entrenched incumbent, no incumbent of any kind, in that Seventh District when Bush got
around to making his bid there in 1966. But for now, this was all still in the future.
On September 10, 1963 Bush announced his campaign for the US Senate. He was fully
endorsed by the state Republican organization and its chairman, Peter O'Donnell, who
according to some accounts had encouraged Bush to run. By December 5 Bush had
further announced that he was planning to step down as Harris County chairman and
devote himself to full-time state-wide campaigning starting early in 1964. At this point,
Bush's foremost strategic concern appears to have been money--big money. On October
19, the Houston Chronicle carried his comment that ousting Yarborough would require
nearly $2 million "if you want to do it right." Much of this would go to the Brown and
Snyder advertising agency in Houston for television and billboards. In 1963, this was a
considerable sum, but Bush's crony C. Fred Chambers, also an oilman, was committed to
raising it. During these years Chambers appears to have been one of Bush's closest
friends, and he received the ultimate apotheosis of having one of the Bush family dogs
named in his honor. [fn 14]
It is impossible to establish in retrospect how much Bush spent in this campaign. State
campaign finance filings do exist, but they are fragmentary and grossly underestimate the
money that was actually committed.
In terms of the tradeoffs of the campaign, Bush and his handlers were confronted with the
following configuration: there were three competitors for the Republican senatorial
nomination. The most formidable competition came from Jack Cox, the Houston oilman
who had run for governor against Connally in 1962, and whose statewide recognition was
much higher than Bush's. Cox would position himself to the right of Bush and who would
receive the endorsement of General Edwin Walker, who had been forced to resign his
infantry command in Germany because of his radical speeches to the troops. A former
Democrat, Cox was reported to have financial backing from the Hunts of Dallas. Cox
campaigned against medicare, federal aid to education, the war on poverty, and the loss
of US sovereignty to the UN.
Competing with Cox was Dr. Milton Davis, a thoracic surgeon from Dallas who was
expected to be the weakest candidate but whose positions were perhaps the most
distinctive: Morris was for "no treaties with Russia," the repeal of the federal income tax,
and the "selling off of excess government industrial property such as TVA and REA"--
what the Reagan-Bush administrations would later call privatization.
Competing with Bush for the less militant conservatives was Dallas lawyer Robert
Morris, who recommended depriving the US Supreme Court of appellate jurisdiction in
school prayer cases. [fn 15] In order to avoid a humiliating second-round runoff in the
primary, Bush would need to score an absolute majority the first time around. To do that
he would have to first compete with Cox on a right-wing terrain, and then move to the
center after the primary in order to take votes from Yarborough there.