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SAMUEL PROCTOR ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM at
the University of Florida
FP53sum
L. E. "Tommy" Thomas
This is an interview with L. E. "Tonnmy" Thomas, state chairman of the Florida
Republican Party. The interview was conducted by Jack Bass and Walter De Vties in
Panama City, Florida, on May21, 1974. The interview is from the Southern Oral History
Program in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library,
Chapel Hill.
pp. 1-2: Thomas discusses filing fees for campaigns, which is "almost kind of a public subsidy
of party organization." He feels that the Republican Party chairmanship in Florida should
eventually be a full-time, salaried position.
pp. 2-5: Thomas recounts his political background. He speaks humorously of trying to register
as a Republican in Birmingham, Alabama, where the Republican Party didn't exist on a local
level about thirty years ago. Out of frustration, lie voted in the Democratic primaries. The
Republican Party was only an organization on paper then. He cites a relatively unknown
historical fact: During the Civil War, an Alabama county, Winston County, seceded from the
Confederacy as a Republican county. Thomas recalls his term as regional coordinator for the
Republican Party in Alabama overseeing a five-county area, including Winston County. This
county presented the most problems for him because its residents wanted to assert their
independence from receiving government subsidies.
pp. 5-8: Thomas then covers the subject of getting involved in Florida politics. His participation
stems from his years in Alabama, a Democratic stronghold, and getting some Republicans
elected on the local level in his five-county jurisdiction, including a congressman. In the mid-
1960s, Thomas moved to the Florida Panhandle and found the Republican Party organization
dormant, hut Republican Claude Kirk was running for governor. Thomas became the party
chainnan for his county and soon after meeting Kirk, lie became party coordinator of all North
Florida. Thomas, however, soon became disillusioned with Kirk as a governor due to the
governor's antics and felt that Kirk tore the party apart.
pp. 8-11: Thomas praises Bill Cramer at length and calls him, as other Republicans do, the
"Father of the Florida Republican Party." Cramer was elected to the Florida House in 1954, and
that year may have been the beginning of the Florida Republican Party, according to Thomas. It
was Cramer who spread the Republican philosophy throughout the state and built up the two-
party systent Thomas cites examples of how Claude Kirk tore the party "asunder." One
example lie relates is Kirk trying to take control of the party machine by asking Harold Carswell
to run against Cramer for the U.S. Senate so Kirk would have his own mnan in the Senate rather
than better known and more respected Bill Cramer. The party split.
pp. 11-13: Thomas discusses Lawton Chiles's record in office as a state senator and calls it
"mediocre." He addresses the subjects of Republican U.S. Senator Ed Gurney's possible
indictment and the need to get some Republicans elected to the Florida Cabinet.
pp. 13-16: The interview then turns to Reubin Askew's re-election as a second-term governor.
Thomas states that 75 percent of Florida voters lean toward the conservative side, whether they
are Republican or Democrat. According to Thomas, Askew is not a conservative anymore,
citing, as an example, the governor's switch on endorsing school busing. Thomas also disputes
the polls on Askew's popularity. He feels that the Republican candidate, Jerry Thomas, will win
the election due to his strong county party organization. As for the fall congressional races,
Thomas feels certain that the Republicans will do well.
pp. 16-17: Thomas talks about the issues of the primaries being held so late in the year in
Florida, hut lie does not think that the late date makes much difference for political races. But
what concerns him is indifference to political races--in both parties. He says the Watergate
scandal set back the Republican Party in Florida.
pp. 17-19: According to Thomas, the George Wallace movement in Florida is strong. In a
hypothetical presidential primary, he feels that Wallace would beat Askew two to one. Thomas
again talks about Askew and speaks of the governor taking the opposite stance from his
conservative positions soon after he took office. He says Askew could not even carry his
hometown county today. Askew's downfall, as viewed by Thomas, has been the governor
surrounding himself with liberal and ultra-liberal aides. Thomas expands upon the "label" issue
and thinks that "Democrat"and "Republican" will become outmoded and replaced by "liberal-
labor party" and the "conservative party." A conscious Republican Party strategy will be to court
the conservative Democrats. He adds an anecdote about George Wallace, whom many referred
to as a conservative, but Thomas says that Wallace was really a liberal.
pp. 19-22: The interviewers then focus on names of those who could win the Republican
presidential primary in Florida in 1976. Thomas cites Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. He
compares Florida's party organization to other states, and lie feels that Florida's is the best,
except perhaps Tennessee's. Thomas says the reasons for the effective party organization in
Florida is the strong organization on the county level, especially the small counties.
pp. 22-23: Regarding the role of the Latin population in Florida, Thomas states that the party
lacks good leadership in South Florida and also points to the numerous rival political cliques
whose members are unwilling to form a cohesive political unit. He cites the differences between
the Cubans in Tampa and the Cubans in Miami and why they hold different political views.
pp. 23-27: Thomas says that the position of lieutenant governor is not necessary. As for Paula
IHawkins, lie thinks that she has a great political future, due, in part, to her building up a strong
organization--but she should be more cautious in her remarks. Thomas believes she could beat
Lawton Chiles in 1976 in getting elected to the U.S. Senate. He also feels that Florida is ready to
elect a woman to the U.S. Senate. He admires her tenacity and ability to work non-stop.
pp. 27-31: On the subject of the press in Florida, Thomas has mostly positive comments, except
for The St. Petersburg Times. Coming from Bay County in the Florida Panhandle--the old Pork
Chop Gang territory, Thomas reluctantly states that the reforms of the past eight years have been
good for the state, that is, reapportionment. But lie also feels that the Pork Choppers' influence is
still strong and doesn't want to cross their paths in a contrary way. He cites some examples of
the Pork Choppers still trying to retain their dominance, such as the controversial Green Belt Law
which refers to tree-raising land. He also covers the DuPont family's influence and money in
Florida and also that of the Florida National Bank.
pp. 31-32: Regarding the pending financial disclosure law, Thomas thinks that it may inhibit
many from running for office if they have to divulge their personal property, income tax returns,
and financial statements to the public. He feels that this type of information should be turned
over to a committee rather than broadcast it to the public.
pp. 32-34: Thomas details how the counties are so well organized through monthly newsletters
and active precinct committee workers. Thomas would like to see some blacks elected on the
Republican ticket but does not know how to go about it. He does not see any issue "that is going
to entice them to come into the party." He feels that the black vote is still "bought and sold in
North Florida" by the Democrats.
pp. 35-36: Thomas speaks of forecasting elections, many of which are accurate. He still holds to
his prediction that the Republican candidate, Jerry Thomas, will beat Askew in the November
gubernatorial election because Askew changed his stripes--conservative to liberal.
pp. 36-39: When asked why he took this non-paying, time-consuming job as Republican Party
chairman in Florida, Thomas says he wants to see a strong, conservative party and also to
establish two parties in this state, wlich would create a checks-and-balances system. Thomas
adds that lie would never run for office because he does not "really like politics" after having
experienced many confrontations. He confesses that he has even talked some people out of
running for office who wanted to get elected for the wrong reasons. To recruit candidates for
legislative office, Thomas says he would enlist a non-lawyer, non-insurance type of candidate
who is young and who has an open mind. He doubts if he will run for the state party
chairmanship again and vents Iis feelings about Governor Kirk splitting the party.
FROM THE r.o.W-.P., # 007
SOUTHER,1 HISTORICAL COLLECTION, THE LIBRARY OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL
5 (
This is an interview with L.E. (Tommy);Thomas, Republican state
chairman of Florida. The interview was conducted by Jack Bass and
Walter De Vries in Panama City, Florida on May 21, 1974 and was
transcribed by Joe Jaros.
Walter De Vries: Well, it's a good base to start with. I think that
it's, is it Florida and Georgia that have this?
Tommy Thomas: I can't say about Georgia. But doesn't Texas too?
W.D.V.: Texas too.
Jack Bass: Texas has it.
W.D.V.: What do you think about that? In a sense, it's almost kind of
a public subsidy of party organization.
Thomas: Yeah. Well, of course, I don't know how we would do without it,
but I think that the way we try to do it is a pretty fair and equitable
way. All the candidates who survive the primary, generally speaking, maybe
you could find some candidate that didn't get his money back, particularly
someone who ran unopposed, you know but since I've been chairman and
in the two elections since then, we've tried to give back all the candidates
who survive the primary their filing fee. I think that's a pretty fair
and reasonable way of doing it. Then, the people who are eliminated and
who don't have primary opposition, are paying a filing fee to really
support the party. We had a Congressman last year who was unopposed,
From the Southern Oral History Program, #4007, Interview 4-&0 in the Southern Historical Collection,
University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. FOR REFERENCE ONLY: PERMISSION TO
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page 2
Frey, so he donated his filing fee to the party, that's what it amounts to.
W.D.V.: So you think that it is a pretty good idea?
Thomas: Yeah, I think that it is an excellent idea and I don't think yet
that we are ready to fly without it. And the party, as I'm sure that Bill
Davis told you, we operate on a pretty damn frugal budget. I mean, we don't
throw any money away and we don't have any frills and we don't have an
oversized staff. We certainly don't spend a whole hell of a lot traveling
and entertaining and things like that, we just can't. And of course, I'm
unpaid. In the case of the Democratic chairman, you know, he's paid.
W.D.V.: Oh is he?
Thomas: Yeah. I'm sure that he's not paid enough, but I think that he's
paid $15, 000. But he's a part-time chairman just like I am. I probably
spend as much or more time at it than he does, but he's an attorney and
I can see where I mean, he should be paid, I think. And in all
probability, in the next three or four to six years, our state chairman
should be paid. He should be full time.
W.D.V.: Can you tell us a little bit about your political background.
How did you get involved in all of this?
Thomas: Well, being a Chevrolet dealer in this part of the state, I
don't go around carrying a card, you know, telling them with a sign that
I'm an ex-Yankee, but I grew up in northern New York, up in the part near
Buffalo. And of course, this was before the war and I joined the Marine
Corps in 1942 when I was seventeen and in the small town that I lived in,
everybody was Republican and the only people who were Democrats were the
people who wouldn't work. And this is true. You know, my Daddy thought it
a disgrace to be a Democrat. So, I married a girl from Birmingham while I
From the Southern Oral History Program, #4007, Interview /4-6 in the Southern Historical Collection,
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page 3
was in the Marines and was discharged in December of 1945. I had been
overseas twice and still wasn't twenty-one. So, when I turned twenty-one
in July, I went down to the court-house to register Republican and they
didn't know what the hell I was talking about. And they had to find
somebody who knew the probate judge, they had to get him and of course, I
was very insistent that I was going to register Republican and they said,
"Well, you can't. There's no such thing." And this was -a nice old fellow
and he told me, said, "you know, there's no such thing as a Republican
Party." They had to scratch their heads to find, to even think of .
W.D.V.: Where was this?
Thomas: In Birmingham. And finally, they said, "Yeah, there is a
Republican state chairman and he's the vice-president of Alabama Power
Company." And they told me where his office was. And he was the
titular head since then, I've found out that he is what we know
as a "post office Republican." I believe that the only reason that
man was a Republican was that if there ever was another Republican
administration, he'd get to name the postmasters.. Because, they had
no organization, none whatsoever. They didn't even have a paper organization.
And when I went to checking around,of course, being twenty-one years old,
these older people, the few of them that were Republicans, they weren't
anxious, they didn't want anybody and they sure as hell didA't want any
twenty-one year old smart alec, you know, helping them. They were polite to
me, but that was about the extent of it. I mean, they allowed as how they
didn't need any help from me, you know, and they had been running things
pretty well all these years and weren't bothering anybody or anything like that.
So, I lived in Alabama for many years and .
From the Southern Oral History Program, #4007, Interview R-t0 in the Southern Historical Collection,
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page 4
W.D.V.: Did you get registered?
Thomas: I got registered, yeah, but as a Democrat. But they said, "Look,
you're not supposed to vote in the Democratic primaries," and there again
I told them, "Well, if you open the damn polls, I'll be there." And of
course, the Democrats didn't like it because I voted in their primaries.
I voted. I told them that if they opened the polls I would damn sure be
there, and I was. Now, in the general election, of course, then you got
a different colored slip, you got a white slip or a blue slip in the
general election, but hell, I voted in the Democratic primaries for years.
And I lived in a couple of small towns and the Democrats didn't like it,
but you know, I was just kind of a pest.
W.D.V.: So when you came South thirty years ago, you looked for the
Republican party and their wasn't any?
Thomas: Right. I mean, there was a paper organization, but that's all.
There was no organization whatsoever. And the few people who were
Republicans, most of them had probably many years ago migrated from the
North, and they wanted a blood sample. I mean that really and truly, they
wanted your credentials to go way back prior.to the Civil War before they
would accept you as a Republican. And they were so negative, the people
that I found who were Republicans were really negative and it's no wonder
that they didn't attract anybody to the Republican party, because they
were "aginers." And I don't know whether you realize this or not, but
when you are in Alabama, you should research this, there is one county
in Alabama that seceded from the Confederacy. Winston County and it has
always been Republican. It's called the Free State of Winston. And
they are the orneriest damn people in the world and some of the finest.
From the Southern Oral History Program, #4007, Interview 4-4S in the Southern Historical Collection,
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page 5
But up there, they are the most independent thinkers that you have ever
seen. As we developed the Republican party in Alabama, I was what we
called a regional coordinator. I had five counties. Winston County was
one of my counties. Everybody in the Republican party said, "Oh, Tommy
is really lucky, he's got a Republican county." But I had more damn
trouble with those people, even thought the court house was controlled
by: the Republicans. But they were very, very odd people. A very poor
county, very low per capital income. But as independent as hell. You
know, they refused cotton allotments, cotton subsidies and when they
came along with the Soil Bank, they said, "Screw the federal government, "
you know. I liked their thinking, they were as independent as hell, but
they were also a little bit backward and they didn't keep up with the
times. And still, I asked the state chairman in Alabama a month or so
ago and it is still the same way. It's up on the Tennessee border, in
the TVA area, very unusual. But during the Civil War, they didn't let
the Confederate soldiers or the Yankee soldiers spend the night in the
county. They took up arms and ran their ass off, both of them.
W.D.V.: So, how did you get involved in Florida politics?
Thomas: Well, I had been active all those years, I mean in Alabama, so
in 1964, I lived in Bllnt County, which is the county bordering Birmingham.
I was a ehevrolet dealer and I had been a Lincoln-Mercury dealer in
Birmingham for nine years and had been real active in the party. And
the Ford dealer in Antiana, the little town I moved to with Chevrolet,
told me, I had been letting him have Mercuries and a Lincoln once in
awhile when he needed them and he told me when I moved to this small town,
he said, "When they find out that you are a Republican, nobody will trade
with you." And I said, "Well, I hope that it's not that way, but it's
too late for me to change, I've been a Republican all my life." And it
From the Southern Oral History Program, #4007, Interview 60 in the Southern Historical Collection,
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page 6
all the damn Democrats had told them. But it was as unusual as hell, now
this was 1962. People would come around, they would look around and make
sure that nobody was listening and say, "You know, I'm really a Republican.
I think like a Republican, but I'm a registered Democrat because that's all
you can do." In 1964, in the five counties that I had, I elected Republicans
in every county and in three of the counties, we tipped over the courthouse.
Coleman County, Alabama, which is the home of the former governor, Big Jim
Folsom, who was still a tremendous force, had a brand new courthouse.
Now, it wasn't the fact that we had such a great organization, but we did
have a good organization. But the fact that the people had been used to
voting a straight ticket and because Goldwater was the head of the
ticket, they walked in and flipped the Goldwater switch and all of them.
