““You really don’t know?’’ Luna said. ““It’s the perfect symbol. David vs. Goliath. People say, “I don’t know about you, but I’m voting for the little guy in the pickup truck’.’’ Without the truck, Victor Morales was in some – though not too much – danger of seeming just another politician. ““I guess I’ll have to keep that in mind if I’m gonna beat Phil Gramm,’’ Morales sighed. ““And I am going to beat Gramm. Bad.''
Only if he is very lucky. Texas is a pretty conservative state, and Victor Morales isn’t a very conservative candidate. Gramm, an antic fund raiser, will bring at least 4 million of his ““best friends’’ to the party; he’s already running nasty radio spots against the schoolteacher. But the senator has to work for his re-election, which is something of a surprise: polls show Gramm running in the mid-40s – dangerous turf for an incumbent, especially one who isn’t known for his bedside manner. And Morales is fearless. Asked how he’d handle Gramm’s economic expertise in a debate, he says: ““If I don’t know something, I just say so. People tell me, “Victor, most of [the professional politicians] don’t know what they’re talking about, either. At least you’re honest about it.’ And if Gramm comes at me like that, I’ll just say, “So where were you when it was time to serve your country in Vietnam?’ ’’ (Morales is a navy vet; Gramm is a vicarious supporter of the military.)
There is another thing Victor Morales has forced Gramm to do, aside from raising more money and going negative: suddenly Gramm is starting to sound . . . moderate. Last week he came out in favor of educating the children of illegal aliens, the sort of people he used to deride as ““the ones riding in the wagon, while the rest of us pull.’’ This is noteworthy. In fact, it has national implications – because Phil Gramm is not alone. Across the coun- try, Republican incumbents are getting worried. Some famous names find themselves in close races: Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond for starters. And more than a few of the infamous House freshmen are wondering if they’ll get to be sophomores. To be sure, there are Democratic incumbents running scared as well (““This may be another anti-incumbent year,’’ says George Stephanopoulos), but the pressure is particularly keen on Republicans, who face the humiliating prospect of losing the Congress two years after they won it. ““If the election were held right now, the Democrats would probably retake the House,’’ says Elizabeth Wilner of the independent Cook political report. ““But these things change.''
Sometimes for the worse. And as Bob Dole went to war against Katie Couric in defense of the tobacco industry, more than a few elected Republicans were quietly wondering if it was time to separate themselves from their nicotine-addled nominee. There may finally be sentiment, for example, to move some of the high-profile legislation stalled in Congress by a GOP leadership unwilling to give the president the appearance of victory – raising the minimum wage, the Kennedy-Kassebaum health-care bill, welfare reform. ““These are bills that seem middle-class, family-friendly,’’ says Wilner. If they don’t pass, Democratic challengers will have a windfall: a GOP Congress that not only shut down the government and tried to hack Medicare (or so it will be argued) but also refused to allow fired workers to hold on to their health insurance and wouldn’t raise the minimum wage. ““They need something to take home,’’ says Stephanopoulos, ““and they don’t have much time to do it. A month, maybe. After that, we’re into the conventions and the campaign. I think they’ll move.''
Others aren’t so sure. This is still a very ideological bunch of Republicans. They are people who truly believe that raising the minimum wage cripples small employers and costs jobs. They believe that Medical Savings Accounts will lower health-care costs, and won’t pass Kennedy-Kassebaum if MSAs aren’t included (liberals think MSAs will hurt the poor; reasonable people think the whole issue is marginal at best). ““We have a new leader in the Senate who probably won’t be willing to give up on the ideology, and most members will support Trent Lott out of courtesy,’’ says a GOP Senate aide. ““Over in the House, you’ve got a lot of freshmen who are prepared to go down with the ship.''
But the purest of the revolutionaries are politicians, not kamikazes; by nature, they hedge to fight again. And Phil Gramm, with one eye on a little white pickup truck puttering across Texas, may find moderation the better part of valor. His sidle to the middle could be one of the more satisfying spectacles of the year.
