines of Mark

1155
01:10:03,200 --> 01:10:11,320
Speaker 2: White left office, bought them lined his pockets with tax dollars,

1156
01:10:12,000 --> 01:10:14,160
Speaker 2: which was just where did that come from?

1157
01:10:14,320 --> 01:10:16,760
Speaker 1: And what matches with tax dollars? Why would you line

1158
01:10:16,800 --> 01:10:17,240
Speaker 1: your pockets?

1159
01:10:17,320 --> 01:10:21,880
Speaker 2: Well that was kind of a mystery statement. But you

1160
01:10:21,920 --> 01:10:24,240
Speaker 2: say it, and they sit and hear it. And then

1161
01:10:24,240 --> 01:10:26,080
Speaker 2: they said, and bought a million dollar house?

1162
01:10:26,880 --> 01:10:27,919
Speaker 1: Was that the one on Remington?

1163
01:10:28,040 --> 01:10:32,320
Speaker 2: Yeah? I did, but I did it the old fashioned way.

1164
01:10:32,600 --> 01:10:36,519
Speaker 2: I signed a note. He was the best financed million

1165
01:10:36,560 --> 01:10:39,679
Speaker 2: dollar house you've ever seen. It was called nothing Down

1166
01:10:40,200 --> 01:10:45,200
Speaker 2: Interest Only University. It was that beautiful, beautiful. It's now

1167
01:10:45,280 --> 01:10:47,599
Speaker 2: worth a whole lot more. I paid for it, too bad,

1168
01:10:47,640 --> 01:10:50,519
Speaker 2: I don't still own it. But in any event, she

1169
01:10:50,920 --> 01:10:56,360
Speaker 2: lays those two premises out, and boy, people heard that.

1170
01:10:57,120 --> 01:11:01,479
Speaker 2: Who wants to vote for that rat? And so not

1171
01:11:01,560 --> 01:11:05,280
Speaker 2: only whatever bad she said about was either forgotten what

1172
01:11:05,360 --> 01:11:09,080
Speaker 2: she said about Maddox or accumulated to me. But any event,

1173
01:11:09,160 --> 01:11:12,080
Speaker 2: within a week we went from thirty three to thirty

1174
01:11:12,080 --> 01:11:17,000
Speaker 2: three whatever. Together they stated about the same numbers and

1175
01:11:17,040 --> 01:11:21,280
Speaker 2: I went down to twenty. I mean, it was a

1176
01:11:21,360 --> 01:11:26,080
Speaker 2: brutal shot below the waterline and no recovery. There was

1177
01:11:26,120 --> 01:11:28,880
Speaker 2: no way you could come back within that period of time.

1178
01:11:29,960 --> 01:11:33,599
Speaker 2: She refused to take the ad down even though it

1179
01:11:33,640 --> 01:11:39,800
Speaker 2: was not only untrue, but it was factually untrue and

1180
01:11:39,880 --> 01:11:43,320
Speaker 2: left an impression that was untrue. So anyway, she won

1181
01:11:44,040 --> 01:11:47,760
Speaker 2: game over then I didn't you know, Maddix wanted to

1182
01:11:47,800 --> 01:11:50,599
Speaker 2: me endorse him, which I didn't do. But any event,

1183
01:11:50,640 --> 01:11:53,200
Speaker 2: she won the election. As we talked and know about,

1184
01:11:53,360 --> 01:11:58,000
Speaker 2: is that her opponent said some things. It probably made

1185
01:11:58,040 --> 01:12:03,920
Speaker 2: the difference in the race. Yeah, he was about halfway

1186
01:12:03,960 --> 01:12:07,080
Speaker 2: around with a lap ahead, and then he you know,

1187
01:12:07,200 --> 01:12:09,960
Speaker 2: some say if he'd gone to Mexico, he'd probably gotten elected,

1188
01:12:09,960 --> 01:12:13,439
Speaker 2: but he didn't. But in any event, she won, and

1189
01:12:13,640 --> 01:12:17,400
Speaker 2: she did whatever she planned to do, and I think

1190
01:12:17,439 --> 01:12:19,840
Speaker 2: she was well thought I was a governor. Then she

1191
01:12:20,080 --> 01:12:26,920
Speaker 2: turns up and gets defeated by George Bush w and

1192
01:12:27,400 --> 01:12:31,479
Speaker 2: fairly easily. But what I think you're seeing there, let's

1193
01:12:31,520 --> 01:12:37,160
Speaker 2: take the personalities out, is a beginning of a co

1194
01:12:37,360 --> 01:12:41,200
Speaker 2: leasing of all of those principles you talked about of

1195
01:12:41,240 --> 01:12:46,760
Speaker 2: the change that happened in Texas. Democrat to Republican, and

1196
01:12:46,840 --> 01:12:50,679
Speaker 2: it was happening through a long twenty some odd period

1197
01:12:50,800 --> 01:12:56,759
Speaker 2: year period of time. Nobody realizes that John kindly barely

1198
01:12:56,800 --> 01:13:02,519
Speaker 2: got elected governor against a Republican first race, barely got elected.

