Ben Barnes presented "Barn Burning, Barn Building: Tales of a Political Life" for the Texas Politics Speaker Series on November 2, 2006.

Dr. James Henson: Today we have Ben Barnes, and I really couldn't be happier to have Ben back on campus. He did an interview for us for the Texas Politics site, which was one of our foundational interviews, which is really fabulous and fascinating in any number of ways. And IÕve been wanting to have Ben back ever since.

The outline of Ben Barnes' career in Texas politics are probably familiar to most people in this room, but it's a remarkable career and a little bit of outline without spoiling what he's going to say.

He was elected to the Texas House of Representatives at age 21, so those of you that are seniors in here, you're already behind. He was elected Speaker of that chamber at age 26, elected Lieutenant Governor at age 30.

He made quite a name for himself, was one of the leading figures in Texas and poised to be a national leader when, in 1972, his career as an elected official ended amidst the upheaval of the Sharpstown investigation and the Nixon administration's maneuverings in Texas politics. A tale told in his recent book, which I suspect he'll be drawing on at least a little today.

His involvement in politics, despite that turbulent period and what happened there, has continued if in less visible ways to a lot of people. He remains a fixture in American in Texas politics, serving at various times as a lobbyist, a campaign contributor, a fundraiser of some renown, an advisor, a mentor to young politicians, a voice of experience in the ongoing conversation about the future of Texas and the United States.

He's also been, I want to add, a great supporter of the University of Texas and also the Texas Politics Project. And it has to be said he's been no stranger to controversy, from liquor-by-the-drink in Texas to tangling with the Nixon administration to the birth of the Texas state lottery to, of course, George W. Bush's stint in the Texas Air National Guard.

Now, you have to ask when you think about that list, and it's a partial one, do history and controversy seek out Ben Barnes or is it the other way around? And maybe he'll help us figure that out today.

It's my great pleasure to welcome to the University of Texas Ben Barnes.

Ben Barnes: Thank you, Dean. Thank you very much. Thank you, Jim. Thank you very much, Jim, and thank all of you for being here on this afternoon. And I'm not going to flatter myself to think that very many people are here on a voluntary basis. I'm sure that most of you are here because you're involved in a class and you were told to be here. But irregardless, whether you're a captive or a volunteer, I'm glad to be here this afternoon.

I appreciate Jim's good words, and I see my friend Paul Steckler, who's one of the most talented people I know, and his talents in film are only surpassed by his political philosophy because it's very similar to mine. So I think he's a near genius with his philosophy.

But Jim, in his kind introduction, referred to the fact that I had been here before. And I have been here before, and I think I probably should take just a moment before we talk about the many things I want to talk about and the things that I want you to ask me questions about, is it was -- what; three years ago, Jim?

Dr. James Henson: Yes.

Ben Barnes: About three years ago, I came here and did a lecture on film about Texas politics, and at that time I discussed the fact that Richard Nixon had played a major role, and he and his administration and his attorney general, Attorney General John Mitchell -- they played a major role in the Sharpstown scandal, and particularly, as far as I was concerned.

And Jim was very interested. He asked me a lot of questions, and then he did a great thing because I told him, I said, And someday I'm going to write a book about this. And I'm going to write a book about a lot of things, but I'm going to write a book to set the record straight.

And Jim, being the tenacious, intellectual, really, really connoisseur of Texas politics and government, he took it upon himself to go to Maryland to the archives where the Nixon state tapes were stored. And he called me and said, I want to come see you.

He came back to my office with a tape recorder. And lo and behold, he had the voice of Richard Nixon discussing the Texas political situation in 1971, as President Nixon was talking to John Mitchell and he said, I don't really care about all the rest in Texas down there. I'm not really interested.

Mitchell was giving him a report about the Sharpstown scandal. They wasn't calling it Sharpstown. It was about the scandal, and he had the Speaker and he had the Governor, and he had the chairman of the state party. And Mitchell says, I really don't care about all the rest. I want you to go to Texas -- go to Texas and find out some things about Ben Barnes and get it out.

And you can also enjoy that tape, if you are so interested, and you can go to our website, www.barnbuildingbarnburning.com, and you can hear something that every time I hear it, it still sends cold chills up and down my spine to hear the President of the United States talking to the Attorney General about that I needed to be out of Texas politics.

And they were successful, but they too had to exit national politics, and fortunately, I did not have to go on an extended vacation like John Mitchell had to. And I didn't have to resign my office in disgrace, as President Nixon had to.

But I have a -- not a gift, because it's -- you don't have to take it, but I have decided, because of the importance of what Jim did as far as making this book possible, and the fact that I've had so much fun, and the fact that it's sold so quite well, and then after I've gotten the book written IÕve decided I've written it for an entirely different purpose. Not to set the record straight about Nixon, but I have a copy of the book as a gift from me to any of you that want this after the class today, and you're not going to have to pay the $25 or not going to have to pay the $15 on Amazon. It's yours free, courtesy of me, and you can thank Jim Henson for that.

But after the book has been completed and after I've had a chance to go around Texas and around the United States, and I think I've done 178 radio shows, and I've done about 25 television interviews, and this next week -- I've already taped the show -- but you will be able to see the Charlie Rose Show, and he did a 40-minute interview where he was nice enough to let me talk about my book.

But anyway, it's been fun. But after I received the reaction, and after I've had time to think about what the real reason I wrote this book and it was perhaps subconscious in the beginning, but I wrote this book not because of Richard Nixon and Sharpstown. I wrote this book not because of it's got -- it's not about my history. It's about the history of Texas, and if you're interested in government or want to learn anything about the Ô60s or Ô70s, I think this is a good textbook.

But I think the real reason I wrote this book is the fact that where I've gone, particularly around young people, there has been an interest, and in some instances, a fascination with the fact that it's not because it's Ben Barnes, but the fact that I was able to do all the things that I was able to do as young as I was.

I think that people are interested -- people your age are interested, and I hope that I'm lighting a few small fires. I was at Duke University last night, and we had a grand time, and after I spoke and we answered questions for an hour, we went out and -- I didn't check everyone's ID, but I'm sure they were over 21. But we drank some wine and continued our discussion, and I was so pleased that so many of the students wanted to go.

And I don't know whether it was my life and my talk about politics or the red wine, but anyway, we had a good group and we stayed up too late, but it was great fun. And I'm thoroughly convinced that the real solution to some of the problems that I'm going to talk about, and the most important problems in the United States today, their solutions are probably not going to come from the halls of Congress. They're not going to come from the men and women that are going to be elected in seven -- or six short days, maybe five short days now.

But it's going to really take the involvement of a lot of new potential young leaders. You're going to have to be the one to solve global warming and a lot of other things we're going to talk about.

But anyway, I'm not going to spend so much time talking. I want to hear from you. But by pure happenstance, I was working at the State Health Department. I'm going to move through this very quickly, and there were some irregularities at the State Health Department. A former State Representative told me what I should do. I shouldn't sign these checks. The Commissioner of Health and some of his assistants were taking some of the money out of the employees' fund and spending it on themselves.

