George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography

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In public, LBJ was for Yarborough, athe two. Speaking at Stonewall after the Democratic national convention, LBJ had commented:lthough he could not wholly pass over the frictions between
"You have heard and you have read that Sen. Yarborough and I have had differences at times. I
have read a good deal more about them than I was ever aware of. But I do want to say this, that I
don't think that Texas has had a senator during my lifetime whose record I am more familiar with
than Sen. Yarborough'than Sen. Yarborough has. And I don's voted for them. And no mt think Texas has had a senator that voted for the people moreember of the US Senate has stood up and
fought for me or fought for the people more since I became President than Ralph Yarborough." For
his part, Bush years later quoted a Time Magazine analysis of the 1964 senate race which concluded
that "if Lyndon would stay out of it, Republican Bush would have a chance. But Johnson is not
about to stay out of it, which makes Bush the underdog." [fn 26]
Yarborough for his part had referred to LBJ as a "power-mad Texas politician," and had called on
President Kennedy to keep LBJ out of Texas politics. Yarborough's attacks on Connally were even
more explicit and colorful: he accused Connally of acting like a "viceroy, and we got rid of those in


Texas when Mexico took oveprogressive governor since Jimmy Alfred," who had held office in 1935-39. Busr from Spain." According to Yarborough, "Texas had not had ah took pains to (^)
spell out that this was an attack on Democrats W. Lee O'Daniel, Coke Stevenson, Buford H. Jester,
Allan Shivers, Price Daniel, and John Connally.
Yarborough acity from a Democratic town to a "citadel of reaction." For Yarborough, tlso criticized the right-wing oligarchs of the Dallas area for having transformed thathe Fort Worth Star-
Telegram was "worse than Pravda."
Yarborough's strategy in the November election centered on identifying Bush with Goldwater in the
minds of voters, since the Arizona Republican's warlike rhetoric was now dragging him down tocertain defeat. Yarborough's first instict had been to run a substantive campaign, stressing issues
and his own legislative accomplishments. Yarborough in 1988 told Bush biographer Fitzhugh
Green: "When I started my campaign for re-election I was touting my record of six years in the
senate. But my speech advisors said, all you have to do is quote Bush, who had already called
himself 100 pewell." [fn 27] r cent for Goldwater and the Vietnam war. So that's what I did, and it worked very
Campaigning in Port Arthur on Oct. 30, a part of the state where his labor support loomed large,
Yarborough repeatedly attacked Bush as "more extreme than Barry Goldwater." According to
Yarborough, eBush said that he "welcomed support of the Birch Society and embraced it." "Let's you elect aven after Barry Goldwater had repudiated the support of the John Birch Society,
senator from Texas, and not the Connecticut investment bankers with their $2,500,000,"
Yarborough urged the voters. [fn 28]
These attacks were highly effective, and Bush's response was to mobilize his media budget for morescreenings of his World War II "flight of the Avenger" television spot, while he prepared a last-
minute television dirty trick. There was to be no debate between Bush and Yarborough, but this did
not prevent Bush from staging a televised "empty chair" debate, which was aired on more than a
dozen stations around the state on October 27. The Bush campaign staff scripted a debate in which
Bush answered doctored quotes from audio tapes of Yarborough scut in half, taken out of context, and otherwise distorted. Yarborough repeaking, with the sentences oftensponded by saying: "The
sneaky trick my opponent is trying to pull on me tonight of pulling sentences of mine out of context
with my recorded voice and playing my voice as a part of his broadcast is illegal under the law, and
a discredit to anyone who aspires to be a US Senator. I intend to protest this illegal trick to the
Federal Communications Commission." Bush's method was to "cut my statements in half, then let

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