Mentor, Mentee

So, one of John Cornyn’s schoolmates had wondered if his old acquaintance might have a little problem with the race issue when he ran for Senator against Ron Kirk. Unbenownst to most people, Cornyn had been an avid supporter of George Wallace:

I read a couple of weeks ago that John Cornyn had pledged to keep the issue of race out of his upcoming U.S. Senate campaign against African-American Democratic nominee Ron Kirk. That was a relief, because the John Cornyn I knew in high school was a big supporter of George Wallace and seemed oblivious to the dangers of Wallace’s racial demagoguery.

Cornyn a Wallace supporter? Why hasn’t Texas heard about that before? Cornyn and I graduated in 1969 from the American School in Japan, and I guess word of his early dabbling in right-wing politics never reached these shores. Besides, statements like this are not something I’d want to broadcast if I was trying to step into Phil Gramm’s shoes and join George Bush’s team in Washington.

“With the continuing concentration of power in the hands of the inept Democratic and Republican parties, it is time for a change,” Cornyn wrote in our student newspaper just before the 1968 presidential election. “Cast your vote for a strong America. Vote for George C. Wallace on November 5.”

Well, old George wasn’t just a one note samba. According to Rick Perlstein he had a lot of interesting things to add to the political discourse. Like this:

9/27/63 George Wallace apears on Today for twenty minute interview with
Martin Agronsky and adresses 16th street Church bombing in Birmingham.
Shows him surveillance photos of “known subversives…. The supreme
Court, the Kennedy adminsitraiton and the civil rights agitators are
more to blame for this dastardly crime than anyone else.”

Seems Cornyn was much, much more influenced by Wallace than he ever let on. As are a good many of the southern Republicans (or should we call them Dixiecans?) I’m afraid.

I’m telling you, there is nothing that the mainstream of the modern Republican party is doing today that their most virulent racist, extremist fringe wasn’t advocating forty years ago. I haven’t heard anything about flouridation in the water lately, but it’s only a matter of time.

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