Then we had private clubs. As supervisor of the part-time employees, I had to sign the checks, co-sign the checks, and the checks they brought me were to the Tower Club. That was out on South Congress, and to the Tower Liquor Store and to the Tower Hotel, and I didn't think this was what the employees should be spending their money on, so I objected.

I went to see the Legislature. I'd never been -- I'd been to the Capitol as a tourist. I'd never thought about running for State Representative. I was 20 years old and two jobs. I was working at the Health Department, taking 16 hours at the University of Texas and selling Electrolux vacuum cleaners on the weekend, because I was broke and I needed the money and I needed to complete my college education.

But anyway, I got interested. I got up there and it was a beautiful building, all that granite and all that power and all those State Representatives running around. And I said, Man, this looks like a helluva show. And so I decided to go back home, and I shouldn't have won -- I shouldn't have run, but luck and happenstance and hard work paid off.

I was very lucky as far as timing was concerned. I happened to be at the right time in the right place. There were many more people that were more qualified and better suited for some of the jobs I held, but it just worked, and I thoroughly enjoyed it and I was immersed in politics, and I had an opportunity to meet a lot of the important people that played a very significant role in the Ô60s and Ô70s.

Even more than that, a lot of people that played a very important role in history; a lot of the people that played a very important role in the fact that this university is such a great university, the first class, and you're having an opportunity to attend it and receive a degree from here.

And the fact that we're able to really attract great faculty people, like Jim Henson and others in this room. All of this is a part of the legacy of some of the people I knew.

John Connally ran for Governor, got elected, and I'm going to just highlight three or four stories before we get to questions, and we became good friends. I became his floor leader. We were -- we passed tax bills. We didn't say, No new taxes. We said, Texas has got to get better. We increased the appropriations for higher education in ten years' time 1,800 percent.

We took Texas from a state that at that time could be compared with Louisiana and Alabama and Mississippi -- the same states that we now can be re-compared with, because we went up and now we've gone back down; matter of fact, I think we're below Mississippi now because I really think Haley Barber as the Governor is doing a lot better than what we're doing in this state as far as higher education and public education.

But it was an exciting time, and John Connally asked me in August 1963 to travel to Washington with him. And I'd never been to the White House. He was going to go see Jack Kennedy. It was on Sunday afternoon. We went in to see the President. Here was this very handsome, charismatic young leader. John Connally was a handsome guy, too. These guys that were just political giants, and I was seated in the Oval Office of the White House.

And Connally had been Kennedy's Secretary of the Navy, and they had a great relationship of sparring back and forth, and Kennedy was questioning Connally about, Well, Governor, I got to have a lot of money now. If I'm coming to Texas, we got to raise money. And that's what he was coming for.

In 1960, all the money that was raised for the Kennedy-Johnson ticket had to stay in Texas. That was Lyndon Johnson's agreement with Kennedy; that the money had to stay here to make sure they carried Texas, and they did, and both of them became President and Vice President.

But finally, after a very friendly argument, he said, Okay, Governor, the bottom line. How much money am I going to get out of Texas? And Connally said, Okay, you come to Texas, you make the stops, you go to Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth and Austin. We'll raise you a million dollars.

Well, that didn't sound like very much money. Tom DeLay spent $4-1/2 million to wipe out 15 State Representatives where he could control them and do the redistricting. But then a million dollars was a million dollars was a lot of money.

And Jack Kennedy got up from around his desk and walked over, and I thought he was going to shake John Connally's hand and say, A deal's a deal. But he didn't shake John Connally's hand. He walked up to me and he said, Ben. And I said, Yes, Mr. President, and I stood up. And he said, Now, he said, I don't really trust Connally. He said, Now, you tell me. If I come to Texas, are you going to get me a million dollars?

Well, if he'd have said $10 million, I'd have said, Yes, Mr. President. I'm going to get you a check right now. But anyway, I readily agreed that we were going to get a million dollars.

We came back to Texas and Governor Connally said, Ben, I want you to spend the next eight weeks, if you will, planning the President's trip to Texas. And it was a very interesting time to represent John Connally and Lyndon Johnson for a presidential trip to Texas, and I thought it was one of the most interesting, fascinating, and, you know, I'm sure my hat size grew at least a half or maybe a whole size during that time, because I was really an important 23-year-old guy, talking about the trip of President Kennedy to Texas.

There was a big argument -- I'm going to move through this fast -- there was a big argument about not having a parade in Dallas. A parade was never planned in Dallas. There was a lot of reasons. One was the fact that on the calendar of that day, if we were going to have the parade in Dallas, that on Jacqueline Kennedy's calendar it was, Arrive at the Driscoll Hotel at ten minutes till 5:00.Be in the lobby at 5:15 to be picked up to go to the Governor's mansion, and a formal gown to go to three different balls that night.

Nellie Connally saw that -- our First Lady -- saw that schedule, and she called me and she said, Ben, I want to tell you this. We're not going to have this schedule. She said, I'm going to tell you, Jacqueline Kennedy is going to come to Texas and she's going to see this. She's not going to be mad at Lyndon Johnson. She's not going to be mad at John Connally. She's not going to be mad at Ben Barnes. She's going to be mad at me, and I'm not going to have the First Lady mad at me about having only 25 minutes to clean up after this whole day.

And so, you know, I was a lot more afraid of Nellie Connally, because she -- you know, she knew full well Jacqueline Kennedy didn't know who I was, but she knew who I was, and I was very concerned about that.

But anyway, we argued and fought. Finally, in the end, Senator Yarborough, the other United States Senator, and rightly so, and I'm not ever blaming any of this on Senator Yarborough -- but Senator Yarborough did not want to have a parade in Dallas -- I mean, did not want to have a fundraiser in Dallas without the public being able to see Kennedy in Dallas.

And Dallas was a very conservative city. Matter of fact, The Dallas Morning News wrote a full page editorial with a black banner around it that really told Jack Kennedy that day he was unwelcome in Texas. That was the Dealey family at The Dallas News, very embarrassing.

And Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird had been spat on as they walked from the Baker Hotel to the Adolphus Hotel in that campaign in 1960, so we were concerned about something like that. But not about the terrible thing that was about to happen.

But anyway, Senator Yarborough called Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General. The Attorney General called Lyndon Johnson. Johnson called Connally, and Connally called me and said, Ben, we're going to give in. We're going to have a parade.

You think about just how -- if we'd have argued more, if we'd have not given in, if we'd said, We're not going to have the parade, history could have been changed.

Well, we planned the parade, and that morning Jack Kennedy and the First Lady got up and had a meeting with the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce at the Fort Worth hotel. They went outside and spoke outside of the hotel to a gathering of the public and Democratic supporters.

And if you remember that photograph of that day, Lyndon Johnson and Jack Kennedy and John Connally were all in their raincoats. It was a rainy morning. It was kind of drizzly. A lot of people -- they were standing out in the parking lot -- had umbrellas. And this is important, because as they left Fort Worth, and they left on Air Force One -- the Secret Service did not want them to drive between Fort Worth and Dallas -- as Air Force One rose up from the airport in Fort Worth and headed toward Dallas, about halfway there the rain clouds went away. The sunshine was bright -- a beautiful day for a parade.

