'A PARTY WITHIN A PARTY'

...He is meeting with leaders of the state's powerful community organizations...

...He won his first term as Agriculture Commissioner in 1982—a year when U.S...

...Number two, he proved to be incompetent and demonstrated it on a regular basis in the campaign...

...The focus needs to be here," he says, "in part because I really think we can make something happen here...

...We don't have many proposals on the table...

...The time had come, he said, "to go back to basics...

...He does not believe a third-party effort is right for Texas "because I think the populist base is there and I think it is very willing to be in the Democratic Party if the Democratic Party shows itself to have this populist expression...

...In addition, Hightower is simply a believer in government—in using government's power to help ordinary people rather than the overprivileged...

...Hightower, who had endorsed Jackson in the primaries, describes himself as a "kick-ass populist"—hardly the image Dukakis wanted to convey...

...And he hopes that if he can help transform the Texas Democratic Party, it will serve as a model for the course the national party should take...

...Let's admit one thing that everyone admits, whether they're conservative Democrat or liberal Democrat or populist Democrat: What we've been trying isn't working all that well...

...It was a choice between Bush elitism and Dukakis elitism," Hightower said...

...If you got a guy that starts off the campaign saying the issue is competence, number one, you're in trouble there, because that is not the issue...

...I think I know how to run a campaign that would have driven Phil Gramm crazy," he said, "though admittedly, that is a short ride for Phil...

...It had been widely assumed that Hightower would make a run in 1990 for the U.S...

...He envisions speakers' bureaus and the creation of a policy center that will develop practical, working solutions for government...

...And he is seeking advice from other successful organization leaders, such as those at the Chicago-based Citizen Action and the Connecticut-based Legislative Electoral Action Project...

...This isn't going to be Hightower's Supermarket and All-Night Taco Stand...

...The structure of High-tower's new alliance is only beginning to take shape...

...But, like Jesse Jackson, he was treated by Dukakis strategists as a liability...

...So, even though Hightower had blasted Bentsen in 1976 when Hightower was editing The Texas Observer, he now speaks highly of him...

...Dukakis's cardinal sin, in Hightower's eyes, was that he failed to understand the key element necessary for the success of the Democratic Party: that it must reach out to its natural progressive base and keep its ranks expanding...

...But, he says, "We're not trying to create yet another organization...

...And we don't have a lot of policy centers and intellectual forums in which all this stuff is being discussed, debated, refined, tried out, and then politicked...

...Bentsen is a guy who understands coalition politics," he says...

...So you had labor unions that probably spent $20 million in this Presidential election and they had a candidate who wouldn't say the word 'union,' much less stand up with a union leader...

...Dukakis lost by seven million votes, Hightower points out, but there were 90 million people who didn't bother to go to the polls...

...He is talking about an active candidate-recruitment program that will begin to change the shape of the state legislature...

...To those who have followed Hightower's career, his commitment to working within the party is not surprising...

...And Bentsen, he adds, was quicker than Dukakis to realize that Jesse Jackson could play a helpful role in the 1988 campaign...

...It paid off in a Democratic sweep...

...Senator Lloyd Bentsen was up for reelection...

...So maybe we ought to try something else...

...Though he admitted that the race appealed to his political ambition and said it would have been "more fun than eating ice cream naked," he told a gathering of supporters and the media in Austin that it would also have been "a humongous enterprise that was not going to do what I see we must do, and that is to build the populist-progressive base in Texas and across the country...

...How to do it...

...He is talking about the need for a network of progressive and populist elected officials, from statewide offices, to the legislature, to school boards...

...To begin to get into the debate...

...It is going to be more of a political apparatus...

...To get your hands on government means getting elected, and Hightower understands that getting elected is practically impossible outside the two major parties...

...Though Hightower says he intends to continue speaking out on national issues, he is turning his attention to creating a movement in Texas...

...It's going to express a viewpoint...

...The Democrats decided to run as a unified slate, with Bentsen and Hobby sinking their vast sums of money into get-out-the-vote operations and the progressives using their stump skills to barnstorm around the state...

...It is going to rally what is already there...

...Hightower was one of four strong progressive candidates at the top of the Texas ballot that year, in addition to Bentsen and conservative Lieutenant Governor Bill Hobby...

...But in January, Hightower surprised even his closest aides by announcing that he would not make the race...

...Hightower credits the dismal nature of the campaign, the low turnout, the lack of significant issues, and "the rejection of the progressive side," for a change in his thinking about the Democratic Party and his role in it...

...The Dukakis campaign, Hightower says, "had a battle plan based on assuming that progressives were going to vote for Dukakis and posturing the campaign in a right-of-center, middle-of-the-road composition—one of the translations of which was that no known progressives should be within camera-shot of the nominee...

...In striking the themes of a new political movement, Hightower sounded as if he were launching a new political party—an updated Farmer-Labor Party perhaps...

...The so-called progressive nominee," as Hightower refers to Dukakis, had gone over to "the Chuck Robb side" of the Democratic Party in a vain attempt to woo conservatives...

...Hightower emerged from the campaign thoroughly disgusted with Dukakis...

...Dukakis had robbed the electorate of a real alternative in the election, he said in a recent interview...

...That is in essence what I am talking about doing," he explained later, "except we are going to be a party within a party...

...It would have been a "titanic clash," he said, in the great tradition of populist campaigns...

...That to me, just in terms of common sense," he says, "is a lot deeper fishing hole...

...He announced his intention to run for re-election as agriculture chief and to organize a new populist alliance that would attempt to launch a "concerted effort to change the way politics is conducted," starting with Texas politics...

...You had Dave Denison is the editor of The Texas Observer...

...Obviously both parties continue to believe that you must win Texas if you're going to win a Presidential election...

...My point is," says Hightower, "the Left is not very much in the debate...

...A Party Within a Party9 Jim Hightower proposes a populist alliance BY DAVE DENISON Jim Hightower, the Texas Commissioner of Agriculture who has gained national attention as one of the leading proponents of a new American populism, campaigned across Texas and across the nation last fall for Democrat Michael Dukakis...

...He is working closely with the state AFL-CIO, the association of trial lawyers, and the state Democratic Party...

...The result was a candidate who couldn't seem to say anything that would inspire people to vote...

...And if you make it happen here it is automatically important nationally...

...rallies, or let's say photo opportunities, that were geared toward the nightly news, that wanted Dukakis in a sea of safe and happy white faces...

...Senate against Texas Republican Phil Gramm...