The first time I met Bob Bullock, who died June 18, he was sighting down a rifle at my then-skinny frame.
“You ever seen one of these beauties?” he gruffed, showing off a Civil War relic.
It was summer 1980, and I was a fresh-faced reporter in The Beaumont Enterprise‘s Austin bureau. Bullock, then 50, had already lived what seemed like nine public and private lives. A recovering alcoholic, on his way to five marriages to four women, and a man with an idea every 30 minutes around the clock, he was sailing toward easy re-election as Texas state comptroller — the state’s chief fiscal officer and most powerful keeper of the purse strings — over a Republican unknown named Mike Richards. Truth was, I barely knew anything about Richards, and Bullock sure didn’t care. I can still hear Bullock’s voice twanging in his darkened office, a cigarette burning in his hand: “Who is Mike Richards? Tell me what he has ever done for Tex-x-x-xas?”
I had no idea. But I had a lasting first impression of the godfather of modern Texas government who had introduced computer technology to state finances and reintroduced hands-on style to post-LBJ politics. Interview over, I made a point of backing out of Bullock’s office to make sure he didn’t pick up the rifle again.
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photograph by Alan Pogue |
Our paths crossed again in 1991. By then, voters had elevated Bullock to lieutenant governor of Texas, where he would officially oversee the Texas Senate and unofficially guide both Governor Ann Richards and Governor George W. Bush away from legislative disasters. (It was Bullock who miffed fellow Democrat Richards by saying kind things about Bush just before Bush’s upset of Ann, and it was Bullock too who was among the first Texans who subsequently called Bush “my” future president.)
A few members of the Capitol press corps treated Bullock with reverence, but I was unsold enough to be nettlesome — and I worked at it. Bullock snarled answers to persnickety questions, and he sometimes returned telephone calls just so he could shout and hang up before I got a question out. In at least one instance, a story I wrote led a state attorney to seek other employment under Bullock’s demanding glare. The poor fella had made the mistake of talking on the record to me about holes in a Bullock proposal.
As heavy-handed as Bullock could be, I liked “the Governor” still and appreciated his claims to omniscience and willful difference from the focus-group officeholders who were starting to surround him in state offices. Bullock alone among state leaders sent me a personal note on the birth of our first daughter. It read like he was outside the hospital room when Anna tumbled into view.
There have been comparisons made to LBJ, who made his mark on a wider stage. I can confirm Bullock’s physical presence, but he hardly towered over anyone and I never saw him grasp lapels like President Johnson. He didn’t flash his scars either.
One day in the hallway behind the Texas Senate chamber, however, Bullock was gabbing when he saw me on the edge of a circle of reporters. In a flash, he reached out and grabbed me — by the cheek — pulled me close and then pushed me away. I don’t recall his words, but the shock of his act lingered. It felt like hot water was running through his veins.
Toward the end of his life, I realized that no one had captured the Bob Bullock of Texas tale in all its spectacular and even sordid detail. It’s unbelievable today (at least in this century) that someone with such an unruly personal past virtually ruled Texas government for nearly three decades, without seeking, attaining, or suffering from the national spotlight he might have deserved.
Maybe no one could write the full story. But I thought I had a revealing angle: I would go deer hunting with Bullock and tell his life story from beyond his public shadow. The image of a rifle-wielding leader was fixed in my mind. Unfortunately, Bullock declined my requests to trail him near his ranch in Llano, Texas. He even brushed off my wife when she reminded him of my desire at Roy Minton’s 60th birthday party.
“Why would I ruin my huntin‘ trip by taking along a reporter?” Bullock said.
Why, indeed.
The loss to Texas from Bullock’s passing has been well documented. But I’ll remember the cocky way he brandished that rifle, the way he reached out and grabbed at you with all abandon, and the way he wasn’t afraid of, and even enjoyed, saying to hell with what you want or expect. There’s no one like him left in Texas politics, and certainly no one like him in American public life. That’s the true loss to Texas and the country.
Who’s going to capture that story?
Gardner Selby is a former statehouse reporter for The Houston Post and Dallas Times-Herald. He can be reached at gardner@io.com.
This article appears in June 25 • 1999 and June 25 • 1999 (Cover).