The Secret Service on Air Force One talked to the Secret Service down in Love Field, where the presidential limousine was waiting for President Kennedy and Governor Connally, and said, Take the bubble off. If it had remained cloudy, they would have been inside the safety of that bubble and John Kennedy's life would not have been taken and John Connally would not have been seriously wounded.

You think about the fate of the parade, the fate of the weather, and America lost a president, and we nearly lost a governor.

I got elected Speaker three short years later. It was a very turbulent time. It was a difficult time. America had seen a president slain, and America was at war, and it was a different war at a different time and a different place. But the most significant difference was that every student, every young man that was graduating from the University of Texas, Southwest Texas, and now it's Texas State University, from TCU and SMU and A&M, every young man had a draft number.

And if you were not in graduate school, and if you didn't have some other special exemption, or if you didn't know some politician that could go get you in the National Guard, you were on your way to Vietnam, where we were going to lose over 50,000 lives in a war that was going to become so unpopular that people took to the streets.

People burned down buildings. Students actually burned down an ROTC building here that was a wooden barracks, and I had the unbelievable, miserable task of going out and telling those students that they were not going to burn down any more buildings or they were going to be prosecuted. I was the only State official in town.

And they backed up a truck -- now where that dorm stands -- and the Highway Patrolmen were helping me up on the back of the truck where I was going to take the microphone and tell the -- and these were -- they were students, but there were a lot of other people, too -- but they were people that were angry about the war. People -- a lot of people that were traveling throughout the country protesting the war.

But as I was getting up on the back of the truck to go and tell that crowd of 2,000 people, someone took a giant Coke cup that was full of urine and threw in my face. And I tell you -- you can't imagine how difficult time I had getting that speech out with that substance in my face.

I defended President Johnson's policies until 1969, and there was another difference between that president and this president. And if you don't remember anything else I say today, remember this: Lyndon Johnson did not tell me one time, he told me a hundred times, Ben, as you defend my policies or defend our policies in Vietnam, and as you try to convince people that we should be there, you do not ever say one unkind word, or you do not, under any circumstances, be critical of those people that disagree with us, and you be careful to add in every time you speak that those people that disagree and those people that are outside shouting and those people that are protesting, they love America just as much as we do, and they're important Americans, and they are part of the process.

Unlike this administration, and the angriest I have been since I have been out of office was when Donald Rumsfeld went before the TV cameras of this country six or seven weeks ago and said, Those people that disagree with our policy, they are likened to the people that were sympathetic with the Nazis in '38 and '39, prior to the Second World War. That's not America, and that's not the way this system will be preserved, and that's not the way for any administration to act.

I got a call -- I got many calls -- and the thing that I'm the most ashamed of that I did when I was in public office is not the fact that I defended Lyndon Johnson; not the fact that I probably made some mistakes in the way I voted. The thing that I was ashamed of, and I did not decide that until 2002 when I was taking two members of the British Parliament through the Vietnam Memorial one night about nine o'clock, and the shadows and the lights were shining on that wall of the men who had lost their lives in Vietnam.

And I realized that night that there were a lot of names that might not be there if Ben Barnes and a lot of other elected public officials had not had the power, because they appropriated the money to the State NationalGuards, that we had the power to take care of our friends and important young men from important families, and people -- unbelievable, I tell you -- I did make the call to get young George Bush. He was going to be gone in 30 days if he hadn't gotten into the Texas National Guard. He'd used all of his deferments. I made that call, but I only didn't make the call for George Bush. I made the call for dozens of other young men. I don't know how many, really.

But I know one thing. I even made a call for Dallas Cowboy football players that were important to the championship of the Dallas Cowboys America team, and I was there, ready to curry the favor of Clint Murchison and the people from Dallas, and I made the call. I'm very ashamed. I apologize to the constituents of Texas, and I think every other state official owes that apology to their constituents in their states for the young men that had to go and the young men that got to stay because they had political influence.

But anyway, I went on 60 Minutes. I said this. Karl Rove put me on the Ten Top Wanted list, and it was unsafe for me to travel throughout the United States for a few months, but the campaign was over and I'm still here.

But anyway, it was not pleasant. But it was an exciting time, but Robert Kennedy was to be assassinated, Dr. King was to be assassinated, and Lyndon Johnson, while dealing with the troubled military involvement in Southeast Asia, was doing an outstanding job in passing legislation.

He was passing a lot of legislation that you and we are the beneficiaries of today, and one of those pieces of legislation was the Civil Rights Act of 1965. I got asked to come to the White House for the signing of that bill, and we were all gathered there. There was about -- many -- nearly all the important black leaders of America and a lot of Congressmen. There was a huge crowd in the East Room of the White House.

And Lyndon Johnson came out, as he was walking to the Rose Garden, and he saw me standing there talking like this, and I swear to you -- I remember it was a broom closet. I'm sure it wasn't a broom closet, but it was just a closet. He just opened the door and pushed me in there. And he put his hands up like this on my shoulders, and he said, Ben, I'm going to tell you. We're going to sign this Civil Rights Act, and it's going to hurt you, and it's going to hurt the other Democrats in the South.

And he said, It's going to turn the South probably Republican. But I want you to know when you're out campaigning in the years to come, and you're having trouble and you're having difficulty with the growth and the opposition of the Republican party to this piece of legislation, I want you to remember that this piece of legislation, and it becoming law with my signature today, is much more important than you or any Democratic politician or the Democratic control of the South. Unless we have a country where every single American has exactly the same rights and the same freedoms, then we're not going to ever have a country that's going to be complete.

And I'll remember that as long as I live, and he was right. He was very visionary, because Texas was going to become more of a Republican state and the South was going to go totally Republican. And he said 20 or 30 years. Well, he's going to miss it a little bit, because it's going to be almost -- now it's 40 years.

But you know what? He also said that they'll be back, and we're going to be back. The South is going to become Democratic again, or it's going to become divided. We're not going to be so totally red. There's going to be opportunities. There's going to be -- the Democrats are going to elect six or seven more governors than the offices they hold today.

There's going to be a Democratic governor elected in Arkansas, a Democratic governor reelected in New Mexico, a Democratic governor elected -- reelected in Oklahoma, a Democratic governor in Louisiana. It's happening. People now are recognizing that the South is changing and the constituency is changing.

But it's -- I will remember that always. And I want to tell you that I believe that the number one problem that we have today -- and a lot of it was brought about by a lot of things that's happened over the period of time -- but the number one problem we have today is not the fact that we've got 140,000 young men and women in Iraq and that 101 or -2 of them died last month; I think another one or two died today. That's not the number one problem we have.

And we have a very serious problem that we're still importing over 60 percent of our oil from the Middle East, and that's a very serious problem. As a matter of fact, if people really understood what was happening, they might turn their thermostats up, or they might get on a bus or get on some other form of transportation.

Every two weeks we're printing -- we have to print some notes, because we don't have the money in our Treasury. We're printing some notes payable. And we're taking those to China, because they've got the balance of payments. They've got the cash to buy -- they're our bankers now. Japan was during the Ô80s, and now China is.