And we elected the highest elected official in Alabama, which is a probate
judge, we elected the probate judge in three of the five counties that I
had and elected a Congressman. A very good Congressman. He'd still be
up there if he hadn't dropped out and ran against Lurleen Wallace, which
was a tremendous mistake. I mean, there was no way that anybody would be
able to beat her. A man by the name of Jim Martin. So, immediately after
that, everybody thought that.I was crazy for moving to Florida because we
had had such a Republican sweep. We cleaned out the courthouse in Blount
County and you know, it was unheard of, people didn't believe it. But we
had found that there were good Republicans there, most of them were in
business. I had a man who was in the chicken business, raises millions of
chickens a year and he agreed to run for probate judge and he was a very
good one. So, we went a long way toward making those counties Republican
and that was the best five Republican counties in the state. And then the
From the Southern Oral History Program, #4007, Interview /4-O in the Southern Historical Collection,
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page 7
Chevrolet dealer here got killed in an automobile wreck and it was
a bigger and better deal, so I moved down here. I got here and there
are still no Republicans in this part of the state to speak of. We
are outnumbered here six to one in the county, but I met with a few
Republicans that were here, a very prominent lawyer who was the county
chairman. The organization was dormant, but we had a fellow by the
name of Kirk running for governor, I'm sure you've heard of him. And
we had a meeting to select the county chairman for him and they were
about to select a Democrat. And even though I had only been here a
short time, I said, "Hell no, that won't work. You'll never build an
organization by doing that." I went to Tallahassee and met Kirk,
because I wasn't going to support him if I didn't know him and didn't
like him and didn't think that he could do the job. I met him, liked
him and came back and took the job as his county chairman and then in
a matter of a few weeks, I took the job as coordinator of the whole
northern section of Florida for Kirk. And of course, as you know, he
was elected. And it is a crying shame that he was the kind of a guy
that he is. I mean, personally I still like him and get along fine
with him, but in my opinion, he set the Republican party in Florida
back a hundred years. Because he really didn't have the philosophy
and didn't believe in the things that we believe in. He was an
opportunist. You could flip a coin and he would take either side, he
was an attorney, he'd take either side of an argument either time and
he was an egomaniac. And the day that he was sworn in as governor, he
started to run for vice-president and he did some of the damnedest
things that anybody has ever done. And as a consequence, he tore this
party asunder. Just raped and ruined it and it just makes me sick every
From the Southern Oral History Program, #4007, Interview I-SO in the Southern Historical Collection,
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page 8
time I think about it.
W.D.V.: Specifically, how did he do that?
Thomas: Well, he was .
W.D.V.: I've heard that before, but I just ..
Thomas: Yeah, well, the worst thing he did we had a guy in Florida
who in my estimation deserves more credit than anybody for building the
Republican party in Florida and starting the two party system really
fervently in the South, because he went all over and spoke. He was in
Congress for sixteen years, his name is Bill Cramer. He's a Washington
attorney now, has offices in Washington and Miami. And at our state
meeting a week from this Saturday, we are going to honor him by naming
him the Father of the Florida Republican Party. He's one of the finest
Congressmen that ever went to Washington, one of the most brilliant. I
mean, he graduated from Harvard Phi Beta Kappa. Just a great guy, just
a brilliant lawyer, probably knows more about Congressional rules than
any man alive. And still a great assest to the Republican party because
he was chairman of the rules committee at the '72 convention and he is
legal counsel now for the RNC under rule 29, which I'm sure that you are
familiar with. Just a great guy, but anyway, after he got out of the
Navy, finished at North Carolina, graduated with honors there, went to
Harvard to Law School, came back to Pinellas County, his home, and
served a couple of years as a city judge or something like that. Then
he ran for the legislature and was elected to the Florida house, the
first Republican. I believe that it was 1954. He served a couple of
terms in the House and then ran for Congress .
W.D.V.: Would you say that 1954 is really the start of the Republican
party in Florida?
From the Southern Oral History Program, #4007, Interview 4-4~ in the Southern Historical Collection,
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Thomas: It would almost have to be, I mean, because you know .
W.D.V.: Because we were looking at registration today and Bill gave
us the figures starting in '54 with the elections, that's the time that
the Republican party started in this state.
Thomas: I would say that just looking at the figures, I think that they
had more or less the same kinds of Republicans here that they had in
Alabama, maybe a little better, but most of them came from other states,
Wisconsin, Michigan and .
W.D.V.: I didn't mean to interrupt you, I just wanted to ..
Thomas: No, that's all right. I haven't looked at the data and been
able to really see, but I would say that it would probably have to be
about '54. Well, to get back to Kirk, Cramer was in Congress, very
successful, well liked, very well respected, author of some of the best
legislation that has ever been put on the books. He had a water
pollution bill concerning Tampa Bay way back in, I think that it was
1956, '58, 'way before Ralph Nader ever heard of pollution, ecology.
Just a great guy. And he worked like hell building the party. He
went all over the state, all over the South preaching the Republican
philosophy. And he helped our senator now, Gurney, was the mayor
of Winter Park, he's a native of Maine. And Cramer helped Gurney get
elected to Congress, campaigned like hell for him and everything else.
And in 1968, when the Democratic senator, Smathers, got in trouble over
the Bobby Baker deal among other things, and decided not to run for
reasons of his health the old saw down here was that "it was
because of his health. Everybody was sick of him." And he didn't run
and a very liberal Democrat won the primary, Leroy Collins who had been
Johnson's representative at the Selma march and that was the kiss of death
From the Southern Oral History Program, #4007, Interview /4-0 in the Southern Historical Collection,
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page 10
right there, so Gurney was elected to the senate. So, coming up in two
years, in 1970, Hyland was not going to run again, and the
Democrats had a big field and the deal was that Cramer would support
Gurney in '68 and Gurney would support Cramer in '70. And this idiotic
governor that we had wanted to be kingmaker and at the same time Carswell
was turned down for the Supreme Court nomination and Kirk got the big idea
and talked Gurney into it, it was Kirk's idea and Gurney should have been
smarter, but Kirk said, "Here's a natural born winning man, we can't lose
with Carswell, the people in the South are all upset because Carswell
didn't get the nomination." And Carswell was going on about his own
business, in fact, he was on his way down to the Keys somewhere on
vacation and Kirk had the Highway Patrol stop his car on the turnpike
and bring him back to Winter Park and they had a crash meeting with Kirk
and Gurney and Carswell and they talked him into running for the Senate
against Cramer in the primary. And it split the party wide open.
J.B.: Hadn't they already picked out another candidate before Carswell?
Thomas: Yeah, but he was very weak, Osburn.
J.B.: I mean, they were going to run somebody anyway, against him.
Thomas: Kirk was, yeah. But Gurney wasn't involved in it.
J.B.: Why was Kirk so het up on running somebody against Cramer?
Thomas: Because Cramer was .
J.B.: Jealousy?
Thomas: Yeah, jealousy, you see, because Cramer was still the daddy of
the Republican party. Cramer was much more highly respected than Kirk.
And Kirk wanted to take the Republican machine. Kirk never won an election
in the Republican committee. Not one. He tried to elect the president of
the YRs, he tried all kinds of hanky-panky in the party and he never got off
From the Southern Oral History Program, #4007, Interview .4-10 in the Southern Historical Collection,
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page 11
the ground as far as the party was concerned. He was rebuked at every
turn. So, as a consequence of them getting Carswell in there, and of
course, Cramer beat the hell out of him in the primary, but then people
were split wide open. And then some of the Cramer people got on the
Eckard bandwagon against Kirk and that was a very bitter primary and
there were a lot of harsh things said that couldn't be retracted after
the primary was over. And so we were split wide open and of course,
Askew beat Kirk much more decisively than Chiles beat Cramer. Chiles
still beat Cramer by something like 120,000 votes, but Askew beat
Kirk by something like a quarter of a million votes. But it was
nonsense, because actually Chiles was a very, very mediocre state
senator. He had a very mediocre record and he came up with the
gimmick of walking the state and it caught on. But if anybody had looked
at his record in Tallahasee, hell, he never would have been elected to
the United States Senate.
