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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,
University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. FOR REFERENCE ONLY: PERMISSION TO
PUBLISH MUST BE REQUESTED. WARNING: MOST MANUSCRIPTS ARE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT.