James "Jim" Granberry
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Dr. James "Jim" Granberry was the mayor of Lubbock, Texas, from 1970-1972, who guided his city through a series of tornadoes that shattered the region on May 11, 1970. He imposed a curfew to restore order after the storm. The office of mayor in Lubbock, as in all Texas cities, is officially nonpartisan, but Granberry was known to be a Republican.
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[edit] McBrayer opposes Granberry in 1974 primary
In 1974, Dr. Granberry, a dentist, won his party's gubernatorial nomination to challenge Democratic Party Governor Dolph Briscoe of Uvalde. First, Granberry, with 53,617 votes (77.6 percent) defeated his intraparty rival, Odell Lavon McBrayer, who drew 15,489 ballots (22.4 percent). McBrayer, the candidate of what later became known as the "Religious Right," used the campaign poster "Texas must have Odell McBrayer as Governor." He was a member of the board of directors of the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International. McBrayer was originally from Clarendon in Donley County. Granberry, the choice of Republican Senator John G. Tower, would carry his party's tattered banner in the general election of 1974, a year in which the GOP nationally was dragged down by the Watergate scandal, which had forced the resignation of the president, Richard M. Nixon.
[edit] Briscoe wins first four-year term since 1873
Briscoe handily defeated Granberry in a strongly Democratic year nationwide. The governor polled 1,016,334 (61.4 percent), compared to 514,725 (31.1 percent) for Granberry, 93,295 for the Hispanic La Raza party, and another approximately 30,000 votes for other candidates. Briscoe, who had served the last two-year gubernatorial term in Texas, therefore became the first Texas governor to win a four-year term since the establishment of the Constitution of 1876. Yet, Briscoe polled 617,159 fewer votes against Granberry in 1974 than he had with his initial election in 1972 against the conservative Republican Henry Grover, because of a much lower turnout in the latter year. Turnout in the gubernatorial general election dropped, particularly among Republicans by 1,755,237 between 1972 and 1974.
[edit] Granberry advises George W. Bush, 1978
In 1978, Granberry advised congressional candidate George W. Bush, who was seeking to succeed the retiring veteran Democrat George Mahon of Lubbock. Bush said that Granberry urged him to "go negative" against then Democrat Kent Hance, but Bush declined to do so. An ad appeared in the Texas Tech newspaper inviting students to a "beer bash" at Granberry's home to drum up support for Bush. Hance defeated Bush in that election. He attributed his victory more to the endorsement by Mahon than from public outrage over the "beer bash."
Seven years later Hance switched his affiliation to Republican and in vain sought the GOP gubernatorial nomination -- in both 1986 and in 1990. Hance later was appointed by his erstwhile, intraparty rival, Governor Bill Clements, to the Texas Railroad Commission and was elected to a two-year term in 1988.
In 2004, Hance, a lobbyist, assisted Justice Steven Wayne Smith's efforts to gain renomination for his seat on the Texas Supreme Court. However, Smith lost to Judge Paul Green, the choice of Governor Rick Perry.
