David Richards, ex-husband and political co-conspiritor of former Texas Governor Ann Richards, has a memoir out entitled Once Upon a Time in Texas: A Liberal in the Lone Star State. He means "liberal" here in a sense that predates its current pejorative usage among lefty-progressive-greenies like me. Up until shortly before I came of age, a "liberal" in Texas was a nearly mythical beast living at the fringes of a conservative Democratic monopoly. Somehow Richards' generation of civil rights activists managed to redefine the political landscape from an overtly racist one-party system to a two-party system in which a coalition of blacks, hispanics and white liberals like Ann Richards or Jim Hightower actually won statewide races once in a while.
Of course, their moment of glory was short-lived, and between Reagan-Bushism at the national level, the self-preservation instincts of Texas' good-old-boy network and massive demographic change on the ground, we're well on our way to a new conservative monopoly, if not under a Republican one-party lock then under a two-party Tweedledum-Tweedledee game even less diverse than the national one. With the Democrats handing nominations to open Bushistas like Tony Sanchez, progressives nowadays can feel as alienated from Texas politics as their liberal forebears did in the old Democratic machine days.
Which makes me eager to know how Richards and his compadres worked their magic forty years ago. It's hard to say whether this book will have many answers, or whether it will at least be an entertaining read; the available excerpt is not promising. I look forward to seeing a review in the Texas Observer.