And we're borrowing $250 million every two weeks. We're saying, Don't wire that money to the United States. You wire that money to Saudi Arabia and those other Middle East oil/gas producing countries, because we want to pay you because we've got to have that kind of oil.

9-11 was a terrible time, but this country was united behind our leadership, and we were one country, and we were mad as hell, and we wanted to do something. And President Bush missed the greatest opportunity that a person could have ever had when he did not go on the television in New York, standing in the ruins of those two Twin Towers and say, I want to tell you what. Sixteen of those people on those planes were from Saudi Arabia, and we're importing all of that oil, and I tell you what. We've got to become energy dependent, if we're going to be able to have a even hand in the Middle East, and go turn your thermostats up. Go carpool. Let's go -- Congress pass where the -- that cars can burn on other synthetic fuels. Let's make this country energy dependent.

And I tell you, there'd have been 240 or 50 or 60 million people that would have marched in unison. But he didn't say that. He said, Everything's going to be all right. I want you to go shopping. Well, I wish -- and I'm sure he'd maybe like to undo those remarks.

But that's still not the number one problem. Global warming is as serious as sin. It's a very serious problem, and you're going to have to do something about it because I don't think my -- I think my generation's failed. It's still not the number one problem.

The number one problem today in this country is the rabid partisanship that's grabbed hold of our government at the national level and also at the state level. But I tell you -- this country is never going to fail, and we're never going to fall from an enemy without, but we can fail from within.

This partisanship is tearing away at the very fabric that's held this country together. The founders of our Constitution over 250 years ago that wrote this very precious document that we live under, we honor and revere every day, when they did that, they carefully provided that the United States House of Representatives had to run every two years. They let the Senators at first be elected by the state legislatures, and then later on we decided that they were going to run for six-year terms.

Like the House of Lords, they wanted some stability -- six-year terms. But they wanted Congress back every two years running and answering the questions, discussing the issues. But what has happened because Democrats and Republicans have gerrymandered the districts so that there are only about 40 or 45 or maybe 50 seats at most that can turn over every two years.

And what's happened is the 90 percent of the seats are safe. And what is even worse than all of that is the fact that the members of the House have to answer to political parties rather than to their constituents. And if you don't vote in lockstep with the Republican party if you're a Republican, I tell you what's going to happen. They're going to get you an opponent.

Just like in our Texas Legislature here, Dr. Leininger, because there were seven Republicans that didn't vote for vouchers, he ran people in the primaries and he put $1,500,000 into the Republican primaries to beat those Republicans, because they were not for vouchers. And he beat -- I think he lost five and won two or something -- I'm not current on the numbers.

But this is what's happening, and the Democrats have done it also. But we saw it firsthand. Tom DeLay brought this money down here. Brought the money down here. Beat 15 of the 16. Paul did a wonderful movie about Last Man Standing, about Representative Rose, the only man that was left standing. But we saw it right here. We had a front-row seat.

And what happened? Those Republican members got elected, and almost without precedent we in the middle of a decade, we redistricted, and we got Tom DeLay those six seats to go up there as freshman Republicans and to go vote for Tom DeLay for Majority Leader. We traded 148 years ofseniority. We beat Charles Stenholm, who was the number-one-ranking member on agriculture and the number one expert on agriculture -- we threw that out the window to go ahead and just get six freshmen.

We now have the weakest congressional delegation than we've ever had. We only have one committee chairmanship. When I was Speaker of the House, we had seven committee chairmanships in the House of Representatives, and it was by far the most powerful congressional delegation. Republicans and Democrats have both made the mistakes, and we got to do something about it.

I'm going to answer your questions, but I'm going to tell you a story about how I learned bipartisanship at the foot of the master and one of the most wonderful experiences I've ever heard, and I hope you'll find it a little bit illustrative, but I hope you'll find it a little bit funny because it's -- I can laugh about it now, but --

I was on a committee on intergovernmental relationships, studying the federal-state relationships, and there were three United States Senators, three Congressmen, three Governors, and three legislators, and President Johnson had appointed me.

There was a member of this commission that I always thought if God ever loaned his voice to any earthly human being that he may have loaned his voice to this fellow. He was from Illinois. He was a Republican Senator, and he was the Republican leader in the Senate -- Everett Dirksen.

And that afternoon, it was about 6:30, seven o'clock, Senator Dirksen said, Ben, the President has called and has invited you and me to the Oval Office for a drink, and I suggest we go. Of course, he was standing behind my chair. I jumped up, hit my knees and nearly turned over the table where I was seated.

I said, Yes, sir, Senator, I'm ready to go. So we go to the Oval Office. I didn't understand why I was invited, but there was no one there but Dirksen, and I thought it might have been a reception. I didn't know what it was, but Dirksen and President Johnson and me.

And the waiter came in and said, What do you want to drink? Senator Dirksen said he wanted Scotch, and President Johnson said he wanted Scotch, of course. If they'd have ordered turpentine, I'd have said, I want turpentine. I said, I'll have Scotch.

So they brought the drinks, and I'll always believe that President Johnson had the bartender to put two shots of Scotch in mine and Dirksen's glass and maybe a half a shot in his, but I can't prove that.

But anyway, we got through the first half a glass of Scotch, and I began to understand why we were there. Why Dirksen was there; not why I was there. But the President said, Senator, so glad to see you, and I tell you what, I need you to help me. I've got to have three Republican votes for this tax bill I've got coming up next week. I can't pass it without three votes, and I need three votes from you.

Well, Dirksen got real red in the face and said, No way. It's not going to happen. We're not going to vote for that tax bill. Just forget about it. Well, we finished that drink of Scotch. They brought in another drink of Scotch. I'm still not saying a word. I'm observing these two men talking.

And the conversation turned around, and the President said, Oh, Senator Dirksen, I forgot to tell you -- General So-and-so, the Corps of Engineers, called me today and told me that that dam project that you want in Southern Illinois, that conservation project, that's not high on their list. There's no way in the world that that can get in this year's appropriation. He just said they got about 20 projects ahead of it. He said, I tried to talk to him for you. I tried to say, Now, I really would like to see this project done, but there's no way.

Well, boy, I tell you. Dirksen really got mad then. But we finished that glass, and then the third Scotch came in. And about halfway through that third glass of Scotch, President Johnson had his three Republican votes for the tax bill. Senator Dirksen had his dam and reservoir in Southern Illinois, and I'd had way too much Scotch.

But as we got up to leave and Senator Dirksen said he'd give me a ride back to the Mayflower Hotel, Johnson came from behind the desk and Dirksen stood up. Lyndon Johnson wrapped his arms around Everett Dirksen, the Republican leader of the Senate. Dirksen wrapped his arms around President Johnson, and Johnson kissed Everett Dirksen on the cheek and said, Everett, you know I love you. And Senator Dirksen said -- I'll always remember it; I never had heard him say Dammit before, Mr. President, he said, dammit, Mr. President, I love you, too.

There was the leader of the free world, the number one Democrat in America and the number one Republican, having that wonderful exchange, that wonderful moment of making government work of give and take.