J.B.: How would you compare Chiles as a state senator with those whose
names are now being projected in the Democratic party to run against
Gurney, Pettigrew and Horne and . Stone, who is not in the senate
but was .
Thomas: Chiles hasn't got anything. You know, he's kind of blah.
J.B.: How would you rate him against those three guys?
Thomas: You mean being efficient, or as a campaigner?
J.B.: As a state senator.
Thomas: I think that all three of them are much better state senators
than he. They used to have to wake him up and tell him how to vote.
You know, it came around time to do it and they would have to wake him
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page 12
up in the morning and tell him how to vote. He was very mediocre. Stone
was a good state senator, he's a good secretary of state. Home, of course,
is a very astute politician. Works, you know, has boundless energy and
ambition and all of us kind of laughed when he said that he was going to
retire. I mean, what are you going to do after you have been speaker of
the house and president of the senate, you know. But everybody knew that
he would run for something, because he is just a political animal. And
Pettigrew is another hard worker. I think that all three of them were
much better state senators than Chiles. I don't think that there is any
comparison.
W.D.V.: So, you think that that election of 1970 set them back a hundred
years?
Thomas: Yes, it really did. That may be stretching it a little bit too
far, but we were going great guns. It was really going. The party was
coming along in good shape and then the big split. And see, the sad part
about this, here we are four years later and we still have some of those
old wounds. When I was in Pinellas County yesterday, spoke twice,at the
Clearwater Women's Club at noon and the men's organization at night, and
of course, that's Cramer's home county, but the feelings are still very
deep. They'll never forgive Ed Gurney for it. Never. Because they are
the older Republicans,in Pinellas County, and you know, the median age
there is very high, a lot of retirees, and a lot of them have been active
in the party for many years, you know. And they just aren't about to
forget it.
J.B.: What's the outlook for Gurney this year?
Thomas: Well .
J.B.: Assuming that he doesn't get indicted.
Thomas: Well, honestly now, you are not going to use this until
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page 13
after the election are you?
J.B.: No.
Thomas: Well, even if he doesn't get indicted, I don't see how he
can win in 1974. Because I've said, and I believe this fervently, that
this year, I don't care whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, if
you've got a book past due at the library, you are in deep trouble.
I mean, any incumbent who has got any blemish on his record, who has
been in any kind of hanky-panky, anything like that, he's going to have
a problem, if he has a qualified man running against him who brings it
out. I mean, it ought to prove to our benefit as far as the state is
concerned, because there are so many Democrats, particularly in the
cabinet, you know, who are involved in these scandals. And if we don't
elect two or three people to the cabinet, there's not much hope for us.
Hell, we'll never have a better opportunity than we've got now.
J.B.: Askew would be pretty tough though, wouldn't he?
Thomas: Askew would be tough except for one thing. And I think that
this is the way we are going to run the campaign 75% of the
people in Florida, or close to that, are conservatives and it doesn't
matter whether they are registered as Democrats or Republicans, they
are still conservatives. If we prove, and this is going to be our
campaign, we can prove that Askew is not a conservative. He ran as
a conservative and he was elected as a conservative, but the day after
he was elected, he started bending to the left and he has gone too far
to the left. The vote in Florida against busing was about 80% and
Askew endorsed it. Now, a lot of people say that busing is not going
to be an issue this year, but I'll tell you-right now,.it damn sure is.
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page 14
It's going to be a big issue. It's going to be a big issue in lots of
states and it's sure going to be a big issue in Florida.
J.B.: But yet his popularity the Atlanta Sentinel had that poll
last month, I think and ..
Thomas: But their poll was a Mickey Mouse poll. The poll that they ran
was not a real legitimate poll. Because one of the pollsters went to
Senator Gurney's office down there and said, "Look, I took the poll in
this area and the people that I polled and talked to, the results that
I got are not the results that they are showing. Now, Senator Gurney's
aide down there is pursuing it to see, you know, what happened. In fact,
he went to the Orlando paper and pointed out to them that here was a
person that took the poll in this area and said that, "Look, this is
what I turned in and this is not what was published in the paper." So,
somebody bent the statistics on it somehow.
J.B.: Did they respond to that?
Thomas: No, they haven't.
W.D.V.: So, in short, because of the climate, the environment, you see
that it is going to be tough for Gurney .
Thomas: I think that it will be very tough.
W.D.V.: And equally tough for the three cabinet members who are mder
indictment or being investigated by the grand jury .
Thomas: Almost impossible.
W.D.V.: And you see the weakness of Askew with the fact of his busing
stand and the general move to the left. Does that pretty well summarize
it?
Thomas: Yeah, plus the fact that we have a very, very good conservative
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page 15
candidate running as a Republican. He was Democratic president of the
senate, his name is Jerry Thomas, no relation of mine, but a great guy
and a dyed in the wool conservative with an outstanding record and he
works like the devil. Campaigns hard and has been building an organization
for over a year and he has the best organization right now, five months
before the election, he's got the best organization that I have ever
seen. He's got the most people. And that's what it takes. And he
has done it quietly, a lot of people don't even realize that he has such
an organization. He has organized every county, it doesn't make any
difference you know, we have eighteen counties in Florida, I
believe it is, with less than a hundred registered Republicans, but he
has an organization in each one of those counties, and obviously, they
are not Republican. He's gone in and gotten Democratic conservatives
on his steering committee. And he's done a phenomenal job and I'll
tell you right now, remember, I'll bet on it, I'll put money on it, that
he'll win. Because, listen, things haven't changed that much in 110
years since Abraham Lincoln told us how to do it in 1854, find the
Whigs, be sure they are registered and be sure that you get them out to
vote. And that's what this guy:is doing. He's finding the people who
are sympathetic and he's building an organization. And Askew's going to
try to do it with the press and with PR and I just believe that the way
that Thomas is doing it this year is the way that is going to win.
J.B.: What do you see as the outlook on the Congressional races?
Thomas: All four of our incumbents will win and we will pick up one
other seat. The Fifth District, there again, we should have had it in
'70, '72. It was a new district, it's a Republican district, but we
got involved in a bitter primary and when the two guys got through calling
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page 16
each other sons of bitches in the primary, then they couldn't get their
people back together in the general election. And we should have won it.
This year, we have two fine candidates running, both of them high type of
men and they have agreed to run for the seat and not against each other.
And therefore, I think that we will win the seat. It's the one that
Gunter is vacating.
J.B.: Do you think that the fact that the primary is held so late in
Florida hurts either party in contested races, I mean, that it is bad
for party politics?
Thomas: Oh, I don't know. You know, I've heard all kinds of arguments
on both sides and I don't know. -I don't think that it really makes any
difference. You know, the thing that scares me-more than anything now
is the apathy in both parties, I mean, the distrust that people have in
general. You know, in the primary in Indiana, what two weeks ago,
in Indianapolis, eighteen per cent of the people turned out. My God'
If that's any signal as to what to expect in November, that will be
tragic. There are an awful lot of people who are turned off, an awful
lot of party people who are. who in the past, you know, have really
been good workers and who are now really turned off.
J.B.: You think that the effect of Watergate is a temporary thing?
Thomas: Well, what do you mean temporary? I think that we will get over
it in a few years, but I think that it will probably take the next
presidential election to straighten it out.
J.B.: How much has that set the party back, South-wide?
Thomas: A lot. It set us back a lot in Florida. This fellow, Jerry Thomas,
switched on December 7, 1972, a month after the general election. We had a
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page 17
whole bunch of other Democrats scheduled to switch and you know, we were
busy, preoccupied with the inauguration and everything, on Cloud Nine
and weren't really concerned about it. Everybody was tired from the
'72 campaign. We could just visualize that '73 was going to be just
a hell of a good year for us. Then, you know, the can of worms started
opening up right after the inauguration and of course it has hurt.
J.B.: How strong is the Wallace movement in Florida?
Thomas: Very strong.
