Jim Hightower talks about populism

BY JOE GROSS

Whither populism? Or to put it in other words: What is populism, really, what the heck happened to it and is it still alive?

To hear Jim Hightower talk about it, populism most definitely is alive; it just might not call itself populism. And it has nothing to do with Tea Party activists.

"Populism is not just incoherent outbursts of anger," Hightower says. We're sitting in Dominican Joe. The former Texas agriculture commissioner, and current radio host and author of "The Hightower Lowdown" newsletter is looking exactly like you hoped he would look—cowboy jeans, shirt and hat. "It's a long-term effort by ordinary folks to take economic and political power out of the hands of corporations that are running roughshod over our economy, our energy supply and our government. That's partly why we're doing this event."

"This event" is "The Living Spirit of Texas Populism: In Our Politics, In Our Culture," a reception and panel discussion Saturday at the Wittliff Collections at the Alkek Library on the campus of Texas State University-San Marcos, which is the repository of Hightower's archives. Parts of the Hightower archive are on display through July 31 in an exhibit titled "SwimAgainst the Current: Highlights From the Jim Hightower Archive." (Full disclosure: retired American-Statesman editorial cartoonist Ben Sargent will be part of the "Populism in Texas Culture" panel at Saturday's event.) Hightower is also the guest on the final episode of Bill Moyer's "Journal," which airs 8 p.m. Friday on KLRU.

Hightower grew up in Denison, the son of a newsstand owner. "My father was a small-business guy. He would call himself a conservative, but he was a populist: When he began to talk about the real issues, he sounded like William Jennings Bryan."

Hightower got his first real taste of populism in a history class at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas). The textbook was written by T. Harry Williams—who later wrote "Huey Long," the definitive biography of the legendary Louisiana governor—and discussed the history of Texas populism. Something clicked in Hightower. This was what his dad was talking about; he just wasn't calling it populism.

"Dad came through the New Deal," Hightower says. "He saw electricity come into places and benefits derived. He had a strong sense of himself and his achievements, but he knew there was a larger society out there that made that possible. I use this line a lot, but he used to say, `Everybody does better when everybody does better.'"

The class pointed High- tower toward Texas politics. "The Democratic Party was, until the '70s, three parties," Hightower says. "There was a Republican branch, led by (powerful Texas governor) Allan Shivers; moderate, centrist corporate Democrats, which was the Lyndon Johnson branch; and the progressives, which was the Ralph Yarborough branch." High-tower worked for the latter, the progressive Texas senator, until Yarborough lost to Lloyd Bentsen in 1970. Hightower became editor of the Texas Observer in 1977 and ran for railroad commissioner in 1980.

"I was running a year out and the only place that cares about state politics a year out are courthouses," Hightower says. "At the Smith County courthouse, the lawyer showing me around said, `There's one judge here, but he's a conservative, so don't dump your whole load on him.'

"I met him and started to give my little rap about the railroad commission (which regulates the oil and gas industries)," Hightower continues. "I said, `It seems to me that gas utilities are not being entirely fair to the consumer.' He dropped his feet and leaned in and I thought, `Oh, well.' He said, `Hightower, in your private moments, wouldn't you say they're(expletive) us?' `Yes, judge, I would.' `OK, I'm for you.' "

Hightower lost his Railroad Commission race, but was elected the state's agriculture commissioner in 1982, serving until 1991. "The whole shift to purer, local, more organic food has been a tremendous populist revolution right before our eyes," Hightower says. "This is money that stays in the local economy and links people with their food. This happens without any corporation making it happen. This is enterprise that is already there. It just needs a catalyst."

He's even bullish on the future of populism. "I don't think Texas is a right-wing state; I think it's a non-voting state," Hightower says. "When George Bush was re-elected governor in 1998, there was about 26 percentvoter turnout." (There was about a 32.4 percent turnout of registered voters, according to state figures, but a 26.5 percent turnout of the voting age population .) "That means about 15 percent of the population of Texas elected him. Then again, the Democratic Party couldn't muster 15 percent."

The 2008 presidential election clearly energized people: 45.6 percent of the voting age population voted.

"To me, populism has been the only real future for progressive ideas coming forward," Hightower says. "People really do want to control their own destinies, they just don't know how. Give them a few tools, people will make something happen."