Ann Richards (Holland Taylor) discusses her first campaign, the women she picked as her campaign managers, and her road to the governorship.
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TRANSCRIPT
And work, work was the best antidote for fear, so I hit the gas!
Besides the notion of running was catching on. Gears were turning.
Clipboards were flying. And before I knew it all my network of women arrived, on their brooms!
[laughing] With their law degrees and their checkbooks and their Rolodexes.
I had the sense to snag that Jane Hickey person as my campaign manager, and she may have been 15 years my junior, but really she was like a mentor to me. And she is so wicked smart you don't know what the hell she just said but you know it's good.
[laughing] We started planning, all of us, around our big ol' dinner table.
Well shoot, we knew how to do it.
I was suiting up.
Gosh, I was happy.
And now, there was a glint in my eye.
Now don't get me wrong. Being a mother meant everything to me, but my kids were pretty grown. And here I had the chance to put to the fire things that I had stood for all my life. If I was ambitious that's because I know that life is not fair. I had learned that at 11.
Life is not fair.
But government should be. And thus began my career.
[applause] County Commissioner for six years. Then elected up to State Treasurer a couple of terms. Now who knew this meant endless campaigning and it is some hard work on the road, oh man! Buses, beat-up old vans, state fairs.
You ever been to a State Fair? Without a hat? Up to your eyeballs in balloons and barbecue, just forging on from town to dusty town. You understand folks Texas is bigger than France.
[laughing] But 15 years on that fast track of Texas politics seemed to agree with me. Hey, other than mud on your face, it's fun.
