Washington Post Pays Tribute to “Junkyard Dog of Texas Politics”

Former Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox, who died in his sleep Thursday at his home in Dripping Springs, will lie in state today in the Texas House of Representatives chamber of the Texas Capitol; hours are from 3 to 7 p.m. As the Star-Telegram noted over the weekend, “The last dignitary whose body lay in the Texas Capitol — in her case,
in the rotunda — was Mattox’s political archrival, former Gov. Ann
Richards.”

So happens that Mattox’s brawl with Richards more or less tops this morning’s obit in The Washington Post, in which Mattox’s wife Marta says the former congressman from Dallas “reveled” in his reputation as the “junkyard dog of Texas
politics.” As in: “In the governor’s race, Mr. Mattox accused Richards of alcohol abuse
and cocaine use a decade earlier. He suggested that as a recovering
alcoholic she might not be up to the job of being governor. The charges were vintage Mattox.” Mattox will be buried tomorrow morning at First Baptist Church of Austin. After the jump, a clip posted Thursday from the Democratic National Convention, where Hillary Clinton supporter Mattox discusses why, at the time, he was loathe to throw his support behind Barack Obama. –Robert Wilonsky