MEET PHIL GRAMM'S CHALLENGER
NICHOLS, JOHN
Meet Phil Gramm's CHALLENGER A Mexican-American schoolteacher comes out of nowhere BY JOHN NICHOLS Porque nol That's the unofficial slogan of Victor Morales's campaign in Texas for the U.S....
...Congressmen and the entire Democratic establishment of Texas in a primary campaign and runoff...
...It's really the product of old-fashioned gumption combined with mad-as-hellism and going deadhead against the establishment—and that's exactly the challenge Gramm has needed...
...to oppose school-prayer amendments and attacks on public education...
...This criticism hit a peak after a debate in which he said he didn't know enough about the federal Department of Education to comment on its future...
...Gramm's effort to stamp his far-right credentials with gratuitous jabs at affirmative action and immigration persuaded Victor Morales to run for the Senate...
...It just shows you how oblivious the Democratic power structure and people like Bob Kerrey are to what made Victor Morales a success in the first place...
...It was ridiculous...
...to call for cuts in NASA spending...
...We know what it means to work for your next meal...
...Then Mr...
...We grew up less than working class...
...On the first day of class, Mr...
...Morales is the first Mexican American to win a major party nominalion for US...
...Minh Huynh—a Vietnamese immigrant who now is a full-time volunteer for the Morales campaign—will never forget his first encounter with Morales at Poteet High School in Mesquite...
...With no real history as an activist, and no political experience outside a single term on the city council of Crandall (population 1,800), Morales doesn't exactly come off as a threat to a man who until a few months ago was a serious contender for the Presidency...
...VicJohn Nichols, an editorial writer for The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, covers electoral politics for The Progressive...
...Exit polls showed that he was rejected by primary voters who actually found Pat Buchanan warmer and cuddlier...
...On the day after the runoff, U.S...
...One of four children raised by a single mother in Pleasanton, Texas, Morales has a personal grasp of issues like welfare reform, racial discrimination, child labor, and poverty...
...I've kept these memories, these experiences, very near to my heart...
...All he's doing is trying to inflame the so-called 'angry white males' in order to advance his own career...
...Victor Morales is going to give Phil Gramm fits," says former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower...
...I'm dying to get back on the road," he says, as he sits at his kitchen table plotting the next step in his David-versus-Goliath campaign...
...Before we were ten, we were doing fieldwork— picking cotton, beans, and watermelons...
...1 love it...
...That sort of talk makes Hightower cringe...
...He is a teacher of government as it's described in the civics books, and he believes it ought to work...
...Then, finally, Victor got up and said, Tt isn't really all about money...
...Hightower admits he is "just getting to know Victor"—a circumstance not uncommon among Democratic activists in Texas, almost all of whom lined up behind Morales's runoff opponent, U.S...
...Morales said, "OK, let's all bow our heads for the 'I know what it means to receive death threats because I was a Mexican who didn't know my place.' school prayer.' So most of the students dutifully bowed their heads," says Huynh...
...I found that irresponsible and offensive...
...Ratcliffe of the Houston Chronicle...
...This guyJB a genuineness that is compelling, andS long as he doesn't dilute it, as long as fie doesn't surround himself with too many bigwigs, it's going to be even more compelling when you contrast it with Phil Gramm's self-serving meanness...
...But I don't go around with a chip on my shoulder, and I don't go around with a whiney-butt attitude...
...When's the last time we had a U.S...
...A lot of our Senators today grew up as millionaires...
...The last straw for me was when Phil Gramm—as a Presidential candidate—referred to affirmative action as quotas," recalls Morales...
...I know what living on food stamps is like...
...Kerrey seemed to be saying, Tt's all about money,' " recalls R.G...
...They'll only tell you how to lose.'"' Morales has no intention of trading the truck for a Lear jet...
...He really is a Mr...
...When asked about Morales's prospects in November, Truan replied: "You mean, after Gramm eats him up and spits him out" But Hightower, who had to defy equally harsh expectations before he went onf} win his own statewide campaigns in-w 1980s, thinks Morales's perceived weK nesses may prove strengths...
...As he heads toward November, Morales will get plenty of advice from Democratic strategists to tone down the rhetoric...
...I've known something else: I've known poverty, I've known low-income, and even though I'm better off now, I haven't forgotten...
...I miss it...
...Why not a guy who doesn't have a million bucks...
...Why not a schoolteacher...
...State Senator Carlos Truan, a Corpus Christi Democrat, says Morales won the nomination on the strength of a common Hispanic name that he happened to share with the state's popular attorney general...
