The National Speech that made Ann Richards famous follows her obituary and a few special appreciations, below.
Ann Richards, Former Texas Governor, Dies at 73
Ann W. Richards, the silver-haired Texas activist who galvanized the 1988 Democratic National Convention with her tart keynote speech and was the state’s 45th governor until upset in 1994 by an underestimated challenger named George W. Bush, died Wednesday at her home in Austin. She was 73.
Ms. Richard died, surrounded by her four children, of complications from the esophageal cancer, the Associated Press reported.
Ms. Richards was the most recent and one of the most effective in a long-line of Lone Star State progressives who vied for control of Texas in the days when it was largely a one-party Democratic enclave, a champion of civil rights, gay rights and feminism. Her defeat by the future president was one of the chief markers of the end of generations of Democratic dominance in Texas.
So cemented was her celebrity on the national stage, however, that she appeared in national advertising campaigns, including one for snack chips, and was a lawyer and lobbyist for Public strategies and Verner, Lipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand.
“Poor George, he can’t help it,” Ms. Richards said at the Democratic convention in 1988, speaking about the current president’s father, former President George Bush. “He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”
Her acidic, plain-spoken keynote address was one of the year’s political highlights and catapulted the one-term Texas governor into a national figure.
“We’re gonna tell how the cow ate the cabbage,” she said, bringing the great tradition of vernacular Southern oratory to the national political stage in a way that transformed the mother of four into an revered icon of feminist activism.
Dorothy Ann Willis was born Sept. 1, 1933, in Lakeview, and graduated in 1950 from Waco High school where she showed a special facility for debate. She attended the Girl’s Mock State government in Austin in her junior year and was one of two delegates chosen to attend Girl’s Nation in Washington.
She attended Baylor University in Waco — on a debate scholarship — where she met her future husband, David Richards. After college, the couple moved to Austin where she earned a teaching certificate at the University of Texas in 1955 and taught social studies for several years at Fulmore Middle School.
She raised her four children in Austin.
She volunteered in several gubernatorial campaigns, in 1958 for Henry Gonzalez and in 1952, 1954 and 1956 for Ralph Yarborough and then again for Yarborough’s senatorial campaign in 1957.
In 1976, Ms. Richards defeated a three-term incumbent to become a commissioner in Travis County, which includes Austin, and held that job for four years, though she later said her political commitment put a strain on her marriage, which ended in divorce.
She also began to drink heavily, eventually going into rehabilitation, a move that she later credited with salvaging her life and her political career.
“I have seen the very bottom of life,” she said. “I was so afraid I wouldn’t be funny anymore. I just knew that I would lose my zaniness and my sense of humor. But I didn’t. Recovery turned out to be a wonderful thing.”
In 1982, she ran for state treasurer, received the most votes of any statewide candidate, became the first woman elected to statewide office in Texas in 50 years and was re-elected in 1986.
In 1990, when the incumbent governor, William P. Clements Jr., decided not to run for re-election, she ran against a former Democratic governor, Mark White, and won the primary, then later fought a particularly brutal campaign against Republican candidate Clayton Williams, a wealthy rancher, and won.
Among her achievements were institutional changes in the state penal system, invigorating the state’s economy and instituting the first Texas lottery, going so far as to buy the first lotto ticket herself on May 29, 1992.
It was her speech to the Democratic convention in Atlanta, though, that made her a national figure.
A champion of women’s rights, she told the television audience: “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.”
In 1992, she was chairwoman of the convention that first nominated Bill Clinton.
Two years later, she underestimated her young Republican challenger from West Texas, going so far as to refer to George W. Bush as “some jerk,” a commend that drew considerable criticism. Later, she acknowledged that the younger candidate has been much more effective at “staying on message” and made none of the mistakes that her campaign strategists had expected. She was beaten, 53 percent to 46 percent.
Her celebrity, however, carried her onto the boards of several national corporations, including J.C. Penney, Brandeis University and the Aspen Institute.
She also co-wrote several books, including “Straight from the Heart: My Life in Politics and Other Places” in 1989 with Peter Knobler and “I’m Not Slowing Down” in 2004, with Richard M. Levine.
