Do the current TX US Senators make Phil Gramm and John Tower look reasonable or were they

[NPolitics1979]

Just as sleazy but more clever than Cruz.

[WCGreen]

1. They all hicks to me..

[JI7]

2. no, the current ones really are that bad

[elleng]

3. Different 'sleazy,' imo,

and gramm has done some SERIOUS damage to our economy and financial well-being. Tower looks GOOD in comparison to all of them, imo, but I may not remember everything.

[NPolitics1979]

5. Senate derailed his Towers nomination to be Defense secretary in 1989.

[elleng]

6. Right. Drinking or sex or some other 'sin,' right???

edit: Heck, Tower sounds like a GOOD guy!!!

'Once considered a solid conservative, Tower angered his party's right-wing when he supported the nomination of President Gerald R. Ford, Jr., as the Republican nominee in 1976 over former Governor Ronald W. Reagan of California. Reagan won every Texas delegate in the first ever Texas Republican presidential primary and four at-large delegates chosen at the state convention, but he narrowly lost the party nomination to Ford at the convention held that year in Kansas City, Missouri. Ernest Angelo, one of three co-chairmen of the 1976 Reagan campaign in Texas and a former mayor of Midland, recalls a trip to Midland by Tower in 1975. In their drive from the airport, Angelo informed Tower that he would be working in the forthcoming campaign to draft and nominate Reagan. Angelo recalls Tower as having told him that supporting Reagan would be a "dumb thing to do".[9] At the time, all Republican U.S. senators except Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Paul Laxalt of Nevada were committed to Ford. Tower blamed Ford's defeat in Texas on "Dixiecrats... the Reagan organization, aided by former Wallace leaders, made a concerted and obviously successful effort to get the Wallace vote in the Republican primary. In addition some section of Ford's defense and foreign policy alienated some voters who may otherwise have cast their ballot for the president."[10]

By virtue of their primary defeat, the Texas Ford supporters were shut out of the national convention in Kansas City. . .

In 1989, Tower was President George H. W. Bush's choice to become Secretary of Defense. But in a stunning move — particularly given that Tower was himself a former Senate colleague — the United States Senate rejected his nomination. The largest factors were concern about Tower's personal life, in particular allegations of alcohol abuse and womanizing.[15] The Senate vote was 53-47, the first time that the Senate had rejected a cabinet nominee of a newly elected president.[16]'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tower

[NPolitics1979]

7. Tower is the reason why Cheney exists.

[elleng]

8. How do you figure that?

P.S., see my edit.

[graham4anything]

10. NO, Towers was NEVER a good guy to democratic voters. And has nothing to do with sex/drink.

BTW, Ford, one of the members of the Warren commission was NOT a good person either, though spin and Bush41 made it appear otherwise.
Ford was just the party bosses man they went to and never would have come close to being president if he wasn't selected by Nixon(who it has to be said was smart enough NOT to pick Bush41 for VP after Agnew, as Bush41 heavily campaigned for it(and for Ford's VP choice after Rockerfeller said he did not want it).

[TexasTowelie]

12. See post #11 about Tower's alcohol abuse.

My information comes from first-hand sources while I was still a student in the mid 80's.

[LarryNM]

4. A Continuing Descent to the Bottom n/t

[graham4anything]

9. Actually, Gramm and Tower were 10 times worse, as they held more power

the Tea party draconians in all national office don't actually hold that much power.

Gramm and Tower were major power holders and led the party.

Cruz is just so far out of there that he is 100 out of 100 in the senate, and nobody will take him for more than a court jester and one vote.

gramm and Tower were the equivelenat of say 10 votes instead of one

i.e.-the further right Cruz is, the more Lindsay Graham,far more dangerous, or John McCain powerful they are.
Because it makes it look more bipartisian if they go against the Rand Paul or Cruz' out there.

Now, if a Rand Paul became a seroius presidential candidate who would get 270, then it becomes a far, far worse thing.

[DFW]

13. Rand Paul IS someone who could get 270. So is Rubio. So, even, is Cruz. Here's why:

ANY Republican ticket has the potential danger to get 270. They could run a ticket of Bashar Al Assad and Roger Rabbit and they're STILL guaranteed 40% of the vote and 200 electoral by merely having an "R" in front of their names. Koch (et al) money and Republican gerrymandering and precision voter suppression have the potential to do the rest.

All this talk of the demise of the Republican Party is just so much wishful thinking. With their money and their statehouse power (bought in part by their money, see "Midterms, 2010&quot along with overconfidence on our side (same reference), they could do it, and we'd be left asking ourselves what hit us, just like we were after the 2010 House takeover. Watch the individual statehouses, as well. Republican governors are bad enough. Corrupt Republican governors with an agenda are an outright danger (e.g. FL, PA, MI, WI, VA, ME, KS, etc etc etc.).

[TexasTowelie]

11. John Tower graduated from the same university as I did.

In the 1980's the actives of the fraternity of which Tower was a member stated that every year he visited Tower would be locked in his old room with a box of cigars and a couple of bottles of whiskey.

I saw his photo on the fraternity composites and he was the only person in civilian clothing. Everyone else had on Navy uniforms since the fighter program was steered there by LBJ. Therefore, I find it is easy to think of Tower as one of the original Republican chicken-hawks.

After Tower died in the plane accident a tree was planted on campus in his honor and Kay Bailey Hutchinson spoke at the dedication. The running joke at the time was that the tree was a "scotch" pine. FWIW, the tree died from neglect!

Phil Gramm also spoke on campus in his first US Senate bid when he replaced Tower in 1986. He was expecting a friendly reception, but didn't do his research to learn that Southwestern was a liberal arts university. The students relentlessly grilled Gramm during the Q&A and I was there to enjoy every minute of it. Gramm never stepped foot there again!

Both of them rated high on the sleaze-o-meter.

[DFW]

14. Gramm (or, rather, his staff) did exactly one positive thing while he was in the Senate

As far as I am concerned, anyway.

At one point, my daughter, who was seven years old at the time, had to file a tax return because she got some tiny interest income off some savings account my parents had set up for her. She owed some ridiculous amount in income tax. The IRS didn't record the payment I sent, and sent her ever more threatening letters demanding a penalty of $7. Knowing the Republican position on taxes in general. I wrote to Gramm, who was "my" senator, after all, and asked for help. I said the IRS must be in bad shape if they need to extort $7 from seven-year-old girls who were the children of parents stationed abroad. They must have assumed I was in the uniformed military, a big deal in Texas (we do not wear uniforms in my line of work). Sure enough, his staff got the IRS to forgo the penalty, and to leave my daughter alone.