1199
01:13:04,400 --> 01:13:10,000
Speaker 2: And then we've seen Doc Prescoe barely got elected governor

1200
01:13:10,040 --> 01:13:13,599
Speaker 2: against the Republican. So this has been happening for a

1201
01:13:13,600 --> 01:13:18,519
Speaker 2: long time. And then John Hill barely lost the governor's

1202
01:13:18,640 --> 01:13:22,680
Speaker 2: race to a Republican. Then I beat the pretty good

1203
01:13:23,960 --> 01:13:26,840
Speaker 2: incumbent republic Then he turns around and beats me for

1204
01:13:27,080 --> 01:13:32,000
Speaker 2: things that happened that I did and changing conditions. You know,

1205
01:13:32,160 --> 01:13:35,400
Speaker 2: all prices down, unemployment up, I mean it was bad

1206
01:13:35,439 --> 01:13:38,360
Speaker 2: economy plus ed I raised taxing, I mean I had

1207
01:13:38,360 --> 01:13:41,479
Speaker 2: about eight I'm just glad I didn't shoot me so

1208
01:13:42,040 --> 01:13:44,960
Speaker 2: any event, then you see Anne Richards gets in for

1209
01:13:45,160 --> 01:13:49,000
Speaker 2: real personal reasons in the she probably wouldn't have gotten elected.

1210
01:13:49,479 --> 01:13:51,960
Speaker 2: I think she would even say if he hadn't talked

1211
01:13:51,960 --> 01:13:54,560
Speaker 2: the way he did, let me say, it might have

1212
01:13:54,600 --> 01:13:57,120
Speaker 2: been a close victory for her, but it made a difference.

1213
01:13:58,120 --> 01:14:04,040
Speaker 2: So then here comes a normal Republican, good well thought

1214
01:14:04,080 --> 01:14:10,800
Speaker 2: of Republican nominee to run for governor in Texas and

1215
01:14:10,920 --> 01:14:18,200
Speaker 2: against an incumbent Democratic governor, and he won by pretty

1216
01:14:18,200 --> 01:14:21,519
Speaker 2: substantial number. But let me give you a couple of things,

1217
01:14:21,560 --> 01:14:25,320
Speaker 2: not only the shifting demography and their political alignments, but

1218
01:14:25,479 --> 01:14:29,639
Speaker 2: also nobody seems to think about this, or you don't

1219
01:14:29,680 --> 01:14:33,479
Speaker 2: hear any political scientists tell you. I'm about to the

1220
01:14:33,560 --> 01:14:39,720
Speaker 2: incumbent has the advantage in a race against party. I

1221
01:14:39,760 --> 01:14:43,880
Speaker 2: said it wrong. The challenger has the advantage against an incumbent,

1222
01:14:43,920 --> 01:14:46,760
Speaker 2: do they have no record, because he comes in and

1223
01:14:46,800 --> 01:14:50,080
Speaker 2: gets the chance of being able to attack what the

1224
01:14:50,120 --> 01:14:53,799
Speaker 2: incumbent's done that he doesn't like and the public agrees

1225
01:14:53,880 --> 01:14:58,160
Speaker 2: with him. Now, the main deficiency, the main disadvantage of

1226
01:14:58,200 --> 01:15:03,040
Speaker 2: it in a the challenger of defeating an incumbent is

1227
01:15:03,680 --> 01:15:08,519
Speaker 2: historically the challenger doesn't have any money and can't raise money.

1228
01:15:09,560 --> 01:15:13,519
Speaker 2: Clemmet's tried to kill my money two or three different

1229
01:15:13,520 --> 01:15:15,880
Speaker 2: ways and two or three times and came close, but

1230
01:15:15,960 --> 01:15:20,800
Speaker 2: didn't do it. Had he killed my money the last month,

1231
01:15:22,439 --> 01:15:24,920
Speaker 2: he would have won, because I would have been off

1232
01:15:24,960 --> 01:15:27,559
Speaker 2: the air for four weeks and it would have been over.