J.B.: Let's assume for a minute that Askew gets elected, for the sake of
my question. If he gets re-elected and then runs against Wallace in a
presidential primary in Florida, which would be only Democrats voting, how
do you think he would come out?
Thomas: How would Askew come out? Well, things would have to change an
awful lot for him to do any better, Wallace would beat Askew in Florida two
to one. I think that Wallace is that powerful here. That's why I say
that Jerry Thomas will beat Askew, because we are just going to prove to
the electorate this fall that Askew is not a conservative. No way is he
a conservative and as of right now, and I don't know what your brother
tells you in Pensacola, but Askew couldn't carry his home county right now.
And naturally, he was their darling in '70. They put up a lot of money for
him, a hometown.boy and nobody thought that he had a chance. But he
could not carry his own county now.
W.D.V.: Why not?
Thomas: Because they fear that he is a turncoat. That he has forsaken
them. And he has in many ways not just he has made some
tactical blunders besides his philosophical blunders. The tactical
things are that he doesn't return calls to people that supported him when
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page 18
he was running. They can't get tosee him. The attorney right here in
this county who was his county co-chairman wrote a hot letter to him
and released it to the press, because he was disappointed in his liberal
leanings and wrote him for an appointment and didn't even get an answer.
So, he blasted him in the paper, all over the state. He has not done
his homework and one reason that he hasn't done it is that he has
surrounded himself, his staff there is only one conservative on
his staff. That's a man by the name of Harvey Cotton. The rest of
them are very liberal and the guy who is giving him the most trouble
now one of his press men is an old aide, a fine man by the name
of Moose Harling, from Pensacola. But he doesn't have any clout. The
man who is running the show there now is a man by the name of Don Pride,
who is an ultra-liberal reporter from an ultra-liberal paper, the most
ultra-liberal paper in the state, the St. Petersburg Times. And Pride
is running the show. And it is damn sure going to kill him.
W.D.V.: Do you see the two parties realigning themselves along liberal
and conservative lines in this state?
Thomas: I see them doing it nationally. I see it happening in this state
and I think that within another four to six years you can almost throw
away the labels "Democrat" and "Republican." I think that we will be
just about like they have been in England. I think that you will have
the liberal-labor party and the conservative party.
W.D.V.: Will that be the basis for building Republican strength?
Disaffected conservative Democrats?
Thomas: Yes. It has been for .
W.D.V.: I mean, is that a conscious strategy by the party?
Thomas: Oh yeah, sure. Hell yeah.. We've been wooing the conservative
Democrats and telling them that they are in the wrong party ever since I've
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page 19
been here. I've been trying to convince the people on the local level,
but they come back and say, "All right, leave me alone. I'll give you
money and support you, but let me vote in the Democratic primaries and
I'll get two shots at a guy. If I don't like him, I'll get one at him
in September and another at him in November." I've been trying to
convince them that they should realign now, but as long as the Democrats
control all these courthouses from Jacksonville to Pensacola, it's hard
to get them to switch. But you know, if there is a grand realignment .
you are talking about Wallace and while you are in Alabama, you can find
this, you probably already know it and probably know more about it than
I do, but I lived in Alabama when this happened it tickles me in
a way, I mean, it tickles me funny-like, it's not a damn bit funny, but
Wallace has got people convinced that he is a conservative. But he's not
a conservative. He switched in 1958, he was the most liberal minded man
in the Alabama legislature. And he ran for governor against a man named
John Patterson who was elected strictly on his father's shroud, if you
want to put it that way, because his father was assassinated, but when
Patterson defeated Wallace, Wallace made the statement that, "I will
neve be out-seged again." He did a 180 degree turn in one day, he
didn't do it gradually, he did it in one day. And you know, you can
tell the people from his hometown down there, you can tell the people
from Montgomery and they've already forgotten it. And they think that he
is a great conservative, but hell, he's not a conservative. He's a political
opportunist. That's true.
J.B.: Who do you think would win a Republican presidential primary in
Florida in '76, looking the field over now?
Thomas: In Flordia? Reagan definitely would. Ford in all probability, if
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page 20
he chooses to run, he could carry it. Reagan could definitely win,
probably Connolly could beat any Democrat. And that's about as far as
I would go. In Florida, I don't know how Ted Kennedy would do, but in
Florida, the leading Democrat that is being spoken of now would be
Jackson. Because Jackson is closer to the philosophy of the people of
Florida than any other Democrat that is prominent.
W.D.V.: How do you think that the Republican party in Florida compares
with the party organizations and candidates in the other southern states?
Thomas: I think that we are way ahead of most of them. Maybe excluding
Virginia, but from what I've heard about Virginia, their organization is
not too good. I think that we've got the best party organization in the
South. I think that Texas is coming along, you know.
W.D.V.: How about Tennessee?
Thomas: Yeah, excuse me, I forgot Tennessee. They have an excellent
organization mainly because of you know, which came first, the
chicken or the egg, but with two senators and a Republican governor,
they've got to be doing something right. But you know, Tennessee has
historically had, you know, even since the Civil War, Tennessee has had
a strong Republican party in the eastern part of the state. Almost
rock-ribbed. I think that Tennessee has got a better organization than
we have. Georgia and Alabama, Louisana Mississippi has got a
funny kind of an organization, the oddest that I have ever seen. Did
you say that you have been there yet?
W.D.V.: We've seen Clark Reed.
Thomas: You've been there?
J.B.: Yeah.
Thomas: He's got the damnedest, you know, Clark has got a kind of a little
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page 21
clique thing. You know, I didn't know him very well and the kid didn't
know .but when he elected two Congressmen, he screwed up. Because
up until then he had been the kingfish. I mean, every damn pork barrel
that they rolled out in Washington, Clark Reed opened it. I mean, he
had more patronage in Mississippi than we ever heard of in Florida, you
know. And that irritated the hell out of me to tell the truth. But
he was on the inside on everything. But now that he has got two
Congressmen, they are sharing it with him, you know. He has diminished
his power somewhat.
W.D.V.: Why is the party stronger in Florida? Is financing one reason,
or something else?
Thomas: No, I think that it is the philosophy that we have and in having
the counties organized. And in some of the states, they have a central
committee and that is all, I mean, you know, that's the end of it. They've
got a lot of talk and all, but particularly since, and you know, I'm
not taking any credit for this, it's just what I believe in. I'm real
old fashioned. I think that if you are going to win, you have to have
every county organized and that's what I've tried to do, even with the
little counties. I've probably spent more time working in the small
counties than any chairman they have ever had. In fact, I'm probably the
first one that ever spent any time, but we have tried to get the small
counties. Because I know that it can work, I know that it can be done.
Because I have seen it in Alabama and I tell them, "Look, I'm not telling
you something that I read about, I'm telling you something that I saw
happen." And you know, it's funny what one guy can do with a county.
You get one good guy in the county that dares to stick his head up and
if he is a good man, it is fantastic what he can do. We have a young
state senator in Tampa, in Hillsborough County, one man. His father
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page 22
died, his father was a rare individual, a rare character. He was elected
to the state senate, he had been dean of three or four law schools, a
tough old bastard. But very well respected by everybody and he died in
office and his son was appointed and then ran for the job and was
re-elected and we are making headway in Hillsborough County, in Tampa.
J.B.: Who is that?
Thomas: David McLean. And largely because of this one man. It is a
very Democratic county.
J.B.: What do you perceive is the role of the latin population in
Florida and particularly the Cubans in Dade County?
Thomas: Well, that's a strange thing. They can be a great help to us,
but truthfully, we lack some good leadership in the Cuban area down there.
The problem that I have with them, and they are very devout but they are
peculiar people. And they tell me that this is the way they did it back
home, you know. In Dade County, at one time we were registering before
Watergate, about 85% of the Cubans registering were registering Republican.