On her 60th birthday, she got her first motorcycle license.
“I’ve always said that in politics, your enemies can’t hurt you, but your friends can kill you,” Ms. Richard once said.
Survivors, according to The AP, include her children, Cecile, Daniel, Clark and Ellen Richards, and eight grandchildren.
Lone Star lady
Ann Richards and I saw everything on Broadway and loved to rag about George W. Bush. They were some of the happiest years of my life.
By Liz Smith
AP photo/Michelle Bidwell
Ann Richards raises her arms in celebration after being sworn in as governor of Texas in Austin on Jan. 15, 1991.
Sept. 14, 2006 | NEW YORK -- "It is impossible to experience one's own death objectively and still carry a tune," said Woody Allen.
This is also an Ann Richards thought if ever there was one. Ann always said she couldn't carry a tune, but her one-time aide Sandra Castellanos recalls that whenever she started to sing "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay!" Ann would always burst out of her office and finish it with a flourish: "My, oh my, what a wonderful day."
I recall now a glorious moment onstage at the St. James Theatre when Ann and I appeared as "cowgirls" in a musical number for the Broadway benefit to help the Women's Health Initiative of the Actors' Fund. We came out in ridiculous garb with huge brown felt chaps, hats, boots, the works. We were later castigated by the New York Times critic as women who could neither sing nor dance. What did they know? Ann and I thought we had done great imitating Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance performing "I'm an Old Cowhand From the Rio Grande." In our patter I blamed Ann for George W. Bush's rise and her failure to stop him. She said, "That's not funny, Liz!" and shot me with her cap pistol.
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The Democratic Party and thousands of admirers, public and personal, took a big hit on Wednesday night. As you know, our friend Ann died after a six-month bout with esophageal cancer. She had been in and out of M.D. Anderson hospital in Houston and they had pronounced her cancer gone. But even the mighty, the feisty and the brilliant Ann couldn't come back from this terrible illness. She left this world only blocks from the big white mansion in Austin where she had been such a successful and unusual governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995. The combination of Karl Rove and George Bush put her out of office in 1995. She became a famous speaker and fundraiser for the Democrats but refused to run again herself. Many people urged her to try for the presidency, but Ann said she needed to make some money. "I don't want to end up living in a trailer parked in my daughter's driveway in Austin."Bette Midler just called to tell me the New York Restoration Project will plant a huge tree in the city in Ann's memory. "Not one of those little mangy $100 ones either," said the heartbroken Bette. I am under an avalanche of condolences now and will offer them to Ann's devastated family -- her attorney sons, Dan and Clark, her wonderful social worker daughter, Ellen, and her eldest, Cecile, who is now the head of Planned Parenthood in New York. Ann had many grandchildren, and she was surrounded by them and by friends like the writer Bud Shrake, who was her main man, and Jean and Dan Rather, Ladybird Johnson, Liz Carpenter, Molly Ivins and others during her brief illness.
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It is a shock to lose Ann, who was always so concerned about her health and that of her pals; she was an exercise and good nutrition fanatic and often made jokes about my careless ways, telling people that I ate only from the brown and white food groups.The five years that Ann spent in New York working for Jack Martin's Public Strategies advisory group were some of the happiest of my life, since I got to introduce this wonder woman to everybody in Manhattan.
When Ann came here to live five years ago, Le Cirque gave her a party and 600 admirers, including Bill Clinton, welcomed her. Ann and I worked some charities together and we saw everything that opened on Broadway. (The theater should shroud its lights on the Monday night of her funeral because she was its greatest fan and supporter. How well I remember intermissions where hosts of people came to touch her, talk to her and try to sit in her lap. It was like being out with a rock star to be with her in public.)
The election year of 2008 will be much dimmer without Ann, stumping with humor, sarcasm, a high intelligence and a combative manner for the Democrats. And I am unable to express how diminished those of us who really knew and loved her feel. She was young at heart, truly beautiful, comic, serious, dedicated, loyal -- a champion for women, for minorities and for common sense.
