
          Hightower Chooses a Populist Agenda 
          By Davenport, ElaineElaine Davenport
          Vol. 11, No. 2, 1989, pp. 4-5
          
          Jim Hightower has a way forward for the Democrat. Party. In order
to pursue his strategy, Hightower has decided to run for re-election
as Texas Agriculture Commissioner rather than challenging Republican
Phil Gramm for a U.S. Senate seat in 1990, as was expected.
          "While a run against Gramm might put me in the Senate, and while
it would be good fun for me, campaigns are necessarily egocentric,
leaving little behind in the way of a cohesive base that could elect
not just me but others, ultimately to form a populist majority and
produce populist politics," Hightower wrote in The
Nation, February 6, 1989. "And while I might be able to
gather as much as $10 million, I would have to spend more time in the
living rooms of the wealthy raising money than I could out in the
communities raising issues, raising hopes and raising hell."
          Hightower wants to form a party within a party--a populist alliance
that begins in Texas and spreads to the rest of the country. He wants
nothing less than to "change the way politics is conducted,"
starting with the Texas Democratic Party, and let that serve as a
national model.
          To do so, he proposes to rally progressive, populist forces already
in place, expanding the concept that he and his staff have practiced
within the Texas Department of Agriculture for the past six
years. That has been to work "shoulder to shoulder with local
communities to protect the environment and health of people associated
with agriculture," says Hightower. "We are challenging
ourselves and the 

state's farmers to build a diversified,
consumer-oriented, sustainable agriculture. We have tapped the
aspirations of everyday people, removing barriers to their economic
endeavors and freeing their enterprise for the benefit of Texas. With
the support of the legislature and the help of other agricultural
institutions, we have offered the simple tools of self-help to build
food processing facilities, to sell everything from grain sorghum to
honey in the international market, to open up the $3 billion
dollar-a-year organic foods market to Texas producers, to assure safer
pesticide practices, to protect communities from toxic waste
contamination--in general, to give people the means to get hold of
their own destiny."
          Something akin to the old Farmer-Labor Party with an infusion of
modern technology, the new alliance would encompass speakers' bureaus,
small-donor solicitation programs, policy development centers,
campaign training, a network of progressive and populist elected
officials in all areas, and a candidate recruitment program. Hightower
is already talking with the state AFL-CIO, the association of trial
lawyers and community organizations throughout the state, and seeking
advice from organizations outside Texas such as the Legislative
Electoral Action Project in Connecticut and Citizen Action in
Chicago.
          While running against Phil Gramm in 1990 would have been "more
fun than eating ice cream naked," Hightower has decided to eschew
high-dollar, high-profile politics and "put my political capital
into the more fundamental task of plowing the ground, scattering the
seeds and nurturing the growth of a broad-based, grass-roots populist
politics out of which a progressive government can arise."
          The question, says Hightower, is not whether the Democratic Party
should go to the left or to the right, but whether it will go again to
people themselves.
          
            Elaine Davenport is a freelance reporter and audio
producer who divides her time between Austin, Texas, and London,
England.
          
        