Until he had run for Governor [in 1938], W. Lee [”Pappy”] O’Daniel had never had the slightest connection with politics—not as a candidate, not as a campaign worker, not even as a voter; he had never cast a ballot. He was a flour salesman and a radio announcer….
[D]oubts about Pappy’s sincerity were occasionally raised in print by commentators who noted that the first of his fervent paeans to Texas had been composed when he had hardly arrived in that state, having previously lived in Kansas, and that even now he was occasionally prone to minor errors about Texas history—such as confusing the Battle of San Jacinto with the Alamo. Those closest to him knew that his country-boy image was a pose; he was actually a business-college graduate and a businessman who dealt not just in Hillbilly Flour but in Fort Worth real estate… Intimates also had some doubts about the depth of his religious feeling; although he was constantly urging his listeners to go to church, he seldom went himself….
O’Daniel’s candidacy was not taken seriously by politicians or by the press, who noted his total lack of political experience (since he had not paid his poll tax, he was not even eligible to vote); reporters treated it as a joke, if they mentioned it at all; newspaper articles lumped this “radio entertainer” and flour salesman…with the numerous other fringe candidates who regularly people Texas politics. Then the campaign began. O’Daniel’s first rally was held in Waco. When he drove up in his red wagon, the crowd waiting for him was possibly the largest crowd in the history of Texas politics—tens of thousands of people….
To his opponents’ charge that since he had no platform, he had no reason for running, he replied that there was indeed a reason; the reason, he said, was them. The principal reason he was running, he said, was to throw them—the “professional politicians”—out of Austin….
Press and politicians had predicted that once the novelty of seeing him in person had worn of, O’Daniel’s audiences would get smaller. They got larger: crowds unprecedented in Texas politics—20,000, 30,000, 40,000—came to hear him in the cities. Crowds followed him from town to town. They barricaded the highway to force him to stop and speak to them….
According to the press, the leading candidates in the race were two of the state’s best-known politicians, onetime State Attorney General William McCraw and Colonel Ernest O. Thompson, chairman of the Railroad Commission. McCraw received 152,000 votes. Thompson got 231,000. O’Daniel got 573,000. Polling 30,000 votes more than the eleven other candidates combined, he won the Governorship without a run-off….
Almost totally ignorant of the mechanics of government, O’Daniel proved unwilling to make even a pretense of learning, passing off the most serious problems with a quip; asked once what taxes he was proposing to keep the deficit-ridden government’s head above water, he replied that “no power on earth” could make him say….
“He just got up at his rallies. and said, in effect, ‘I’m going to protect you from everything.’” And the people believed he would. In 1938, he had gotten 51 percent of the vote; in 1940, he got 53 percent, winning re-election as he had won election, by beating a field of well-known politicians without even a run-off.
