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Louie Welch: 1918-2008
It was the fall of 1985 and I was working as a political consultant for the Louie Welch for Mayor campaign against my old dear friend Kathy Whitmire. Whitmire had decided that I was bad news for some reason ( I guess I said something that she did not like to the Houston Post) and later when I tried to get on the City’s lobbying team I was told ,by an assistant, that no way in hell would the Mayor ever hire me for anything. So, the Welsh folks approached me to help them in their campaign. And I was ready for a little revenge. By 1985 I had elected a few folks to City Council and had 12 years of experience in city politics so I joined Bob Heller, Jim Edmonds , George Shipley and a few other experience folks to see if we could elect Louie.
Welch had not been involved in a political campaign for about 15 years and things had changed. There were TV cameras that used tape and not film for the news casts. Louie had been use to TV stations having to quit “filming” early in the afternoon so they could go back and develop their film. Not any more they could edit tape in a very short time day or night. He was not in tune with the new ways of using TV for political purposes.
And the AID epidemic was in full swing in 1985 and many voters were asking Louie what should be done. Some of his more conservative right wing friends wanted quarantines and blood tests for many occupations. If you had HIV you would not be employed. Louie was not in favor of such methods and so he developed a more moderate 4 point plan which he was prepared to announce at the TV station.
And he was ready to do a live broadcast with Heller at the studio and that is when he said the solution to the AID crises was to “Shoot the queers” when he was just joking around with the crew and did not know that the camera was live and that the station was taping the broadcast. I have always blamed his conservative buddies for the “queer”jokes they told him for him saying those remarks even in gist.
Louie didn’t think that his comments would do any real harm to his campaign. I did and I told him and his team that not only would the Gay community take offence but that women voters would also not like him saying that anyone should be shot. And after all we were running a campaign against a woman Mayor. Well Louie did apologized for his remarks and we took a poll which showed we lost some voters and momentum and the rest is history, Kathy went on to win not only the 1985 race but also two more elections.
I should not have even been with the Welch team in that election. After all I was identified with the Hofheinz gang the group that chased Mayor Welch from office. Fred Hofheinz gave him a very serious run in 1971 for Mayor and Fred was ready to challenge him again in 1973 before Mayor Welch decided to not run for re-election. Relations between Hofheinz and Welch were proper but not real friendly. I had been on the Hofheinz campaign staff in 1973 and on Mayor Hofheinz staff from 1973-1975 and I was not known as a great Welch fan in those early days. Louie was at that time becoming a Republican and I was of course a McGovern /Hofheinz Democrat. We thought his police chief was a racist chief and the force was made up of a bunch of KKK guys. Of course that was not really the fact, but there were some bad police officers in the HPD in the 60’s and 70’s.
Later while Louie was President of the Houston Chamber of Commerce I got to know him better and came to respect his love for the city. I was active in the Chamber and always enjoyed Louie and his wife Helen and their efforts to increase foreign business for the Houston region. Even with my political background Louie was nice to me, assisted me in my work and that is of course the test of a real gentleman.
Mayor Welch passing leaves Houston with a deep loss. He did so much for the City that he loved and he will be missed.
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