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Only recently when I asked Ann her point of view about granting some kind of amnesty to illegal Latins in the United States, she just laughed: "They better grant them some way to stay here because otherwise our hospitals and nursing homes will never have the staff to take care of all of us who are growing older. The people caring for me at Anderson are almost all Mexican, Dominican, Puerto Rican, and they are simply wonderful."This was the last thing Ann ever said to me -- typically caring, penetrating, socially observant. So goodbye to one of the most fabulous women I've ever known. Ann, it was a great privilege to be your friend!
About the writer
Liz Smith is a nationally syndicated columnist.
Ann Richards to Lie in State Sunday
Filed at 4:17 a.m. ET
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Former President Clinton delivered poignant and at times funny recollections of former Gov. Ann Richards, a woman he called ''spontaneous, unedited, earthy, hilarious.''
Clinton tearfully escorted a flag-draped casket Saturday carrying Richards into the state Capitol. Her body will lie in state a second day Sunday before her funeral and burial on Monday.
Clinton told about 50 of her close friends and family about a lunch he once shared in New York with Richards and a group that included comedians Billy Crystal and Robin Williams.
''I thought to myself, I bet this is the only time in their entire lives that Billy Crystal and Robin Williams are the second and third funniest people at the table,'' he said, drawing chuckles from misty-eyed family members.
Richards, the Democrat known for her big, frosty white hair and sharp wit, died Wednesday at the age of 73 from esophageal cancer.
''In this case, goodbye is also a celebration, because of the big things that Ann Richards did,'' Clinton said.
A Texas Department of Public Safety honor guard rolled the casket into the Capitol rotunda, followed by Clinton and Richards' daughter, Cecile, as a girl's choir sang a hymn from a gallery above. Across the rotunda, Richard's painting hung next to one of President Bush, her successor as Texas governor, in its place among all their predecessors. Her portrait was draped in black.
Clinton called Richards ''Texas on parade.''
''For 30-plus years, that is certainly what she was to me and Hillary,'' he said. ''First she was big: big hair, big bright eyes, big blinding smile. She also had a big heart, big dreams, did big deeds.''
During her one term as governor from 1991-95 she championed what she called the ''New Texas,'' appointing more women and minorities to state posts than any of her predecessors.
He described the world that Richards wanted for her grandchildren as one ''where young girls grew up to be scientists, engineers, police officers and teachers ... where the dreams and the spirit were as big as the sky in her beloved home.''
When Clinton finished speaking, Richards' daughter, Ellen, thanked him for ''all the great times that you shared with our mom.''
Clinton paused for a moment beside the casket, then greeted family members, hugging or shaking hands with each one in attendance. At one point, he bent down to comfort Richards' 8-year-old grandson Wyatt, who broke down in sobs.
After Clinton spoke, the Capitol Rotunda was opened to the public. Hundreds of mourners snaked around the building. Later, some visitors left tributes to Richards on a grassy area in front of the Capitol.
One note read: ''Ann, Thank you for all that you've done for women in Texas. We will miss you dearly.''
Richards is survived by her four children -- Cecile, Daniel, Clark and Ellen Richards; their spouses and eight grandchildren.
Ann R., Alcoholic
Former Gov. Ann Richards of Texas will be remembered for her wit, her one-liners and especially for the keynote speech at the 1988 Democratic Convention, which was, in retrospect, the high point in the party’s dismal campaign for the presidency that year. To intrigued television viewers nationwide, Ms. Richards, with her big hair and big attitude, epitomized the kind of formidable woman that is a hallmark of the Lone Star State. People liked her down-home phrases. When she said, “We’re gonna tell how the cow ate the cabbage,” they believed her. She leavened a plain-spoken manner with wisecracks. Both helped elect her governor two years later.
But her political career eclipsed what Ms. Richards called “one of the great, great stories” of her life: her recovery from alcoholism and her nearly 26 years of sobriety. That triumph deserves to be more than a line in her obituary.
In so many ways, her decision to stop drinking and enter a rehabilitation program in 1980, after a painful intervention by family and friends, was necessary for her continued rise in public life. What made Ms. Richards different was her decision to be forthright about the fact that she was a recovering alcoholic. She didn’t hide it. “I like to tell people that alcoholism is one of my strengths,” she said. She was right. Alcoholics know that seeds of healthy recovery grow from the need to mend their own flaws to stay sober, one day at a time. Ms. Richards faced her imperfections fearlessly, and that enabled others to be fearless, too, if only for a little while.