...What Morales brings to the race, however, are gut instincts about right and wrong that led him to stake out bold positions—particularly by Texas standards—in support of gun control, abortion rights, and family leave...
...I miss the peace and tranquility of driving for an hour or two and then getting off the road and talking to the folks at the Stop-N-Go or the Exxon or the diner...
...lDon't get any consultants...
...I know what it means to receive death threats because I was a Mexican who didn't know my place...
...1 know what it means to have to walk everywhere because you don't have a car," he explains...
...Smith goes to Washington—or a Sefior Smith goes to Washington, as someone down here described it," says High-tower...
...But the Morales campaign echoes the populist themes sounded in the 1990 and 1992 Senate campaigns of Minnesota's Paul Wellstone and Wisconsin's Russ Fein-gold—the only Democrats to displace incumbent Republican Senators since the close of the Reagan Administration...
...Just as Wellstone traveled Minnesota in an old school bus, Morales has relied on his pickup truck—putting 62,000 miles on the vehicle since last summer...
...Morales was hit with jibes for moving "from the pickup truck to the Lear jet...
...Morales now faces Phil Gramm—the meanest, most strident, and best-financed rightwing Republican in the Senate...
...Hoping to raise as much as $2 million for national Democrats, Kerrey spoke at each stop about the importance of money if "we Democrats are to have any hope of regaining the Senate...
...says the candidate...
...Representative John Bryant...
...He has advised Morales to keep trusting his instincts...
...But the dismissals subsided when Morales—with no television ads, no campaign staff, no headquarters, and a budget of less than $50,000—defeated two U.S...
...Mexican-American women lit candles in churches for Morales on the eve of the runoff vote, and landslide victories in predominantly Hispanic regions of Texas were vital to Morales's triumph...
...I love talking to those people, hearing their voices...
...Despite a miserable failure in his bid for the GOP Presidential nod, Gramm had been pegged as a sure bet to win reelection...
...He outspent his last opponent by a twelve-to-one margin—pumping more than $10 million into television ads—and no one expects anything less of the Senator this year...
...We had patches on our clothes...
...Morales elaborates on his slogan: "Why not a Mexican American...
...His success was a top news story not only in Texas but on Hispanic radio and TV programs around the country and in Central and Latin America...
...Senator who knew what it meant to pick cotton at age nine...
...But Morales was criticized during the runoff campaign for frequently answering "I don't know" when asked about the specifics of issues...
...I still have the scars that come from being turned away from a public establishment because I was a 'messkin'—not a 'Mexican,' a 'messkin,' that's how they say it...
...At a time when racism frequently takes the form of English-only laws and anti-immigrant legislation...
...Morales has great confidence in the power of ideas to transform rigid attitudes and shift the political tide...
...Morales has never been one to avoid controversy...
...and to attack corporate welfare...
...Morales could add a much-needed perspective to the Senate: "I would bring the perspective of a minority...
...After Kerrey left...
...A year ago, when the forty-six-year-old high-school civics teacher began to recite this chorus of questions to Texas voters, few took him seriously...
...We were poor," recalls the candidate's younger brother Joey...
...Senate in Texas...
...Senate, a campaign that began as the longest of long shots but now has turned into one of the most inspired political insurgencies of 1996...
...What I said to him is...
...Those are the voices I want to carry with me to the Senate...
...I mean, I got this far with no money...
...Here was a guy with the power of his position, with access to the media, with a podium and a crowd wherever he goes, using all that prestige to inflame people...
...As a teacher, he challenged students in ways that are not common...
...Gramm positioned himself as the lightest of the rightwingers in this year's Republican Presidential campaign...
...Compounding the sense that he's a novice, Morales chronically arrives late for events and until recently resisted fax machines and other tools of modern campaigning...
...Just about all of them grew up middle-class or better...
...tor's campaign is not a miracle...
...Morales took it personally when he saw Gramm scoring political points by attacking minorities, immigrants, and the poor...
...He was dismayed that few other Texas Democrats would stand up and defend affirmative action and immigration, and so he threw his hat into the ring...
...Morales said, 'Don't you know that it's unconstitutional to pray in school?' And he led us into this incredibly thoughtful discussion of church-state separation...
...Many progressive Texans worried that Morales lacked the depth and the political skills needed to mount a serious challenge to Gramm...
...Senator Bob Kerrey, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, showed up with a Lear jet and squired Morales around Texas to several big-ticket fundraisers...
Vol. 60 • June 1996 • No. 6
