Chapter –X

Rubbers Goes to Congress

During the heat of the senate campaign, Bush's redistricting lawsuit had progressed in a
way that must have provided him much solace amidst the bitterness of his defeat. When
Bush won his suit in the Houston federal district court, there was a loud squawk from
Governor John Connally, who called that august tribunal as a "Republican court." Bush
whined that Connally was being "vitriolic." During Bush's primary campaign, a three-
judge panel of the federal circuit court of appeals had ruled that the state of Texas must
be redistricted. Bush called that result "a real victory for all the people of Texas." By
March, Bush's redistricting suit had received favorable action by the US Supreme Court.
This meant that the way was clear to create a no-incumbent, designer district for George
in a masterpiece of gerrymandering that would make him an elected official, the first
Republican Congressman in the recent history of the Houston area.

The new Seventh District was drawn to create a liberal Republican seat, carefully taking
into account which areas Bush had succeeded in carrying in the senate race. What
emerged was for the most part a lilly-white, silk-stocking district of the affluent upper
middle and upper crust. There were also small black and Hispanic enclaves. In the
precinct boxes of the new district, Bush had rolled up an eight to five margin over
Yarborough. [fn 1]

But before gearing up a Congressional campaign in the Seventh District in 1966, Bush
first had to jettison some of the useless ideological ballast he had taken on for his 1964
Goldwater profile. During the 1964 campaign, Bush had spoken out more frankly and
more bluntly on a series of political issues than he ever has before or since. Apart from
the Goldwater coloration, one comes away with the impression that much of the time the
speeches were not just inventions, but often reflected his own oligarchical instincts and
deeply-rooted obsessions. In late 1964 and early 1965, Bush was afflicted by a hangover
induced by what for him had been an unprecedented orgy of self-revelation.

The 1965-66 model George Bush would become a moderate, abandoning the shrillest
notes of the 1964 conservative crusade.

First came an Episcopalian mea culpa. As Bush's admirer Fitzhugh Green reports, "one of
his first steps was to shuck off a bothersome trace from his 1964 campaign. He had
espoused some conservative ideas that didn't jibe with his own moderate attitude."
Previous statements were becoming inoperative, one gathers, when Bush discussed the