A dead heat in Texas gives both Paxton and Talarico reason to sweat<\/a><\/p>\nNot everything he wrote down cast him in the most favorable light. In both the book and the restaurant interview, Barnes recounted his and Connally’s efforts\u00a0to invest the money needed to make the University of Texas a top-tier national university and his own role in carving out a congressional district in Houston that helped Barbara Jordan become the first Black Texan elected to the U.S. House. But he also confessed to political favoritism and double-dealing.<\/p>\n
In what he calls “a painful chapter,” Barnes recalled how he used his influence as Texas House speaker to help secure a spot in the Air National Guard for a young George W. Bush at the height of the Vietnam War. The Guard appointment greatly reduced the likelihood that Bush would be drafted and sent to fight. Barnes said he didn’t give a second thought at the time to helping Bush, whose father was then a Texas congressman, or several other connected young men “jump the line” for a spot in the Guard.<\/p>\n
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But he said he has come to regret it. “For every privileged boy I helped,” he wrote, “another boy was sent to war.”<\/p>\n
When Barnes lost the primary for governor, he might have become a political has-been at age 34. Although he never again sought public office, he remained engaged in politics as a go-to public affairs consultant. He and Connally became business partners in a company that developed huge swaths of South Austin. They went bust in the collapse of the savings and loan industry in the late 1980s. Then they rebounded.<\/p>\n
A quick aside about Connally: He was riding in the limousine with President John F. Kennedy and was gravely wounded when the president was assassinated in Dallas. Barnes helped organize Kennedy’s Texas visit and he is the only surviving person who played a role in arranging the trip.<\/p>\n
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A photo of former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes when he was Speaker of the House in 1965 is on the wall at Cisco\u2019s in Austin, Thursday, July 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
Jay Janner\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
Like many from the conservative wing of the old Texas Democratic Party, Connally later switched parties and became a Republican. Barnes never did, but he said he understands why some people have. The same is true, he said, of some longtime Republicans.<\/p>\n
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“I’m amazed how many friends of mine \u2014 some were Republicans, some were Democrats \u2014 who tell me, ‘Ben, I’m an independent. I’m no longer a Democrat. I’m no longer a Republican,'” he said.<\/p>\n
Barnes said his consulting business continues to thrive and that he has no plans to retire. He also plans to spend much of his time raising awareness about kidney disease, and how best to combat it. In his mid-80s, his kidneys were failing. One of his doctors advised him to get his affairs in order because a transplant at his age would do little or no good. Besides, younger people in similar straits would be far higher on the transplant list.<\/p>\n
Another doctor disagreed with that prognosis but told Barnes he’d have to find a living donor because he wouldn’t qualify for an organ from someone who had died accidentally. That’s when his assistant stepped up.<\/p>\n
“I want to encourage people, no matter how old they are, that they can be treated for kidney disease,” Barnes said. “I also want to encourage people to give kidneys.”<\/p>\n
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Looking back on his days as a fast-rising young man in politics, Barnes said he has spent little time on life’s what-ifs. In his book, however, he reflected on the 1972 race for governor and wondered how a victory might have changed his future.<\/p>\n
“Would I have eventually become the peanut farmer president?” he wrote. “If so, at thirty-eight I’d be the youngest president in history. Such thoughts did me no good, so I put them out of my mind.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes at Cisco\u2019s in Austin, Thursday, July 2, 2026. Jay Janner\/Austin American-Statesman Just over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-370140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}