1233
01:15:28,360 --> 01:15:32,360
Speaker 2: Now today, what you're seeing happening in the national level,

1234
01:15:32,520 --> 01:15:36,120
Speaker 2: billionaires just self fund themselves and said well, I believe

1235
01:15:36,120 --> 01:15:37,960
Speaker 2: I'd like to be the president or I'd like to

1236
01:15:37,960 --> 01:15:40,519
Speaker 2: be the governor and don't have to ask a soul

1237
01:15:40,600 --> 01:15:44,000
Speaker 2: for anything to start buying a TV and thinks he's

1238
01:15:44,040 --> 01:15:47,280
Speaker 2: going to buy that election. People sometimes have a little

1239
01:15:47,320 --> 01:15:50,200
Speaker 2: bore to say about it, then they might like for

1240
01:15:50,320 --> 01:15:53,760
Speaker 2: them too. And so we still have the ability, even

1241
01:15:53,840 --> 01:15:58,960
Speaker 2: with the unlimited ability to raise money today from corporations

1242
01:15:58,960 --> 01:16:02,240
Speaker 2: and other people that you never get to know their names.

1243
01:16:03,160 --> 01:16:06,000
Speaker 2: Still the people can sniff through some of that. I

1244
01:16:06,000 --> 01:16:08,200
Speaker 2: don't believe I want that one and I do want

1245
01:16:08,240 --> 01:16:12,800
Speaker 2: this one. So we're still a democracy, still got a

1246
01:16:12,880 --> 01:16:17,639
Speaker 2: bright future. I would like to make it a little

1247
01:16:17,680 --> 01:16:24,840
Speaker 2: more people involved and people oriented. Corporations to me, where

1248
01:16:24,880 --> 01:16:28,680
Speaker 2: I go to church, they don't have a soul. They

1249
01:16:28,720 --> 01:16:32,400
Speaker 2: do have a legal existence, but that doesn't mean that

1250
01:16:32,920 --> 01:16:36,080
Speaker 2: they should have the right to vote. And so anyway,

1251
01:16:36,160 --> 01:16:37,000
Speaker 2: there's some differences.

1252
01:16:37,120 --> 01:16:38,920
Speaker 1: You just campaigned on me, governor.

1253
01:16:39,200 --> 01:16:42,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, you enjoyed to visit. Thank you appreciate you got

1254
01:16:42,640 --> 01:16:44,320
Speaker 2: me to think about things I hadn't thought about in

1255
01:16:44,320 --> 01:16:44,719
Speaker 2: a while.

1256
01:16:46,000 --> 01:16:48,960
Speaker 1: If you like to Michael Berry show in podcast, please

1257
01:16:49,200 --> 01:16:53,320
Speaker 1: tell one friend, and if you're so inclined, write a

1258
01:16:53,439 --> 01:16:58,479
Speaker 1: nice review of our podcast. Comments, suggestions, questions, and interest

1259
01:16:58,560 --> 01:17:02,440
Speaker 1: in being a corporate sponsor and partner can be communicated

1260
01:17:02,479 --> 01:17:06,960
Speaker 1: directly to the show at our email address, Michael at

1261
01:17:07,080 --> 01:17:11,600
Speaker 1: Michael Berryshow dot com, or simply by clicking on our website,

1262
01:17:11,920 --> 01:17:16,480
Speaker 1: Michael Berryshow dot com. The Michael Berry Show and Podcast

1263
01:17:16,760 --> 01:17:21,880
Speaker 1: is produced by Ramon Roeblis, the King of Ding. Executive

1264
01:17:21,960 --> 01:17:30,799
Speaker 1: producer is Chad Knakanishi. Jim Mudd is the creative director.

1265
01:17:31,600 --> 01:17:37,160
Speaker 1: Voices Jingles, Tomfoolery and Shenanigans are provided by Chance McLean.

1266
01:17:38,000 --> 01:17:42,479
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1267
01:17:42,520 --> 01:17:49,960
Speaker 1: assistant listener and superfan. Contributions are appreciated and often incorporated

1268
01:17:50,160 --> 01:17:53,720
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1269
01:17:54,240 --> 01:17:57,439
Speaker 1: we take all the credit for ourselves. God bless the

1270
01:17:57,479 --> 01:18:03,080
Speaker 1: memory of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be a simple

1271
01:18:03,200 --> 01:18:09,040
Speaker 1: man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,

1272
01:18:09,760 --> 01:18:13,519
Speaker 1: if you know a veteran suffering from PTSD, call Camp

1273
01:18:13,560 --> 01:18:19,439
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1274
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