Former Governor Ann Richards

Ann Richards 1933-2006

I first met Ann Richards back in the 70's when she was still drinking. I went to a party at her home and did not know whose party it was until I was leaving. She was at the door saying goodbye. Mostly a group of Austin politicos were there. She was a capitol staffer working for an Austin State Representative. Later I would see Ann, who was then a County Commissioner at various Austin watering holes.

When she ran for State Treasurer in 1982, I was recruited to introduce her to a Houston group of Democrats. She was very down to earth and very funny. And she acted like she had known me for a long time. A good trait for a politician. By then she had also quit drinking and was moving up in the leadership of the Texas Democratic Party.

She won the election and was the first woman to be elected to a state wide office without first being appointed.

In 1988 I was there when she gave the famous key note address to the national Democratic Convention, the same convention that nominated Lloyd Bentsen as the Vice Presidential nominee. She was the hit of the convention and had a ball going to various functions in Atlanta. She even had a body guard a first for her I think.

In 1990 I supported her for Governor. It was a great campaign and a good friend of mine, Bill Ramsey was her Houston coordinator. Later when she was elected he became her Executive Assistant. The 1990 campaign had it all, a cowboy GOP nominee named Clayton Williams who was constantly saying and doing things that cause folks to laugh at him. She won and started to reform Texas from the "good old boy" system. In fact a majority of her appointees were women and minorities. That may have caused her defeat in 1994 to George W. Bush.

And of course she had a great role as Convention Chair at the 1992 Democratic convention held in NYC. I ran into her at Bloomingdales where she was shopping. Getting something that would look good on national TV. She looked great in blue with that gray hair. And TV managed to not show the wrinkles cause by many years getting too much sun.

I thought her remarks to Girl's State in 1994 on something like "making sure they got an education because they could not depend on men to support them" was good advice, but as a political consultant I thought it to be bad politics. It just gave the conservatives something to talk about. And she had appointed many gay and liberal folks to boards and commissions so that was also a part of the opposition.

George W got the vote of men and pulled a few votes from women away from Ann and won the election. I was at Ann's Houston headquarters on election night and we all could not believe that a guy from west Texas with no government experience could defeat her, but that was the result. And now looking backwards 12 years ago you wonder what would have happened to our country if Ann had won the 1994 election.

But Ann took the defeat in stride and went on to write another book, serve on some boards and do a little lobbying while living in NYC and Austin. Over the next years I saw her just on a few occasions but watched her on TV and heard about her activities on behalf of women and Democrats all over the nation.

I much preferred Ann Richard's Texas to that of the present occupant of the While House. A Texas that looks out for the little guy and its children. Not those guys in the suits from the business community. Ann could dance with the suits but you always knew that she would have preferred to be with just plain folks.

Ann Richards and what she stood for in Texas will be missed.