Now, it's about 60 40%. We've dropped off quite a bit. But the
trouble is that there are about four big cliques and then there are about
eight minor ones, so there are a total of about twelve cliques. And if I
go into the county and have lunch, they call me, and the leadership in
one clique wants to see me and if somebody else in one of the other cliques
sees me even having lunch with these other guys, oh my God, you know,
they are calling and raising hell and wanting to know, "What have I done
wrong? What's wrong, you don't love me any more." And all this, I
tell them that that doesn't have anything to do with it. I have simply
met with these people because they asked me and there are no deals with
them or anything. They are always afraid that somebody else is going to
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page 23
get a little power. And I understand that was the way that it was back
in their homeland, you know, they had all these little cliques and were
extremely jealous of one another. If we could ever get them to pull
together and there are some very intelligent people down there.
I mean, hell, you know, we've got a lot of lawyers and doctors and bankers
and some excellent people. But they know that the big problem they have
is the petty jealousy. If they ever decide to all pull together, they
will be a hell of a force. But it is going to take some strong man to
come along and grab the leadership and truthfully, right now we don't
have it. We have a guy down there that I like very, very much and he
is the one that I trust the most. He is a stock broker by the name of
Jose Casanova, but he can't get them all together.
J.B.: They have the potential to be a significant political force in
this state.
Thomas: They certainly do. You know, I'm sure that you are aware of
this, but the Cubans in Tampa and the Cubans in Miami are two distinct
different breed of cats. The Cubans in Tampa, most of them are Democrats.
They are second and third and fourth and fifth generation Americans, you
know. And they are Democrats. They have been steeped in the Democratic
party politics of Hillsborough County. And the Cubans in the Miami area
are completely different. Most of them have been here less than twenty
years, you know. I don't know what the percentage is, but there are a
lot of brand new ones and they are completely different from the Tampa
variety. But boy, you are right, if they ever decide. And I have been
trying to tell them that for a couple ofkears. But you know, you have
got to have one strong man.
J.B.: Who is the leading potential candidate for lieutenant governor
among the Republican candidates?
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page 24
Thomas: For lieutentant governor? Well, I don't know. You know, there
are so many people that I think would like to have it and are kind of
courting Jerry Thomas, but I have stayed out of it. I think that should
be his prerogative, I mean to pick the guy that .
(end of side A of tape.)
Thomas: will do the job. And I kind of think that it wouldn't
be too bad strategy to have Thomas campaign and have the guy on the
ticket say, you know, "If I am elected, I am going to ask the legislature
to abolish the job." This would be 1978 before they could do it, you
know, but I don't think that a lieutenant governor is necessary. I
mean, I think that in the line of succession, it could go to the
secretary of state and something like that, somebody who is elected
state wide. Not the president of the senate, because he is only elected
from one district.
J.B.: The way that it is in this state, it sure doesn't have any functional
duties that we can discover.
Thomas: No, we've been paying this asshole all this year for doing
nothing. He hasn't had a job since he was called before the house for
impeachment last year. The governor removed him from his duties. He
doesn't even cut ribbons.
J.B.: What kind of future do you see for Paula Hawkins?
Thomas: A fantstic future. If she gets some very confident help, I think
that she has got some more confident help. I mean, personally, I would
hope that she wouldn't be quite as quick on the trigger. She's a brilliant
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page 25
woman and a hard worker and a hard campaigner, but she is a little bit
inclined to shoot from the hip and that can get you in trouble. But
she is probably the best thing that we've got going for us right now.
Because she has been grabbing headlines for over a year and just works
like a beaver. Every time that they have a hearing in a town, she
schedules a luncheon speech to the Rotary and the Lions or something
like that and then meets with the local Republicans at night, so she
is building a hell of an organization. I think that she would be our
best chance to beat Chiles in '76. As of right now, I think that she
is the only one that I know of that could beat him.
J.B.: You think that Florida is ready to elect a woman to the senate?
Thomas: Yeah, I think so. I mean, she is the first woman elected in
Florida in a hundred years and next to Nixon, she got more votes than
anybody has ever gotten in Florida. She got a million and a hundred
and fifteen thousand, something like that. More votes than Askew, more
votes than Gurney, more votes than any of them.
J.B.: I would think that she is a pretty tough campaigner.
Thomas: Oh God, she's tough. And work! You know, she's a have
you talked to her yet?
W.D.V.: Yeah. Today. She said to say hello.
Thomas: Did she? She's. did she tell you that she is in the vitamin
business?
W.D.V.: Someone else told us that she was in health foods.
Thomas: Yeah, did she try to sell you any?
W.D.V.: No.
Thomas: Well, she should have. I tell you, she puts out these little
packs, five or six of those damn little things in little celophane
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page 26
packs called "Something Great." It is fifteen dollars a mark, they send
you these thirty little sacks and you take one every morning and I get
tired of taking the damn things and forget to take them about half the
time, but I'm convinced they work. And she takes them and sends them
all over the country to her friends. And I have never seen anybody that
can work as hard as she can. God Almighty! I mean, you know, you would
think that sometime, someway, she would run down. But she was my
co-chairman in the Nixon campaign and at the same time, we got her to
run for the public service commission, so she was doing both things at
the same time and she never got to bed before midnight at the earliest,
and boy, at six o'clock the next morning, she was just as bright and
chipper as anybody that you have ever seen. And ready to go again.
W.D.V.: Disgusting! It really is.
Thomas: Yeah. And she doesn't drink or smoke and cuss. She is a very
devout Mormon and Jesus, I don't know how she gets her kicks except
loving to run and loving to tear men's asses up. She is a little bit
too quick with that knife sometimes, you know. And I am afraid that
sooner or later that will get her in trouble, because she is so sharp
and she comes back so fast that somebody is going to bump into somebody
that sets her up, you know. She kind of got set up last week if you
read the papers. She has been a bank director for three or four years
and a year ago her secretary puts out three or five hundred letters
a week, she says. but she wrote a letter to the FDIC asking them to .
she wrote it on the Public Commission stationery ..
W.D.V.: I read that.
Thomas: Oh God, that was a super colossal blunder. She shouldn't have
even written it on her personal stationery, but she damn sure hadn't
have written it on the PSC stationery. And for the first time, see, she
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page 27
has had a honeymoon with the press for a year, and for the first time, they
said, "Uh-oh, she's not a housewife from Maitland, she is a tough politician."
When you start trying to block bank charters and using Public Service
Commission stationery to do it and telling how many businesses you regulate
and so forth they took it a little bit out of context. Reading the
whole letter wasn't as bad, but it is the first severe rebuke that she has
had. I agree with what she said in a lot of ways. You know, we don't have
branch banking in Florida, but we might as well have it. Because we are
getting too many little banks. I mean, you know, we have got banks in
places like Orlando that are like the Seven to Eleven grocery store.
And that doesn't make sense. You know, you can have too many of everything.
As Odando found out, they've got too many motels. Way too many.
W.D.V.: How is the press in this state, say the state capital press?
Thomas: I think that generally speaking, very good. We only have one
bad paper, and that damn thing, I'm telling you the truth, it's unbelievable.
The St. Petersburg Times. I mean, God Almighty, how they twist things.
I really think that they are unfair and I think that it is the only one
in the state that's unfair. The Miami Herald is pretty damn liberal, but
I think that they are fair. It's a Knight newspaper and like your
Charlotte Observer, but I think, you know, they do a good job, they have
been on Gurney's back for a year, but they've had something. Now, they've
been awfully repetitive about it, I mean that they have kicked the same
damn old mule, they warm him up every week, you know. Every Sunday they
take the same thing and hash it over again, you know and from that standpoint,
I think that they have overdone it a little bit. But generally speaking, I
think that the Miami Herald is generally fair.
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W.D.V.: How do you feel about all the legislative reforms that have been
made in the last eight years?
Thomas: Of course, coming from this part of the state, I'm almost taking
my life in my hands, 'to say it, but you know, they were long overdue. And
for God's sake, I had better cut off right there and don't quote me on
this. Because I've still got to sell Chevrolets in Panama City. So don't
quote me, but you know, for years and years what was called the "Pork
Chop Gang" controlled the legislature, until they had reapportionment.
And boy, they didn't let anything get through that they didn't want to.
