Battle of the Balkans

Despite recent Republican incursions, the major ballot battles in Texas are between the Democrats' liberal and conservative wings. Conservatives usually win. Incumbent Governor John Connally is one, although the popular idiom lately is "moderate conservative," to differentiate most Democrats from H. L. Hunt. But the liberals are doughty fighters, and in Senator Ralph Yarborough they have not only a popular champion but also an implacable foe of Connally. So when Connally announced that he would not seek another term this year, all seemed set for a classic Texas confrontation between Yarborough, who has long coveted the governorship, and Connally's hand-picked successor.

But Connally has chosen so far to stay publicly neutral, hoping to retain the party leadership in this presidential year, while Yarborough prefers the safety of his Senate seat to the prospects of a ruinous statehouse fight. Instead, the Texas gubernatorial race is building toward a melee that threatens to Balkanize the conservatives and treat the state to its best political free-for-all since 71 Democrats ran for the Senate in 1961.

Already eight primary candidates are gathering their strength. The best-known liberal is Don Yarborough, 42 (no kin), who twice lost to Connally and is expected to file soon. Last week Deputy Ambassador to Viet Nam Eugene Locke, 50, once Connally's campaign manager, announced as well. Locke is a protege of Lyndon Johnson, as is Edward Clark, 61, who has resigned his ambassadorship to Australia in preparation for making the Texas gubernatorial run. Also in the race are Secretary of State John Hill, 44, a Connally trusty who shows a mind of his own and who will file this week; former Attorney General Waggoner Carr, 49, a conservative without modifiers who was swamped by Republican John Tower in the last Senate race; Dallas Radioman Gordon McClendon, 46, who helped popularize rock-'n'-roll disk jockeys and is regarded as a moderate-conservative maverick, a mouthful even for Texas; Lieutenant Governor Preston Smith, who rates the adjective "arch" instead of "moderate"; and Pat O'Daniel, 49, son of W. Lee O'Daniel, who won the 1938 governorship on the lure of the Bible and a hillbilly band.

As for the Republicans, they will put up either National Committeeman Albert B. Fay, 54, or former Texas Attorney General Will Wilson, 55, who was a Democrat when he prosecuted the Billy Sol Estes case in 1962, but has since shifted to the G.O.P.

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