Now, let's fast-forward to 2006. Let's fast-forward to when Congress comes back in a few days after this election, and let's see George Bush and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in the Oval Office, and let's see them embrace and say they like one another. It's not going to happen. And we've got to change that, and that's why that -- the political parties are not going to change. They're partisan.

The elected officials are not going to change unless we demand that, and we're going to have to demand that. We've got a lot of other problems to solve, but this is our number one problem.

I'm going to answer questions, and I'm going to give anybody that's a Republican equal time or anybody that disagrees with what I say, but I want to spend the rest of my time answering your questions.

Yes, sir.

Man 1: Well, now that the Supreme Court has basically upheld the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering, and we have a situation where there are so few seats that are really contestable, how do we achieve what you've just recommended?

Ben Barnes: I'm glad you asked that question. I hope The New York Times -- they've agreed to publish my letter and my op-ed piece, but I've written a letter to The New York Times which outlines -- I want us to see a national statute passed that takes out of the hands of state legislature the redistricting power.

I want to follow the Indiana and Iowa plan, where there are independent commissions appointed. I don't want the legislature to be under the subject of the next Tom DeLay or the Democratic party or the Republican party. Independent people can do a better job, and that's the only way I think we're ever going to get the House of Representatives back where it is a real deliberative body, and I hope everybody will join me in helping urge Congress to do that.

Yes?

Woman 1: You were elected to the Texas House at age 21. Do you see that at all possible in today's terms?

Ben Barnes: Well, I tell you. You know, I don't think there's any magic about it. I was elected when I was 21 and took office when I was 22. You know, we've got -- Paul recorded the election of young Rose, Patrick Rose, and I think he's probably -- what; 23 when he was running, 24.

How old was he, Paul? Twenty-four?

And Mark Strama's, maybe 25, 26. I think it's possible. Yes. I think that it's -- that age is not -- you know, Barack Obama said he might run for president and he made the statement, he said, You know, there's not anything -- he doesn't know whether anybody's ever really qualified for president. You've got to run and get elected to be qualified.

I feel that way about State Representatives and State Senators. You know, we have the ages where they're 21 and 25 for the State Senate, and I think those are very appropriate.

You know, I shouldn't have won the first time, and I ran against a person who had been a prisoner of war and served in Germany and been in a German concentration camp. He had a radio program. He was much better known. He came from a town that had 8,000 votes, and my county had 800 votes, and I beat Mr. Hickman. I shouldn't have beatenhim, but he didn't take -- he didn't pay attention to the fact that I was knocking on doors.

But I got out and knocked on every single door, and that's the way I won. And I think that a young person can do that. If they want to win, and obviously, you can't -- but you really can. You still can knock on every door. I still believe that Patrick Rose won because that he had been knocking on those doors, and when that money came in there, if he'd not been knocking on that doors, and I think Paul would agree with me.

When Patrick came to see me about supporting him I said, Okay. If you'll do what I did, if you'll knock on the doors, yes, I believe you can be elected. And how did I get along, and how did I get elected when I was 26? Because -- and this is my advice to each of you -- if you do have an opportunity to serve on the City Council or on the school board or the State Legislature and you're young, go to the older members and seek their advice.

I think probably when I got elected Speaker, the 149 people that voted for me, I didn't have an opponent. I mean, I had an opponent, but I beat seven of them and then I got -- everybody voted for me. But I went to those older members of the Legislature my first term and I sat down with each one of them, and I said, I need your help. I'm very young and I don't know what's going on, and I recognize that and I hope I can count on you to counsel me and mentor me.

And everybody likes to mentor young people. Very seldom did I ever meet anybody that doesn't want to help somebody that's young. There's -- everybody in your life right now, you've got people that are helping. But there's people that will help you, and those House members helped me and, you know, it kind of felt like it -- you know, most of those House members kind of felt like that they were getting elected Speaker themselves, because they were my advisor, my mentor, and they were glad to see me do that that young. And they did help me.

Man 2: You've probably seen a lot of the same polls or more of the same polls that I've been seeing -- the internals in some of the Senate races where it looks like a very good possibility the Democrats will pick up six, maybe seven, and depending on what's going on in Arizona, which is moving very fast, maybe eight seats. You've been an integral part of that the last couple of years.

At the same time, I was in Montana and Colorado the last couple of months, and their two-party system is working over there. There's no two-party system here. What is it going to take to have a two-party system in Texas? I mean, the statewide election over here, every Democrat, except for the gubernatorial candidates, is a total joke. You know, and Chris -- as much as it's good that he's running, is not a strong candidate. And I don't know if you saw the last couple of days, Republicans are putting $2 million in the State Representative races. So what's it going to take before we have actually competitive elections here?

Ben Barnes: Well, there's several things, and this is going to take a little long answer, but I'm going to do it. First of all, the $2 million going into State Representative races. I'm going to tell you the first thing we've got to do in Texas, and I hope every one of you will join me in this, because it's going to be a prerequisite for taking this government back, both whether it be Republican or Democrat, from special interests.

We need campaign finance law in Texas, and I want $100,000 limitation, and that's a pretty generous one. $100,000 limitation per person, where you can give $100,000, $25,000 to the Governor, $10,000 to a Senator, and $5,000 to a House member.

I've been a public official. I've raised money. I've been a candidate. I know you can't go raise $1 million for State Representative and not have a lot of people that can talk to you more than they should. I know that to be true of the Senator, $2 million, and a Governor, $25 million. That's -- money is necessary, and I'm not being sanctimonious or demagogue-ing about it, but we've got to have some limitations, and I'd vote for it long ago.

But for -- look, we got a guy down in Houston that's put $8 million in politics this year -- $8 million? And Dr. Leininger -- I don't know how much he's put in. He's probably put in 5- or 6 million. But the campaign finance reform.

Paul, I went to Abilene to sell my book, and I spoke to a joint meeting of the civic clubs in Abilene -- the Rotary and Lions and Kiwanis -- and I don't know, somebody may -- is anybody from Abilene here?

You were born in Abilene?

Well, I think you will not contradict me about this. I consider Abilene to be a fairly conservative town. As a matter of fact, when I came out for liquor-by-the-drink, I thought it was going to be unsafe for me to go to Abilene, because there is a Baptist university there, a Methodist college there, and Abilene Christian College, a Church of Christ school there, and I bet you that -- I don't know how many churches. I don't want to exaggerate. There's got to be 75 churches there easy. Yes, a lot.

But -- so it's a conservative town. And I spoke to the Kiwanis Club, and I talked to the fact, Paul, that we had the highest dropout rate in the United States; that we had 450,000 kids that were without insurance -- without health coverage. That we had the worst park system in the 50 states, and that we got 3,000 vehicles and the average miles of those 3,000 vehicles is 100,000 miles per vehicle.

The Park Rangers can't go around and tend to the park because the cars break down all the time. But -- and talked about some of these things. Talked about the fact that we were rapidly becoming number one in teenage pregnancies. Listen, we're sending one out of every four black males in this state to the penitentiary. We're lousy.

In many instances, we're worse than Louisiana and Mississippi, and I made that speech and I said, I'm going to tell you what we're going to have to do. You better quit believing these people that say, No new taxes. If you want to live in a state that is 50th in everything you do, you let these politicians come to Abilene and tell you, No new taxes.

