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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


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
PUBLISH MUST BE REQUESTED. WARNING: MOST MANUSCRIPTS ARE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT.