Texas politics
Barnes burner: Ben is an author
Dave MCNEELY

It's about time Ben Barnes wrote a book. The man has spent 46 years in Texas and national politics and cooperated or clashed - or both -with virtually every big name in the state: Sam Rayburn, Bob Bullock, LBJ, George W.

"Barn Burning, Barn Building" may not reveal quite as much about the underbelly of Texas politics as political junkies might want from the Golden Boy of Texas politics of the 1960s. But there's still a lot there.

Barnes had a meteoric rise in Texas politics: Texas House at 22; House speaker at 26 - youngest ever. Same for lieutenant governor at 30. Running with the big dogs, like John Connally and LBJ -who two years after he left the White House predicted Barnes would live there someday.

But two years later, Barnes' political star fell as quickly as it rose, leaving him to a decades-long career as a businessman, lobbyist and fundraiser. Barnes writes that Richard Nixon's White House considered Barnes a threat to the reelection of Sen. John Tower, and decided to take him out. Barnes thinks the hunt for his scalp brought the federal investigation that led to the Sharpstown banking and stock fraud scandal.

That broke in 1971, over two bills that passed the House and Senate in 1969. Barnes presided over the Senate when it had passed them.. He was never officially interviewed by federal investigators, much less indicted, but it didn't matter: "You were there."

Nixon and Sharpstown were a tough one-two punch, but there were other factors in Barnes' downfall that he leaves out of "Barn Burning." Barnes supported LBJ's war in Vietnam and pushed a regressive sales tax on food, both of which angered liberals. He reached out to minorities, which angered social conservatives, and supported social programs and increased spending on education, which ticked off anti-tax conservatives.

The other big factor in his swift descent was his longstanding quarrel with Bob Bullock, who was Secretary of State in 1971. Bullock had helped Barnes reach the speakership in 1965, but soured on him when Barnes sabotaged a House amendment Bullock was pushing for the liquor lobby later that year. When Barnes ran against Bullock's boss, Gov. Preston Smith, in the 1972 Democratic primary, Bullock did everything he could to trash Barnes.

Barnes finished ahead of Smith - but he was still in third place, behind Dolph Briscoe and Frances "Cissy" Farenthold. (Barnes doesn't discuss it in his book, but he got partly even with Bullock, by getting the Senate to refuse to confirm Bullock's appointment to the State Board of Insurance. They made up years later.)

Barnes' elective career was over, and he turned to business. In the late 1980s, along with his partner Connally, Barnes had to declare bankruptcy, but later made millions lobbying, including for the establishment of the Texas lottery.

Barnes, 68, admits some regrets. He is sorry for how little attention he paid to his first family while he was on his way up. He is "ashamed" of "playing God" by pulling strings to get George W. Bush - and others - to the front of the line to get into the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. Bush's pilot certification lapsed because he refused to take a routine physical, squandering "hundreds of thousands of dollars in training," Barnes charges. He said he still wonders about the anonymous men who died in Vietnam in place of privileged ones he helped stay out.

There's a good sense in Barnes' book of the rough-and-tumble politics of the 1960s and 1970s in Texas, and of the beginning of the transition from one-party Democratic rule to a two-party Texas. Barnes helped John Connally's abortive try for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, but became a born-again Democrat -even though he's supporting Democrat-turnedRepublican-turned-Independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn for governor. He suggests ways to return government to a middle ground from the partisan bloodbath of recent years.

Barn Burning, Barn Building: Tales of a Political Life, From LBJ to George W. Bush and Beyond. Ben Barnes, with Lisa Dickey: Bright Sky Press, $24.95.

McNeely is co-writing a book about Bob Bullock. Reach McNeely at dmcneely@austin. rr.com or (512) 458-2963.