And so, they held the populist areas of the state down, for many years.
But boy, many a guy has been frozen out up here for making that statement.
One poor guy .
W.D.V.: Is it still that strong?
Thomas: Yeah, oh yeah. Yes sir. One poor guy here was a television
announcer and he took the campaign for a candidate from South Florida, it
must have been for a cabinet post or something, having no idea that they
would have a tape campaign show of this guy's speeches made down in South
Florida and there he was raising hell about the "Pork Choppers." And boy,
they froze this guy out. Just because he was the guy's campaign manager.
He had no idea about how the guy felt about it, you know. But here he
was on local television raising hell about eh "Pork Chop Gang." And oh
man, they are still tough. Another thing that we don't talk about up
here is have you ever seen the green belt map of this area? Are
you familiar with what I'm talking about?
W.D.V.: No.
Thomas: Well, I wish that I had one, you ought to have it. I can mail it
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page 29
to you. But they have in the Chamber of Commerce here, one guy in the
restaurant here, I think that is about enough to do it they had a
map printed of Dade County and he showed in red and green and yellow and
white so that it knocks you in the eye, 87% of the property in this
county, I believe it is, is under the Green Belt Law. And the Green Belt
Law, I mean, it's not agriculture land, it's tree raising land. And
maybe since you have been in the state, you have heard in the last week
or two St. Jo paper company, are you familiar with them?
J.B.: Yeah.
Thomas: See, they own everything in Florida. They are in the Flotida
National Bank. Mr. Ed Baugh was the administrator of the DuPont estate,
the Florida East Coast Railroad that stayed on strike for how many years?
They own millions of acres of land in north Florida. Millions. They
own hundreds of thousands in this county. They wouldn't sell a damn inch
of it, nothing. That's one reason that real estate, the little real estate
that is available here now is so high. And they have land, what they are
trying to do in the Chamber of Commerce here and in the legislature, anything
that is within 600 feet of the beach, take it out from under the Green
Belt Law. They pay no taxes. I mean, they are supposed to be growing pine
trees and they've done it and they do a great reforestation job, but some
of this land is prime land, worth, you know. Anything worth $10,000 an
acre damn sure shouldn't be under the Green Belt Law in my opinion. But
I don't go around hollering that, because they could put the freeze on me
just about as much as on anybody, being in the retail automobile business.
But I will mail you a copy and you will see what I'm talking about. There
is so little land here, it's owned by International Paper Company, Hunt
Oil Company, St. Jo Paper Company and St. Regis.
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W.D.V.: It's all exempt?
Thomas: Yeah. It's not total.
J.B.: No, it's .
Thomas: About a quarter an acre or .
J.B.: It's assessed on the basis of .
Thomas: Of agriculture.
J.B.: Of agriculture on this land classification. Right?
Thomas: It's certainly a rip-off. And see, it goes all over from
Jacksonville to Pensacola, many, many counties, that's all you have is
pine trees. And I'm not knocking that, but they ought to pay a fair
share of the tax burden. And we ought to have pine trees, we've got to
have paper and that's all that some of this land is good for, you know,
is going pine trees, really. But when they get down and get waterfront
property, good God Almighty, that shouldn't be under the Green Belt Law.
W.D..V.: Somebody took care of them.
Thomas: Yeah, way back. And they are fighting tdhang on to it.
But Mr. Baugh, you.ought to interview him, if you could get an interview.
Florida National Bank I've forgotten the well, I don't know,
a hundred banks, something like that in the state. All the small towns
have a Florida National Bank. All the DuPont estate in Miami, the downtown
area, DuPont Plaza you know where DuPont Plaza is down there? All
that land around there belongs to them. I mean, they just have billions
of dollars. He's eighty something years old. Wouldn't give a nickel to
see a pissant eat a bale of hay, you know. An ornery old bastard, but
he's a pretty good old fellow at the same time, but you ought to get an
appointment with him in Jacksonville and go talk to him. I bet that he
would see you if you could .
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page 31
J.B.: Didn't he lose a lot of his power after reapportionment?
Thomas: Yeah, he had to lose some, you know.
J.B.: But if he hadn't lost it, they never would have passed that
corporate income tax would they?
Thomas: That's right. He lost some, but he's still powerful.
J.B.: But in the old days, almost anything that he said went, right?
Thomas: By himself, yeah, I mean, one man had that much power.
J.B.: Didn't he have the reputation pretty much of just controlling the
legislature?
Thomas: Yeah. Because he could do it in so many ways. I mean, you know,
he owned some of these guys lock, stock and barrel.
J.B.: And then just being smart on top of that.
Thomas: Real smart. But you know, when you come to Port Saint Joe, or
Perry or Chipley or Bonifay or name the towns across there, every one
of them has got a Florida National Bank. The only bank, in most cases.
And some guy is running for the legislature or something and he's got
a gas station or a drugstore, you better believe that they did what the
hell he wanted them to do. It wasn't just north Florida, he had a lot of
that control all over the state. And he had some big people, too.
J.B.: Are those days gone forever in Florida?
Thomas: I think so. I really do.
J.B.: Well, this disclosure law as it is passed, will it be a hinderance
in sofar as recruiting candidates?
Thomas: Well, it depends on what form it is passed in. You know, what I
wish that they would do, I think that there ought to be some kind of disclosure,
but you know, I would like to see a bi-partisan committee set up with, you
know, some top people on it that would look at the tax returns, have them
file a statement, but you know, an awful lot of people aren't going to run
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page 32
for office if theyhave to divulge all of what they own and everything. I
will tell you, in the climate that we are living in today I had a
daughter that just graduated from college Sunday out of Queens in Charlotte.
And she did television commercials there for us for several years, beginning
when she was about twelve years old. And did a fantastic job, it really
worked. But it scared the hell out of me, I was afraid that some crazy
son of a bitch would kidnap her or something, you know. And I think, I'd
hate now I mean, I wouldn't mind at all giving somebody that I
trusted, some judge, or some bi-partisan panel, I would be glad to turn
over my income tax returns, and my financial statements to them, but I
would sure as hell to put it in the paper. Because I would be inviting
all kinds of kooks to shoot at me from all different angles. And I think
that a lot of people feel the same way. If in the original form that
they had two or three weeks ago, where they were going to ask committeemen
and committeewomen, hell, if they did that, we couldn't get a committeeman
or a committeewoman, if they had to file a financial disclosure. Hell,
we have enough trouble getting them as it is. And if they had to do that,
I don't figure that the Democrats or the Republicans, we wouldn't have been
able to get them to do it. I think that they have pretty well got them
eliminated from what you are talking about right now.
J.B.: When you talk about the Republicans being well organized as a
party, say in this county, to what extent are they organized?
Thomas: Well, they probably have precinct committeemen and committeewomen
for, oh probably, 35 or 40% of the precincts, which represent probably 75
or 80% of the votes. Some of the small precincts where there aren't
very many votes, we may not even have a Republican living in the precinct,
you know. Or maybe just have one or two. But we have them organized enough
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page 33
to where we keep them informed on what is going on, who our candidates
are, what the issues are and what the other side has done that we
consider wrong. We put out a monthly newsletter to them, I don't know
if Bill showed you one of them or not, but we try to keep them informed
on what is going on in Tallahassee, what is going on in Washington. And
then come election time, the people on the county committees organize
the campaigns for all the candidates that we have, and we haven't had
that many statewide candidates in the past, but they know that we are
going to have this year and in the future and it gives a candidate a
good strong base to work from.
J.B.: Are there any elected black Republican officials in Florida?
Thomas: No, not that I know of, except on county committees. We have
several of them serving on county committees, in Palm Beach County and
Broward County in particular, but I don't know of an elected black in
a county commission job or something like that. In fact, we don't have
many black Republicans in Florida.
J.B.: How do you approach that situation?
