Politics in Texas is a history of ironies, and the cruelest of them all hangs on a rifle shot in Dallas two years ago. "The bullet" informs all that has since happened in Texas: the miscarriage of an embryonic Republican Party, the paralysis of the liberal Democrats, and the assumption by Governor John Connally, and his Administration of conservative Democrats, of unrivaled power. Somewhere in these vast reaches dissident souls may be stirring, but they dance to outcast drummers. The Connally consensus is complete.
"Two years ago," a Houston lawyer said last week, "there were some blacks and whites, but no more. There is only one big center." Texas is a gray place. Opposition to Connally is fragmented and ineffectual. The Governor has stifled it with a combination of kindness, cleverness and cruelty, in the best Texas tradition. It does not surprise some non-Texans, who can see the same characteristics on a wider screen, starring Connally's closet political traveling companion. But quick conclusions may be deceiving. "I'd bet," the lawyer said, "that the President learned more from John than the other way around."
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