gda@unc.UUCP (Greg Abram) (01/14/84)
I recently read of an interesting character and radio show in the
recent biography of Lyndon Johnson, "The Path to Power", which sounds
amazingly familiar. The character is W. Lee O'Daniel, the Governor
of Texas who defeated LBJ in his first senatorial campaign (incidently,
the dirtiest election I can even imagine, primerally, though not entirely,
on LBJ's part). Quoting from page 695 on:
"...He was a flour salesman and radio announcer. He turned to radio - in 1927
- to sell more flour. At the time, he was the thirty-seven-year-old sales
manager for a Forth Worth company that manufactured Light Crust Flour. An
unemployed country-and-western band asked him to sponsor it on a local radio
station. The Light Crust Doughboys were not notably successful until one day
the regular announcer was unable to appear, and O'Daniel substituted for him;
finding that he liked the job, he decided to keep it.
He began whistling along with the band. He began composing tunes and
writing lyrics. Then he began writing little poems that he recited himself.
... He began giving short talks that were almost sermons. ... It was not the
content of these rambling, informal little homilies that made them so popular,
nor the soft violins playing familiar sentimental tunes in the background. It
was the voice in which they were delivered. The voice was warm and friendly
and relaxed - captivatingly natural. And yet it was also fatherly, soft but
firm. It was a voice you could trust. ... the flour salesman from Fort Worth
had ... either stumbled into, or deliberately figured out, that the microphone
is an ear and not an auditorium - and you don't make public speeches to micro-
phones, you don't shout into them any more than you shout into your sweetheart's
ear when you wanted to tell her you loved her. ... In 1935, he stopped selling
flour for others and started selling it for himself. He organized his own
company, Hillbilly Flour, and started his own show. It opened with a woman's
request to him to "Please pass the biscuits, Pappy," and then, above the fiddles
and guitars of the Hillbilly Boys, the voice of a "Pappy", friendly and fatherly
would be heard. On this show, there was less music and more O'Daniel - and the
show's popularity leaped. By 1938, it had more listeners than any daily show
in the history of Texas radio."
(end quote)
This guy had no political experience at all, but was incredibly successful
due to his popularity on the radio. He had virtually no platform, except
that he was for the farm folks against the "Interests" and professional
politicians, and a proposal for a simple state pension plan ($30/month to
all over 65). Apparently, he took Texas to the cleaners, all the while
overwhelming beloved by the citizenry. It turns out he was also a ardent
Prohibitionist. He beat LBJ for the Senate when, at the last minute, Texas'
"Beer, Inc." lobbying group bought the 10K votes (or so) necessary, in order to
get him out of the state house. And I do mean bought.
Not, of course, that Garrison Keilor is a demagogic politician. But the
similarity between PHC and O'Daniel's radio shows is astonishing.