She never stopped helping people. One well-known author said the first mail she received after enrolling in a rehabilitation program was an encouraging letter from Ms. Richards. A politician who left rehab and wondered how on earth he was going to avoid drinking when he got home well after midnight found Ms. Richards waiting for him when he arrived. As governor, she started treatment programs in Texas prisons. When she visited, she would tell the inmates the simple truth: “My name’s Ann, and I’m an alcoholic.” Her imperfection had become a source of inspiration for others.
Ann Richards was funny, wise and compassionate. At 73, she died too soon. But she died sober.
MAURA J. CASEY
Transcript of the Keynote Address by Ann Richards, the Texas Treasurer
Following is a transcript of the keynote address to the Democratic National Convention last night by Ann Richards, the State Treasurer of Texas, as recorded by The New York Times:
Thank you. Thank you very much. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Buenas noches, mis amigos! I am delighted to be here with you this evening, because after listening to George Bush all these years, I figured you needed to know what a real Texas accent sounds like. Twelve years ago Barbara Jordan, another Texas woman, Barbara made the keynote address to this convention, and two women in 160 years is about par for the course.
But, if you give us a chance, we can perform. After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.
I want to announce to this nation that in a little more than 100 days, the Reagan-Meese-Deaver-Nofziger-Poindexter-North-Weinberger-Watt-Gorsuch-Lavell-Stockman-Haig-Bork-Noriega-George Bush will be over.
You know, tonight I feel a little like I did when I played basketball in the eighth grade. I thought I looked real cute in my uniform, and then I heard a boy yell from the bleachers, "Make that basket, bird legs."
And my greatest fear is that same guy is somewhere out there in the audience tonight, and he's going to cut me down to size.
Real People With Real Problems
Because where I grew up there wasn't much tolerance for self-importance — people who put on airs. I was born during the Depression in a little comunity just outside Waco, and I grew up listening to Franklin Roosevelt on the radio.
Well, it was back then that I came to understand the small truths and the hardships that bind neighbors together. Those were real people with real problems. And they had real dreams about getting out of the Depression.
I can remember summer nights when we'd put down what we called a Baptist pallet, and we listened to the grown-ups talk. I can still hear the sound of the dominoes clicking on the marble slab my daddy had found for a tabletop.
I can still hear the laughter of the men telling jokes you weren't supposed to hear, talking about how big that old buck deer was, — laughing about mama putting Clorox in the well when a frog fell in.
They talked about war and Washington and what this country needed — they talked straight talk, and it came from people who were living their lives as best they could. And that's what we're gonna do tonight -we're going to tell how the cow ate the cabbage.
A Letter From a Young Mother
I got a letter last week from a young mother in Lorena, Tex., and I want to read part of it to you.
She writes, "Our worries go from payday to payday, just like millions of others, and we have two fairly decent incomes. But I worry how I'm going to pay the rising car insurance and food.
"I pray my kids don't have a growth spurt from August to December so I don't have to buy new jeans. We buy clothes at the budget stores and we have them fray, stretch in the first wash.
"We ponder and try to figure out how we're going to pay for college, and braces and tennis shoes. We don't take vacations and we don't go out to eat.
"Please don't think me ungrateful; we have jobs and a nice place to live, and we're healthy.
"We're the people you see every day in the grocery stores. We obey the laws, we pay our taxes, we fly our flags on holidays.
"And we plod along, trying to make it better for ourselves and our children and our parents. We aren't vocal anymore. I think maybe we're too tired.
"I believe that people like us are forgotten in America."
Well, of course you believe you're forgotten, because you have been.
This Republican Administration treats us as if we were pieces of a puzzle that can't fit together. They've tried to put us into compartments and separate us from each other. Their political theory is "divide and conquer."
They've suggested time and time again that what is of interest to one group of Americans is not of interest to anyone else. We've been isolated, we've lumped into that sad phraseology called "special interests."
