Study In Contrasts: A Hard Charger and the Old Pro

Man With A Plan: Refuse Hauler Counts Precincts
Jimmie Kerr sees a way to organize central Waco For GOP

In a building directly across the road from Waco Regional
Airport near the western McLennan County suburb of China
Springs, refuse hauler Jimmie Kerr occupies two offices,
each directly across the corridor from the other.

Four by eight picture windows give a clear view of the other
office across the hall and the front door and the door to
the truck shop behind the front offices.

On one side, there is the headquarters for his solid waste
hauling business, an operation in which he directs drivers
to spot 40-foot debris boxes and refuse containers at
locations throughout the metropolitan Waco area.

On the other side is the "war room," its walls dominated by
a detailed map of McLennan County with push pins designating
voting precincts that have no precinct chairman and no GOP
organizing apparatus to get out the vote for conservative
candidates.

He rattles off the numbers as if they're a formula for some
winning combination - which they are - points to the map and
says, "The yellow, blue, green and red pins are where we
need an organization, where there's no chairman." Of the
county's registered voters, 64 percent are aligned with the
Republican Party. Of a population of 276,000, 176,000 are
either registered to vote, or could be.

Only 576 of them are card-carrying members of the Republican
Party.

There are 92 voting precincts in McLennan County. Each one
is made up of roughly 3,000 voters.

"Now, look at this," he says.

He places his hand over the map and covers almost all the
pins. Most of them are located in the inner city of Waco.

"Look, I can cover those precincts with my hand."

His affect is neutral. He peers from behind glasses perched
on the end of his nose, staring directly into the eyes of a
visitor. His husky frame fills an office chair behind a desk
heaped high with the impedimenta of running a business,
phones, calculators, scratch pads, telephone directories.

He is dressed in jeans and a tasteful snap button western
shirt. His grip is firm.

Everything about him screams out his militant determination
like an airborne trooper jumping into space from a speeding
airplane over a drop zone.

He was Army Airborne and he is still proud of it, a gung ho
job only for those who really want to do it and will go to
any lengths to prove it.

Out of 92 voting precincts, there are 40 with Republican
Precinct Chairmen, people who are eligible to be members of
the Republican Party of McLennan County's Executive
Committee.

Of these, 27 people filed for election as precinct chairmen
at the last primary election, he says. Seven of them were
incumbents.

Under the party rules, to obtain a quorum requires 25
percent of the membership of the executive committee. That
means at most an attendance of only 10 is required to
convene a meeting. At any meeting, there are only 13,14
people, he declares.

He pauses to answer a call on a walkie talkie phone from a
driver seeking instructions on where to make his next pickup
and delivery. After dealing with the man, he returns to his
conversation.

He shrugs, says, "What does all this tell you?"

He gets his answer quite readily.

It's much, much easier to control the situation if the
numbers of those have become empowered by getting out the
vote, registering those who are not, helping people vote
absentee or early in person, or providing transportation to
the polls on election day, are extremely limited.

He likes to indoctrinate newcomers to McLennan County
Republican Party politics in this way. He shows them the
numbers, lets them reach their own conclusions and answer
him in any way they please.

"I'm a conservative," he declares in a forthright tone of
voice, his gaze level and his manner cool and calculated.
"That means I believe in limited government, lower taxes and
less control over my life and my business. That's what it's
all about."

He ticks off the names of activists he has indoctrinated in
this way. The list is long and impressive because most of
the people he names are readily recognized, well known. You
run into them everywhere you go on the campaign trail. Some
are candidates or former candidates. Others are active in
the county TEA Parties of Congressional District 17. Many
are public officials or former public officials.

This is the reality of the situation as he sees it. It's
just politics and politics is all about numbers and like-
minded numbers of people coming together in an organized way
to solve their common problems.

So, behold Jimmie Kerr, former airborne soldier, business
man and enthusiastic member of many service and booster
organizations.

He has a plan and he's following it. People seek his
advice, value his counsel, beat a path to his door. He's
setting up an organization - one inner city precinct at a
time, something to rival what he sees in operation under the
party's existing leadership.

He points to a brochure he keeps pinned to his bulletin
board, then makes a photocopy for a visitor.

A publication of the Republican Party of Texas, it says that
the Texas Republican Party was formed on July 4, 1867, in
Houston by 150 black and 20 white Texans. He emphasizes
that these 20 white men were of mixed ethnic makeup of mixed
Hispanic and Anglo origins.

"When the Republicans became the majority in the Texas
Legislature in 1869, they set up a statewide school system,
something the Democrats had refused to do...

"Since the Republicans have gained control of the state in
1994, 8 minority Texans have held statewide office; yet in
the 122 years that Democrats controlled the State (1872-
1994), only 4 minority Texans held statewide office...

"The first 42 blacks elected to the Texas Legislature were
Republicans...

"I have two ways of referring to new Republican clubs," he
says. "Hispanic Republican Clubs and Black Texans."

He lets that sink in. He gives a man a broad grin, says, "I
like you. We can work together." With a firm handshake,
he's back at his desk with a phone in one hand and the
walkie talkie in the other.

The presentation shows all the polish and confidence of any
oft-repeated and concise briefing, military, commercial,
political or otherwise.

