T. Boone Pickens -- billionaire oil man, erstwhile wind-energy apostle, multimillion-dollar donor to Karl Rove's super PAC -- wants his money back. According to a filing in Dallas County court, he claims he's getting mostly stiffed on a $125,000 loan he made to political consultant John Weaver, who helmed the failed presidential bids of Sen. John McCain and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman.
The breach of contract lawsuit also names Weaver's business, The Network Companies, an Austin-based group of political consultants, flacks and crisis managers. "This is a simple case of a note being in default," the filing reads, Of course, this isn't the six-year note you bought a Honda with. The terms of the contract dictated that the loan be repaid after 45 days, by the end of September, the lawsuit reads. Pickens' attorney, Bill Gameros, said Weaver was offered an extension but turned it down. So far, they've seen only $10,000 from the consultant and his company.
Reached by phone, Weaver seemed surprised by the suit, but he denied that the loan had been assigned a specific maturity date. "It's clearly a misunderstanding in the process of being rectified. and will be rectified soon," he said. "We were under the impression it was a pay-back-as-soon-as-possible loan."
Pickens, apparently, saw it differently.
Either way, it would appear to mark the internecine souring of relations between two very visible Texas Republicans. Weaver, after all, branded Sen. John McCain the straight-talking "maverick." He had a vision in Jon Huntsman of a GOP presidential candidate who gathered to him a coalition of moderates and independents, eschewing unalloyed extremism. Which is, basically, the exact opposite of what the dog whistle-heeding primary voter looks for.
Following former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's November loss, Weaver lamented the state of his party. "We have a choice: we can become a shrinking regional party of middle-aged and older white men, or we can fight to become a national governing party," he told The New York Times. "And to do the latter we have to fix our Hispanic problem as quickly as possible, we've got to accept science and start calling out these false equivalencies when they occur within our party about things that are just not true, and not tolerate the intolerant."