Jim Hightower was the Texas agriculture commissioner from 1983 to 1991. Texas was notoriously conservative. Hightower was progressive, rather than liberal.
People couldn’t understand how Hightower could win statewide election in a state like that. At one time or another, Hightower said something like this to every newspaper reporter who would listen:
The political spectrum is not right to left but top to bottom.
In the early 1980s, the Texas economy was like the national economy today. Texas was a great place to be if you were fabulously wealthy. If you weren’t, you tended to think about wages, the cost of living, and the economic policies pushed by people who didn’t worry about either. Hightower argued that the people at the top believed strongly, but erroneously, that the gap between the top and bottom wasn’t nearly wide enough. People voted for him because they could see his point.
It’s an election year. I’m open to new ideas and hope to hear a few. But I would love to hear a new voice on that old script.
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