They've told farmers that they were selfish, that they would drive up food prices if they asked the Government to intervene on behalf of the family farm, and we watched farms go on the auction block while we bought food from foreign countries. Well, that's wrong.
Families Are Falling Apart
They told working mothers it's all their fault that families are falling apart because they had to go to work to keep their kids in jeans, tennis shoes and college. And they're wrong.
They told American labor they were trying to ruin free enterprise by asking for 60 days' notice of plant closings, and that's wrong.
And they told the auto indusry, and the steel indusry, and the timber industry, and the oil industry, companies being threatened by foreign products flooding this country, that you're protectionist if you think the Government should enforce our trade laws. And that is wrong.
When they belittle us for demanding clean air and clean water, for trying to save the oceans and the ozone layer, that's wrong.
No wonder we feel isolated, and confused. We want answers, and their answer is that something is wrong with you.
Well, nothing's wrong with you — nothing wrong with you that you can't fix in November.
One Group Against the Other
We've been told — we've been told that the interests of the South and Southwest are not the same interests as the North and the Northeast. They pit one group against the other. They've divided this country. And in our isolation we think government isn't going to help us, and we're alone in our feelings — we feel forgotten.
Well the fact is, we're not an isolated piece of their puzzle. We are one nation, we are the United States of America!
Now we Democrats believe that America is still the country of fair play, that we can come out of a small town or a poor neighborhood and have the same chance as anyone else, and it doesn't matter whether we are black or Hispanic, or disabled or women.
We believe that America is a country where small-business owners must succeed because they are the bedrock, backbone, of our economy.
We believe that our kids deserve good day care and public schools. We believe our kids deserve public schools where students can learn and teachers can teach.
And we want to believe that our parents will have a good retirement — and that we will too.
We Democrats believe that Social Security is a pact that cannot be broken. We want to believe that we can live out our lives without the terrible fear that an illness is going to bankrupt us and our children.
We Democrats believe that America can overcome any problem, including the dreaded disease called AIDS. We believe that America is still a country where there is more to life than just a constant struggle for money. And we believe that America must have leaders who show us that our struggles amount to something and contribute to something larger, leaders who want us to be all that we can be.
In Praise of Jesse Jackson
We want leaders like Jesse Jackson.
Jesse Jackson is a leader and a teacher who can open our hearts and open our minds and stir our very souls. He's taught us that we are as good as our capacity for caring — caring about the drug problem, caring about crime, caring about education and caring about each other.
Now, in contrast, the greatest nation of the free world has had a leader for eight straight years that has pretended that he cannot hear our questions over the noise of the helicopter.
We know he doesn't want to answer. But we have a lot of questions. And when we get our questions asked, or there is a leak, or an investigation, the only answer we get is, "I don't know," or "I forgot."
But you wouldn't accept that answer from your children. I wouldn't. Don't tell me "you don't know" or "you forgot."
Like Columbus Discovering America
We're not going to have the America that we want until we elect leaders who are going to tell the truth — not most days, but every day. Leaders who don't forget what they don't want to remember.
And for eight straight years George Bush hasn't displayed the slightest interest in anything we care about. And now that he's after a job that he can't get appointed to, he's like Columbus discovering America — he's found child care, he's found education.
Poor George, he can't help it — he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.
Well, no wonder — no wonder we can't figure it out — because the leadership of this nation is telling us one thing on TV and doing something entirely different.
They tell us — they tell us that they're fighting a war against terrorists. And then we find out that the White House is selling arms to the Ayatollah.
They tell us that they're fighting a war on drugs, and then people come on TV and testify that the C.I.A. and the D.E.A. and the F.B.I. knew they were flying drugs into America all along. And they're negotiating with a dictator who is shoveling cocaine into this country like crazy. I guess that's their Central American strategy.
Two Paychecks to Make Ends Meet
Now they tell us that employment rates are great and that they're for equal opportunity, but we know it takes two paychecks to make ends meet today, when it used to take one, and the opportunity they're so proud of is low-wage, dead-end jobs.
And there is no major city in America where you cannot see homeless men sitting in parking lots holding signs that say, "I will work for food."
Now my friends, we really are at a crucial point in American history. Under this Administration we have devoted our resources into making this country a military colossus, but we've let our economic lines of defense fall into disrepair.