*********************************************************

Lakeshore Drive - Establishment Republican Headquarters
M.A. and Virginia Taylor on duty on a rainy Tuesday p.m.

Pioneer Republican state legislator M.A. Taylor and his wife
Virginia man the phones and operate the McLennan County
Republican Party office on Lakeshore Drive most weekdays.

Tuesday presented a drizzling, overcast day on the central
Texas Prairie, but inside the suburban office park, the
phones were ringing, business was brisk - and busy.

He is an old pro dressed in casual slacks and an immaculate
gray windbreaker embroidered with the seal of the State of
Texas and the title, "State Representative." She is
similarly clad in a gray business suit, subdued jewelry and
immaculately groomed hair and nails.

In a moment of leisure, Mr. Taylor, a former Republican
County Chairman prior to the election of present Chairman
Joe B. Hinton, sits back in an office decorated with huge
candid blow-ups of President George "Dub-yah" Bush strolling
down the colonnaded West Wing of the White House talking to
an associate, sprawled on a couch in the conversation pit of
the Oval Office, a group of 20 or more power suits busy on
laptops or phones, others listening carefully as he asks
questions or makes comments, or alighting from the olive
drab Presidential helicopter at the local Waco airport.

Says his wife, Virginia Taylor, with pride, "You know they
still vote here. In fact, they sent us their absentee
ballots for this latest election."

"They still own the ranch at Crawford," says Mr. Taylor.
"They are registered voters of McLennan County." Delighted,
he beams over that fact.

A former member of the Texas House of Representatives in the
days before the Republican Party had gained its toe hold on
controlling state politics, he recalls an encounter with
former Lt. Governor Bobby Bullock during his salad days as a
rock'em and shock'em State Comptroller who actually marched
into retail outlets and put merchants in handcuffs for
failing to turn over their fair share of sales taxes to his
office.

A man who was on a mission, Mr. Taylor explains his
formative years in his legislative role as a conservative
lawmaker, an early concern with budgetary matters, in this
way.

As it turns out, Bobby Bullock, as a fellow conservative, a
Democrat whose desk in his tenure in the Texas Legislature
was on the other side of the aisle, shared a lot of fiscal
views similar to his own. In the long run, it made it easy
for Republican lawmakers to work with him during his tenure
as Lt. Governor and President of the Texas State Senate.

"It was during my freshman term," Mr. Taylor recalled. "I
called him up on the telephone and asked him if it was true
that at the end of the fiscal year, these state agencies
begin to spend like mad to make sure they use up their
entire budget. He said, 'Yes, that is true.'

"I asked him if there is any way to tell which ones of the
agencies do it." Mr. Taylor shrugs, grins broadly at the
memory.

"He told me that would be easy to do because they all do
it!"

Sad, but true.

The resulting laughter is triumphant, very congenial, a
cherished memory related with perfect timing.

Mrs. Taylor interjects in a serious tone of voice.

"If he was still alive, I think Bobby Bullock would be a
Republican now. I really do."

In unison, alternating their presentation, he and Mrs.
Taylor recite the realities of their decades-long
partnership running the county party apparatus, an unpaid
job, from stem to stern, boxing the political compass of
each election cycle. Everything from getting the packets
ready for each voting precinct, taking the applications for
election as Precinct Chairmen, organizing the County
Convention and delegating members of the Executive Committee
to the State Convention, they emphasize.

These were the days before the rainmakers and kingmakers
appeared on the horizon. They were days of careful planning
and lots of hard rock organizing.

"There's a lot of paperwork," Mrs. Taylor adds.

"Really, it's a servant's position," Mr. Taylor concluded.

"People come here to see us all the time because they want
to run for public office. I just ask them this. It's the
same thing this old boy down in Austin who helps Republicans
raise money to run for public office asked me way back when
I first decided to run.

"I ask them, 'Are you willing to work without pay, with no
guarantee of success? Do you have anything in your
background that will spoil your chances of being elected?
Anything. Anything at all you don't want known about
yourself?' I thought real carefully when he asked me that
one.

"Then, finally, 'Have you got plenty of money you are
willing to spend on your election?'"

He gives a visitor a rueful look, then says, "I thought at
the time, who could pass such a test?"

Again, the easy laughter that ebbs and flows around this
serious business of seeking office.

"Look at the people who do it," he points out. "What about
Bill Flores?"

Mr. Flores sold his oil business in Houston, Phoenix
Exploration, an offshore and coastal operation financed with
hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital.

He moved to Congressional District 17's southern reaches at
College Station to seek the nomination to oppose incumbent
Chet Edwards. First, he has to clear the second hurdle of
the race in a runoff election against former Waco television
sports anchorman Rob Curnock.

"Why do they do it?"

A visitor to this buttoned down operation, a smoothly oiled
mechanism which has produced a couple of governors and
lieutenant governors, a President, numerous legislators,
county commissioners, district and county court at law
judges, district attorneys,justices of the peace, sheriffs,
constables, mayors and city councilmen, speaks up with the
useless remark that there are those who climb mountains,
others who race sailing yachts across oceans and still
others who breed and train thoroughbred racehorses.

It's an Anglo version of the oft-repeated Mexican saying,
"¿Quien sabe?"

Who knows?

He smiles, shrugs, says he's due at his barber's for a trim
and the interview ends on a cordial note, smiles all around.