Thomas: You know, I wish I knew how to approach it. I've been very
unsuccessful at it. Unfortunately, most of the blacks that have talked
to me about getting into the Republican party and doing something,
they are really, they expect a whole lot for nothing. And I tell them
that we can't out promise the Democrats, there is no way. We just can't
do it. I'm not going to lie to them. But all of them usually want money.
And I tell them that we don't have any money to give them. The state
party is supported by filing fees and contributions by people at the
county level and we don't have money to give them back. We have tried
in some cases to help some, particularly in Palm Beach County, and it
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page 34
was unsuccessful. Palm Beach, Duval County, there's a tremendous black
population in Jacksonville and we have some good dedicated black
Republicans over there, but only a handful.
J.B.: Do you see more coming into the party or just staying where it is?
Thomas: No, I think that it is going to stay pretty well like it is. I
don't see anything that's going to entice them to come into the party.
And you know, I think that the Democrats, particularly in north Florida,
are so wrong about this and I think the blacks are wrong too, but both
are still bought and sold in north Florida. Right here in this county
and other counties across here, it's funny, you'd think that the Democrats
would catch on. But some of the candidates, say in the county commission
races and the sheriff's races and all buy some of the black votes. Some
of the black votes were sold in the last election in this county two and
three times. You know, it's ridiculous. And it is morally wrong to buy
votes, and it is just as wrong to sell one. I don't know which is worse,
but it still goes on. And the blacks make fun, I mean, the blacks laugh
at the Democratic candidates for buying the votes, because when they go
in the booth and close that curtain, who the hell knows how they vote.
J.B.: I guess that makes it a risky business.
Thomas: Yeah, but there is a lot of money spent on it. I'll tell you,
there was several thousand dollars spent in this county in 1972 buying
black votes and I know at least one candidate who really got taken. I
mean, spent a lot of money and they didn't deliver.
J.B.: Do you have anything else Walter?
W.D.V.: No, I don't think so. I'm sort of run down. This is about what?
Our seventh or eight interview today.
Thomas: Is that right?
J.B.: Fifth or sixth, somewhere in there.
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page 35
Thomas: Well, I'm sorry that you can't spend more time in Panama City.
W.D.V.: I'd like to.
J.B.: Is there anything else that you wanted to comment on that we
didn't ask?
Thomas: No, not that I know of.
W.D.V.: We'll probably come back to you after the election and check
your predictions against reality.
Thomas: O.K. (Laughter.)
W.D.V.: And see how much of it was bullshit. (Laughter.)
Thomas: Well, you know, in 1972 .
W.D.V.: And see how much was pure prophecy. That's about the choice
you have.
Thomas: In 1972, I called the primary right down to a gnat's eyebrow
and people in Washington didn't believe that and in September, before
the general election in November, I told them exactly what Nixon would
get and everybody made fun of me, particularly the Democrats, the said
that it would never happen. But I told them that we would get 72%
for Nixon and we got 71.91 and I'll settle for that all day long. But
that's why I say that Thomas can beat Askew, because 75% of the people
in Florida are conservatives and all we've got to do is prove to them
that Askew isn't .
W.D.V.: You're basing that on the '72 election returns?
Thomas; Yeah. The '72 general election and the Wallace thing. I mean,
it's just here and that's the way it is. And see, you know, I don't have
any crystal ball for my prediction in the '72 thing. I took the Wallace
vote in '68 and the Nixon vote in '68 and added the two together and
added 3% that McGovern was a fucking nut, you know. You've got to
think of that, and that's the way it turned out, you know.
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W.D.V.: Expletive deleted, huh?
Thomas: Yeah. (Laughter.)
J.B.: Well, I did want to ask you one more question and that is, do
you see Cramer playing any future role in the party in sofar as seeking
elective office?
Thomas: No. You know that old story, he's like the country girl that
went to town and found out that what she had been giving away for years
she could now sell. And Cramer is going to have to do a lot of explaining
to a lot of people about this, you might have read in the paper in the
last month or so, he's representing OEO now and they came to him and
wanted them to represent them and my God, if anybody doesn't believe in
OEO, it's Cramer and they asked him to quote them a figure and he gave
them a quote of $25,000 a month and thought that would get rid 6f them
and they hired him.
W.D.V.: Sounds like a good way to get rid of them.
Thomas: $25,000 a month, yeah. $25,000 a month retainer, how about that?
I told him that his philosophy didn't go very damn deep and everybody
has got his price, you know. (Laughter.) But I would imagine that
Cramer .
W.D.V.: I would think that would be a very effective way to eliminate
poverty. (Laughter.)
Thomas: And Smathers. There's no telling what Smathers will make as
a lobbyist-attorney now. You know, I'm guessing, but if Smathers doesn't
make a quarter of a million a year, he won't make a nickel. He can
peddle his influence and if you don't want to pay for it, then don't
bother.
J.B.: Why did you take this job as chairman? You said that you don't
get paid anything for it and how much time do you spend in a month
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page 37
working for the Republican party?
Thomas: Well, I probably spend about half time working at it.
I probably spend thirty hours a week, but because I number one,
because I want to see a strong Republican party, I want to see a strong
conservative party and you know, I want to see a two party system
established, because I know, you know, the benefits of having a two
party system, having lived in a two party state, you know, where you
have the checks and balances that we haven't had here. I mean, you
know, these guys in the cabinet over there, they've been protecting
each other for a hundred years. I mean, shit, they just didn't start
selling bank charters, they've been doing it for a hundred years. This
is nothing new. Well, if you had a strong two party system, you couldn't
do this type of thing.
J.B.: Have you ever run for office?
Thomas: No, except for the state chairman.
J.B.: Do you think that you might after you finish this?
Thomas: No, never. I don't even think like a candidate. This is hard
to believe, but I don't really like politics. I've had some of the
damnedest, knock-down fights that you've ever seen. And I'll tell you
something else, a lot of people don't believe it, but I spend more time
talking people out of running than I do talking people into running.
In '72, I tried to spend every Friday in the office and people called
in and they wanted to run for county commissioner and this and that, and
the first thing that I asked them was "Why?" And I wish that I had had
a tape recorder for some of the answers, because some of them were really
ridiculous. I mean, you know. I had a guy one time tell me that he wanted
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page 38
power. And I said, "My God, is that the only reason?" "yeah." I said,
"Well, you are wrong. If you serve the people, you are not going to have
any power. You've got the wrong idea. You shouldn't even consider running
for the county commission." And you have some real odd balls, you know,
that have freakish ideas. One thing for damn sure, there is no money in
politics if you're honest. There is no way. You've got to have some
other motivation, because you damn sure can't make any money out of it.
I don't care, you couldn't make any money being president if you are
honest. If the guy has got the money and the inclination, then great, but
I just hope that .
J.B.: What kind of people do you try to recruit?
Thomas: Well, you know it depends on the kind of job they are running
for, if it is a part time job or a full time one.
J.B.: Well, say that it is the legislature.
Thomas: Well, legislature you know, I think that we have got too
many lawyers in the legislature and I can get in all kinds of arguments
over just saying that. I think that it is true, we've got too many lawyers
and too many insurance men. I think that the kind of guy we ought to have
in the legislature is some kind of young guy that's on the way up or some
guy who has got it moderately made who can afford to serve over there
and have a free and open mind. But so many of them, we've got an awful
lot of them in our own party over there, we've got some good young people
and some of them aspire to higher office and that's great. I mean, they
are really dedicated. But then we've got some other guys that we're not
real proud of. And of course, there are some guys in the Democratic party
that they are not proud of. They've got some guys who have talked to me
about switching to the Republican party and I let them know that I didn't
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page 39
want them. Just didn't woo them. And I could have gotten some members
of the Democrat house right now to switch and I'm sure that the Democrats
would have applauded if We had been able to get them to switch. But we
didn't want.them, because unfortunately, there are a few people in the
legislature now that shouldn't be there. But you know, to run for the
state chairmanship, two things I doubt if I will ever do it again
and I probably wouldn't have done it in '70 if I hadn't been so damn mad
at Kirk for splitting the party and playing the part like he did ..
(End of tape.)
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