Yes. I tell you what we are. We're number two in population, and we are number 50th or 48th or 49th in taxes, and is that really what you want? You don't want to pay any taxes, and you want your highway system where there's going to be toll roads. You want your park systems where we have to have volunteers because people can't do it.

You want your schoolteachers have to compete with McDonald's, because it's $28,000 for a starting teacher if the district don't sub -- I made my speech. And it probably wasn't a very good speech, but I made it. But I got a standing ovation.

And I said, I'm going to tell you. We can do better. And I said, Questions. And I had about five or six people, Paul, say, We don't believe you're telling the truth. One guy said, We couldn't be in that kind of shape.

I said, I can tell you what I'll do. I don't have very much money, but let's just get a paper and put it down on paper, and I want -- we're going to bet several thousand dollars that my numbers are right. And they -- and a guy stood up and said, I'm ashamed of that.

Another guy said, Well, what can we do? What can we do to help? Another guy said, Well, I'm going to tell you this right here. I've been voting Republican. I want to vote for you, Barnes. I said, You don't get a chance to vote for me. But what I left there with, and I stayed and shook hands and people came and told me. I think what we're going to have to do -- I still got a lot of faith in the people in this state. I got a lot of faith.

But nobody's telling them the truth. They don't understand this. The papers are not doing as good enough job. We're not educating the people to this. I passed a tax bill and voted for a tax bill every single session I was in the Legislature, and I do not know of a single member of the Legislature that ever got beaten for voting for a tax bill.

Now, I know times have changed, and I know Ronald Reagan introduced the "no new taxes" and it became the buzzword. And George Bush -- we had to have two tax cuts in Texas where George Bush could run for president.

But I'm telling you, if we get a Democratic candidate that will go out and talk to the people of Texas and tell them the truth -- but we're going to have to have good candidates, Paul. And we're going to have to have some people that can inspire people to give money, because we know that the Republicans are going to spend 20- or 30- $40 million.

But I think what's going to have to happen in a lot of these states is going to have to go to the State Legislature and start at the bottom and work up. Tom Vilsack was the first Democrat-elected governor in 40 years in Iowa, and next Tuesday there's going to be another Democrat elected to succeed him, because there's term limits.

But for the first time in 44 years, there's going to be a Democrat-controlled House and Senate in Iowa, and Tom Vilsack -- they've taken -- do you know that the University of Iowa now in state-supported colleges and universities -- you know where they rank? They rank third in the United States.

You know, they've got 94 percent of their children covered by health insurance. They've got -- they rank number three and four in delivery of social services. This is a state -- Iowa -- that was a very, very red state, but Tom Vilsack did it. Mark Warner has done it in Virginia.

We can elect Democrats. They're going to have to be the moderate, middle-of-the-road Democrats and get upin businessmen's faces and businesswomen's faces and talk to them about this. But it can be done. But I think we're going to have to start at the bottom.

We're not going to -- I think we saw four years ago, we can spend all the money in the world and if we don't have the right messengers, and that's not being a criticism of any of the messengers, but if we don't have the right messengers, if we don't have the right candidates, it's going to take -- and, you know, Lyndon Johnson and John Connally both told me many times -- and I talk about this in the book, and I don't mean to be uncomplimentary of anybody that followed me. Bill Hobby was a great Lieutenant Governor and he funded higher education. He did the things that we need to do.

But Johnson and Connally said, We have to have a farm system. Ben, you were young. You got brought on. We helped you, and you've got to do the same thing with other men and women, and Barbara Jordan was one of my great examples that I had a little bit to do with her going to Congress.

But I was always looking for talent and trying to bring young people into the government and groom them and get them ready to run. But after I left state government, basically, the farm club of the Texas Democratic party started growing weaker and weaker, and we were not bringing candidates on.

Now, we had -- Ann Richards came along and blew the top off the roof for women, and she was a great person and one of my favorite people. But Ann Richards didn't build a farm system either.

But we've got to be conscientious about it. We got to be dedicated. We got to be determined. And we -- you know, I don't want to have a Karl Rove, but we got to have people that are plotting and planning and organizing and doing all the latest techniques to be able to get our vote out, to get our base out.

But more importantly, we've got to be able to convince the independents. You know, what has happened is what John Connally said can't ever happen, and it's happened. It cannot become ever socially unacceptable to be a Democrat in Texas, Ben, and it's become socially unacceptable.

My seventh-grade daughter plays on a volleyball team at a private school here, and my sophomore girl goes to Austin High, and she loves Austin High and I'm so glad my other daughter's going to go there, because they both had some learning disabilities because they were adopted. One from Russia, one from Romania. And I'm a strong believer in the public school system, and I'm so glad that my oldest daughter's there, and I'm so glad.

But my little daughter, who goes to St Francis, she plays on a volleyball team that looks like the United Nations volleyball team. There's a black girl and a brown girl and a Hindu girl and a Jewish girl, and it's a great school.

But they beat this school that most of the girls on this team -- and I'm not being racist when I say -- most of the girls on this team had blonde hair, and they live up in the area where I live. And they were over there crying because my -- two of the little girls are crying over there, because my girls' team beat, and she's -- Oh, my gosh, and it's so bad. She said, You know, we got beat by a bunch of Democrats.

And I want to tell you this. Now, these are seventh-grade girls. Got beat by a bunch of Democrats. I'm going to tell you, we've gotten things in pretty bad shape in this state of ours when people are categorizing seventh-grade girls about being Democrats.

But it's true. It's not socially acceptable to be a Democrat. And, you know, people go across -- walk across the street not to have to see me now anyway, because -- not because I'm a Democrat -- because they think I'm going to ask them for money. Even my Democratic friends go across the street and don't come around me because they're afraid I'm going to ask for money.

But it's going to have to be by evolution, Paul. I wish it could be by revolution, and I'm not going to say we're not going to find some talented person that can come along and knock the ball out of the park. I do think this. That if the political winds continue to blow in this country as they're blowing right now, and who knows, but if George Bush, and I hope and pray he doesn't for the 140,000 sakes of lives, and I don't ever want to make a statement playing politics with people's lives.

But if he does continue this "stay the course" the next two years and we're not out of Iraq, we won't have State Representatives -- we will have State Representatives; we won't have our statewide officers running in Year 2008, but I'll tell you this. We're going to have a United States Senate race in 2008, and if these Republican policies continue and John Cornyn, our other Republican Senator, continues to stay over on the right as to the extreme right and be in there with the Rick Santorums -- well, his seat's going to be empty; but he'll be there till January -- but if he stays there I think this.

I think that there could be a possibility, not a probability, but a possibility that we could we field a Democrat to run for the United States Senate in 2008. They could take a message to Texans that would be positive enough to elect a Democrat to the Senate and beat John Cornyn.

Now, somebody go -- y'all go tell him that. He'll be calling me tonight and burning my house down.

Go ahead. Questions?

Dr. James Henson: What is the mechanism from a kind of -- you know, what kind of advice do you give people thinking about trying to join the farm club?

