The silver foot kicks back - Texas gubernatorial race between Democrat Ann Richards and a strong Republican challenger, George W. Bush; includes other state races

DALLAS

SHE's soooooo cute; and soooooo funny--or so the press duly assures us, whenever the opportunity arises.

On such a showing Governor Ann W. Richards of Texas should be riding high in her re-election bid. Instead she's dead even in the polls with the son of the man she accused, in her national oratorical debut at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, of having entered the world "with a silver foot in his mouth."

George W. Bush, son of George H. W. Bush, could be the next governor of the nation's second most populous state. How would that be for revenge? Nice. And how would it be for the State of Texas? Nicer yet.

The woman who Texas Republic magazine calls "the most liberal governor in Texas history" would be dead meat, politically speaking, were she not sooooo cute, etc. That Ann Richards, superstar, is in such tight straits is the clearest indication possible that Democrats in general and Bill Clinton in particular are in big trouble hereabouts. It's looking like a Republican year in Texas.

This stands to reason. Texas, a generally conservative state, never has cottoned to the Clintons. Even with fellow Texan Ross Perot in the race, George H. W. Bush carried the Lone Star State in 1992. Clinton has drawn shouts and jeers ever since from Texans. "He's a drag on the whole Democratic ticket," says veteran political consultant George Christian, who was Lyndon Johnson's press secretary. "He's a heavy load to tote. Rightly or wrongly, he is getting blamed for almost everything that goes wrong."

The state's dynamic new Republican chairman, Tom Pauken, a former Reagan Administration official, points to "a conservative populist mood very reminiscent of what we saw in the late Seventies." Though Pauken isn't willing to guess whether it will translate into anger at state government.

As for Mrs. Richards, says Christian, "Her personality keeps her in the race. ... It's hard not to like Ann. She's basically a charming person."

Well. There's charm, and then there's charm. Politically speaking, Ann's is skin deep. Education reform, a la Mrs. Richards, means forcing local school districts to pay higher property taxes, then redistributing the proceeds. State spending, under Governor Ann, has risen $17 billion--the third largest increase among Western states. With the Cato Institute she scores "D" as a financial manager. Cato's report labels her possibly "the most over-rated governor in America."

And Bush? Youthful, earnest, and conservative enough for the great majority of Texans: such is the man the governor, tired perhaps of charming the human race on cue, referred to as "some jerk."

The remark had its ironic side. Mrs. Richards owned her narrow, 97,000-vote victory margin four years ago to the female indignation that Republican nominee Clayton Williams stirred up with remarks widely considered as demeaning to women. No such missteps for Bush, who has been polite almost to a fault, professing to like his opponent, refusing to critize her personally, though her bad temper and aimless leadership style would seem to invite strenuous criticism. Bush has kept his eye on the issues--schools, welfare, and crime--and has landed some telling blows.

Everyone seems to have noticed the absence this year of Mrs. Richards's political joie de vivre. No one else on the Democratic ticket can be accused of purloining it. The Democrats are a lot of sad sacks. Richard Fisher, the self-styled New Democrat, co-founder (as he tells it) of the Democratic Leadership Council, flails away at Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison without so far making the least impression on the voters. In a recent poll, Mrs. Hutchison led her assailant by 26 points.

Fisher may well close the gap some as more yellow-dog Democrats limp up to the polls and cast mournful eyes at the choices before them, but Mrs. Hutchison, it can be predicted, will leave her rival looking like a squashed armadillo. In fact, her drawing power--based on her sex, moderate conservatism, and an image as a fighter--could under the right circumstances bring Bush victory against an opponent infinitely more formidable than Fisher.

There is a lot of potential support from which to draw. "Growth in GOP-leaning suburbs could spell doom for Democrats," the Austin American-Statesman headlined in August. Seems the areas experiencing the fastest population growth in Texas are the suburbs around Houston, Austin, and Dallas. All produce reliable Republican majorities, which are expected to fatten in 1994. The counties that went for Richards four years ago aren't growing as fast. (A sign of what happens to those who vote for big government?)

Meanwhile, Democrats are fretting over the likelihood of a low turnout. Whereas overall turnout for the primaries was 19 per cent, it was only 12.1 per cent in Texas, third lowest in the country. Election officials are predicting that only half of eligible voters will show up on election day.

Not all Democrats running statewide are by any means sunk. Most of them, in fact, are likely to be re-elected. Yet Republicans may win a few. Austin banker David Hartman could knock off the incompetent state treasurer, a Richards pal named Martha Whitehead. Carole Rylander, a frequent if so far unsuccessful Republican candidate, is a reasonable bet for the oil-and-gas-regulation Railroad Commission.