The debt of this nation is greater than it has ever been in our history. We fought a world war on less debt that the Republicans have built up in the last eight years. It's kind of like that brother-in-law who drives a flashy new car but he's always borrowing money from you to make the payments.
But let's take what they are proudest of, that is their stand on defense. We Democrats are committed to a strong America. And, quite frankly, when our leaders say to us we need a new weapon system, our inclination is to say, "Well, they must be right."
That Old Dog Won't Hunt
But when we pay billions for planes that won't fly, billions for tanks that won't fire and billions for systems that won't work, that old dog won't hunt.
And you don't have to be from Waco to know that when the Pentagon makes crooks rich and doesn't make America strong, that it's a bum deal.
Now I'm going to tell you — I'm really glad that our young people missed the Depression and missed the great big war. But I do regret that they missed the leaders that I knew, leaders who told us when things were tough and that we'd have to sacrifice, and that these difficulties might last awhile.
They didn't tell us things were hard for us because we were different, or isolated, or special interests. They brought us together and they gave us a sense of national purpose.
They gave us Social Security and they told us they were setting up a system where we could pay our own money in and when the time came for our retirement, we could take the money out.
People in rural areas were told that we deserved to have electric lights, and they were going to harness the energy that was necessary to give us electricity so that my grandmama didn't have to carry that coal oil lamp around.
And they told us that they were going to guarantee that when we put our money in the bank that the money was going to be there and it was going to be insured, they did not lie to us.
And I think that one of the saving graces of Democrats is that we are candid. We are straight talk. We tell people what we think.
And that tradition and those values live today in Michael Dukakis from Massachusetts.
Michael Dukakis knows that this country is on the edge of a great new era, that we're not afraid of change, that we're for thoughtful, truthful, strong leadership. Behind his calm there's an impatience, to unify this country and to get on with the future.
Dukakis's 'Instincts' Are Lauded
His instincts are deeply American, they're tough and they're generous, and personally I have to tell you that I have never met a man who had a more remarkable sense of what is really important in life.
And then there's my friend and my teacher for many years, Senator Lloyd Bentsen. And I couldn't be prouder, both as a Texan and as a Democrat, because Lloyd Bentsen understands America — from the barrios to the boardroom. He knows how to bring us together, by regions, by economics, and by example. And he's already beaten George Bush once.
So when it comes right down to it, this election is a contest between those who are satisfied with what they have and those who know we can do better. That's what this election is really all about.
It's about the American dream — those who want to keep it for the few, and those who know it must be nurtured and passed along.
I'm a grandmother now. And I have one nearly perfect granddaughter named Lily. And when I hold that grandbaby, I feel the continuity of life that unites us, that binds generation to generation, that ties us with each other.
And sometimes I spread that Baptist pallet out on the floor and Lily and I roll a ball back and forth. And I think of all the families like mine, and like the one in Lorena, Tex., like the ones that nurture children all across America.
Families and Nation the Same
And as I look at Lily, I know that it is within families that we learn both the need to respect individual human dignity and to work together for our common good. Within our families, within our nation, it is the same.
And as I sit there, I wonder if she'll every grasp the changes I've seen in my life — if she'll ever believe that there was a time when blacks could not drink from public water fountains, when Hispanic children were punished for speaking Spanish in the public schools and women couldn't vote.
I think of all the political fights I've fought and all the compromises I've had to accept as part payment. And I think of all the small victories that have added up to national triumphs. And all the things that never would have happened and all the people who would have been left behind if we had not reasoned and fought and won those battles together.
And I will tell Lily that those triumphs were Democratic Party triumphs.
I want so much to tell Lily how far we've come, you and I. And as the ball rolls back and forth, I want to tell her how very lucky she is. That, for all of our differences, we are still the greatest nation on this good earth.
And our strength lies in the men and women who go to work every day, who struggle to balance their family and their jobs, and who should never, ever be forgotten.
I just hope that, like her grandparents and her great-grandparents before, Lily goes on to raise her kids with the promise that echoes in homes all across America: that we can do better.
And that's what this election is all about. Thank you very much.###
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