Ben Barnes: I think the greatest thing in the world is an internship. I think -- I tell you what. If I was interested in politics and if I didn't have the money, I'd work free. If I had the money, if I could get the job, I'd be so -- as consistent as I was about knocking on those doors in those three counties, asking people to vote for me, I'd be knocking on these doors of elected public officials at any level where I could get to be an internship.

Learn everything you can about government and how it works on every single thing, and meet people, and get up in people's faces and tell them, I'm going to tell you this, I'm Sally Smith and I tell you what, I'm from Galveston, Texas, and I'm working for Senator So-and-so or I'm working for State Representative So-and-so or I working for Congressman So-and-so, and I need your help, and I want to learn everything while I'm here in this internship. I'll work 16, 18 hours. Give me more to do. Let me know more.

Be aggressive and be nice, but be aggressive, and you'll be so surprised how many doors can open for you. And you know, the University of Texas is a great place to come and to study and learn. The LBJ school, the law school -- you know, I'm so proud of the LBJ school and I'm so proud of the -- and I think that we've got -- our dean at the LBJ school, and I'm on the board of the LBJ school, so I'm going to make a sales pitch.

But our new dean is a person who is so knowledgeable. He's headed the Brookings Institute. He understands politics. He gets it. He was so careful to negotiate in his contract that he could take a leave of absence for four years if a Democrat got elected president and still keep his tenure and still keep his job, becausehe'll be in administration if the Democrats do take back the White House.

But he's political. He gets it. And President Johnson -- that's what he wanted the LBJ school to be. He wanted it to be a training place, where people were going to come for two years and they were going to be able to leave with a degree and be able to go out and make a very practical application either in an administrative position or in an elected political position.

I've never said this before, and it's -- I guess the statute's run, so I can't be indicted -- but we opened the LBJ school when I was Lieutenant Governor. And we opened it, and unlike the Field of Dreams in the Kevin Costner movie we saw, no one came. We had very few students enroll.

Frank Erwin came to me and said, Ben, we got a serious problem. We cannot let President Johnson be embarrassed and humiliated because of the fact that his name is a synonym with Vietnam, and kids don't want to come here and study.

And so what we did without precedent, we appropriated the money to make every student that came to the LBJ school the first few years, we gave them a scholarship out of state money, because if we'd have not gone and given them the scholarship and they not be able to go recruit the students, there would have been a lot of empty chairs at the LBJ school.

Of course, that's changed now, but it's -- that's just one of many. The Kennedy school is great. There's so many good places you can learn and study. Duke University, where I was last night, great school. There's so many good places, but I tell you this. If you're a Texan and you want to be in politics in Texas, you need to get your graduate degree or your undergraduate degree. You need to get one of them here in Texas. You need to do that.

I'm for people going away to go to school if they want to and get away from home and get a new environment, but if you want to be in politics, you need to have one of those degrees, or you need to have your degree from a state university here.

And you need to -- and I tell you what -- and here I am, I'm lecturing on social studies or social standings of this school -- meet everybody you can, and the people that you don't like in your class, be just as nice to them and be friends with them. Make as many friends as you can.

If you got an interest in politics, and if you don't have an interest in politics, you can just go to the movie with who you want to and go to the football game and not even speak. But I'm going to tell you -- if you got an interest in politics, you start building your card file right now, because those people in the card file, and there may be ol' Sammy Smith back there, and he doesn't act too smart when he answers a question, but I'm going to tell you. That guy may be the guy that comes up with a new widget, and he may be sitting there at age 35 and he may have $100 million in the bank, and he might be the person that could -- can get you the campaign check and get his friends to contribute to you, and that may put you out and say, You remember ol' Sammy? I saw you in class, man. I was nice to you. Remember, I was the only one in there that -- I was your buddy-bud.

But start doing that. I'm being a little simplistic, but it's never too young to start making friends.

Yes?

Man 3: Governor, I just have a two-part question. One, can you compare state politics now and, say, ten years ago? And two, is Evan Bayh the future of the National Democratic Party?

Ben Barnes: Well, let me answer your last question first. Evan Bayh is a young man that got elected very young in Indiana, very attractive. He was Governor for two terms and then has been elected to the Senate, reelected to the Senate. He's still a very young man.

He is a moderate. He's kind of a Bill Clinton type Democrat from the standpoint that, at least from the middle, I would like to get a good dose of adrenalin and drop in his milk that he drinks for breakfast. I wish I could -- and he'd be a little bit more aggressive.

He's certainly one of the people on the farm system. He's certainly one of the people that's got to be considered. He's certainly going to play a major role in the Democratic Party in the next 15, 20 years. Whether he's going to be the nominee, I don't know, but there will always be a place of leadership in Evan Bayh.

Compare the -- did you say the State Legislature? Yes. Well, I can't compare it with ten years ago from now. I can compare it with this; that Texas didn't get in the position we are today overnight. It took the downsizing of the vision of this state.

I used to worry a great deal about the fact that I could see what was happening in our state government. I could see that we were not concerned about excellence.

I tell you what happened. Too many good things happened in Texas. The money that we put in research and development, the money we put in faculty salaries, the money we put in the formula to allocate per student, the new colleges and universities we created -- all of that led to where the University of Texas and Texas A&M and our other schools -- we only have two flagship universities -- but we became very competitive and people recognized us.

And as a result, these companies didn't come to Texas accidentally. Symantec didn't come to Austin just because they like water and country music. They came here because of this university and they came here because of the brain trust that we had here, the graduates that this university was producing and Texas A&M was producing, and that was -- and so we enjoyed -- the Ô70s and Ô80s were great economic times.

But now we find ourselves, not the University of Texas rated in the top ten, not in the top 20, not in the top 30. If you believe U.S. News & World Report, we're 45th now, and what's Texas A&M? No, we're 47th and Texas A&M is 55th. Now, that's -- I'm ashamed of that. I'm not necessarily agreeing with U.S. News & World Report, but -- and I'll tell you . I represent some other companies in other states.

I represent actually the Illinois Coordinating Board for getting money into Illinois. I tell you, I've been to some higher education meetings recently, and when they're talking about states and they're talking about people that they've got to be concerned about that are competing --

Biomedical research. California -- their Republican governor -- I tell you what they got. They got $3 billion for stem cell research, but they appropriated about 700- to $800 million, just for biomedical research, State Legislature.

Illinois appropriated about 300 million, and all of this is matched by seven or eight or ten times federal money. There are all kinds of programs you get. North Carolina. North Carolina appropriated about $300 million. Massachusetts appropriated about $300 million.

Mississippi appropriated $50 million. Arkansas did 35 million, and our great visionary Legislature in this great state of ours, with a great medical complex in Dallas, one in San Antonio, one in Houston, they appropriated $30 million.

This government has been in a downward spiral, and there are people that -- they are the majority of the members of the Texas Legislature right now that really believe they got elected -- and maybe they did get elected -- they got elected to downsize our state government, and they've been very busy doing that.

They put a tax on sporting good items that were sold for our state parks, and it was raising -- gosh, we'd have great state parks; raise about 118-, $120 million. They put a cap on it at $25 million or $30 million, and the parks -- they can get $30 million. The rest goes in the general revenue where they can go use that to keep from having to go pass any tax bills and do anything.

But it's -- we are rapidly -- and I'm not exaggerating -- we're rapidly reaching a place where we're going to be compared to Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama, and that's -- but it's the fact that we don't have any leadership. The business community, our Board of Regents and our -- at A&M and the University of Texas -- they're wonderful people. I love Jim Huffhines. He's doing the best -- but they are appointed by Republican governors, and they're not going to dare go down there and say, Listen, you've got to give us some more money.

Now, they went down there and they said, Give us the power to go set tuition. And so what's happened is the last five or six years, the real additional money that's gone into higher education has come out of the students. It came out of your pocket.

Well, maybe we did raise tuition some, but I tell you what. I'm not too sure when the people -- if they reelect Rick Perry next week, I'm going to tell you what. I'm not too sure that you're not going to see more tuition increases. I'm not too sure that we may be on our way in Texas, if we're going to have any more money in higher education, to be number one in prisons and number one in tuition, and those are two things that I don't want to be number one in.

I didn't answer your question, but I hope I made a good speech.

Yes. Go ahead.

Man 4: Just to kind of follow up on what Paul said, you said yourself that Texas is surrounded -- they really -- by states that have Democratic governors. Harold Ford is running in the old South. He may not win, but he's doing pretty darn good --

Ben Barnes: He's tied.

Man 4: That's right, and if you compare us to our neighbors or to other big states, there's really no example like Texas when you consider the lock that Republicans have on statewide offices. This year you said that in 2002, there was a -- obviously, that was unsuccessful. There was a lot of money poured into it.

But I'm wondering if you think that this was a missed opportunity when you look at the fact that Democrats are serving nationally, do you think that Democrats dropped the ball? A lot of trial lawyers supported Strayhorn. I think you helped raise money for Strayhorn. Do you think that this was the year where if you'd actually put some money in a couple of these lower ballot races that maybe you could have struck this year?

Ben Barnes: Well, I think that you would have had to have some candidates in lower ballot races other than the Governor's race. I don't think we had a candidate in any of the other offices. But, you know, everybody's got 20/20 hindsight, but I can tell you this; that if you go poll, and we did poll -- it's not something just everybody just got real emotional and went out and did something.

Strayhorn had -- she had $10 million, and Bell had no money to start with, okay, and it's not as easy to raise money for Democrats as you think. But when you poll Bell, even today, you take Strayhorn out of it and take Kinky out of it, when you poll Bell and Perry, Perry beats Bell by about nine points.

When you say trial lawyer money, when you say liberal Democrat, when you say gay marriage, when you say all the things that they say about us -- Perry's silly television he ran against Bell, you know, things that his position is not -- they have been able to -- McLaughlin, who's a national pollster, told me that he said that the word trial lawyer is more unpopular in Texas than it is in any other state. It's unbelievable.

He said, I don't understand how that they've been able to poison the well. And here's Strayhorn -- she's taking more money from trial lawyers than Bell did. But the minute Bell got some money from a trial lawyer, well, Perry turned it on television, so he splattered Bell with the trial lawyer money.

Do I think this, if we'd all have supported Bell, raised him money and everything, I think it's highly unlikely. I got to tell you what I believe, just tell you the truth. I don't believe that Bell would have beaten Perry.

Do I think if Bell had not have gotten money and Kinky hadn't been in the race, I think Strayhorn would beat him. Look, Rick Perry, if he gets reelected, he's going to be the most unpopular man in this history, since we've been keeping polls, that ever got reelected Governor in any state. That's what I'm told by -- it's going to be unbelievable that he's -- that that's going to happen, but, you know, he's taken sheriffs to Washington and planning policy, you know.

Took those sheriffs up there under the guise of they're going to worry about border control, and he just wanted to use that as a cover because he wanted to go to a fundraiser at Paul Carville's wife last night. So -- but it's -- I don't know. People ask me everywhere I go about Texas. You know, that's the number one question. We can be sitting down talking about Missouri and we'll be talking about Tennessee, and they'll say, Well, why -- what's wrong in Texas?

Well, I think that George Bush -- he was a popular Governor. I think he was bipartisan in his first term. I think Bob Bullock carefully aided and abetted Bush even getting elected. I mean, I really believe it. I believe that Bullock did that. He certainly helped him govern, and he certainly helped him look good and be good.

And I think that kind of -- and there was Bob Bullock, a Democrat, and you remember then there was George Bush, but we had Democrats. Think about it. We didn't lose the Democrats until Bush and Bob Bullock started double-dating. I mean, that's when it started happening really totally, and you know, I don't know whether we go to the private sector and go find somebody to run, like a Bell -- and Bell's not -- Bell's a great man, but I'm going to call him the private sector. He'd served in Congress and served in the city council.

Do we go find somebody like a Lyndon Olsen, or do we go find someone like that that's -- Roy Spence wants to run for Governor. People -- do you go find somebody like that, or do you wait for a Mark Strama or Rose or do we find Kirk Watson? Kirk Watson ran for Attorney General. He already won one statewide race. I think he's got great potential.

But I think maybe what we could have done this time is we may have picked out a down ballot race, and I'm still not too sure that's not the right strategy, just to go try to elect someone that's got a name identification that's a very good candidate and try to elect them maybe State Comptroller or Attorney General or something rather than trying to go -- I know we'll never find the money to go take a Democrat from top to bottom and run everybody for all the statewide races and go beat incumbent Republicans, because the Republicans have got a very strong foothold in state government today.

But if I had to answer, I wouldn't be here. I'd be out with a sign on my door as being a consultant, and I'd be electing people in Texas, but I've not had very good luck in doing that.

Yes?

Dr. James Henson: Can we do one more question?

Ben Barnes: Yes.

Dr. James Henson: Then we can, I think, break up and we can hand out some books and maybe talk a little bit one on one.

Woman 2: [inaudible]

Ben Barnes: Well, I think this. I think the immigration issue is going to cause the Hispanic population to reevaluate a lot of their enthusiasm that has been created by -- for the voting in the Republican Party. I think this. I think we're going to see in these elections next week that the Hispanic vote is going to not be 40 percent Republican. I think it's going to come back and be about 80 percent Democrat. So I think it's issues.

But I think the Democrats -- look, the Democrats are going to have to make certain that they don't give the appearance or in any way believe that they can take the Hispanic or black vote for granted.

I'm going to tell you something. The blacks got the right and the Hispanics have got the right to vote for the party that they think is going to help them and going to provide the opportunities for them, and when we don't have the programs and we don't have the ideas and we don't have that, they got -- we don't have the patent on any minority. We don't have the patent on any voter. Matter of fact, we're kind of patent-poor right now.

One more question.

Andrew: Governor Barnes, you talked about John Cornyn in 2008. Will Texas ever have a chance to vote for Ben Barnes again?

Ben Barnes: Oh, Andrew, I don't -- I'm -- there's a better chance of me writing a second book than running. Okay?

Thank y'all so much, and I do have a book for y'all. Thank you very much.

Was that a reporter right there?

Dr. James Henson: Yes. The books are right over here. I don't know how you want to handle that.