Not in the early 1970s. Just about all the statewide offices were held by yellow dog DemocRATS.
Speculation.
(I was wearing my tin-foil PJ's.)
What I was figuring was the Barnes got kicked out of office right as this was going on.
Wasn't in TX politics though at the time, so Ican't match Bush (senior) with Barnes or Bentsen or Bush (junior) or bentson (junior) ....
But they all knew each other, and somebody exposed Sharpstown and cost Barnes teh governor position.
"Using the scandal as a springboard, less conservative Democrats and Republicans carried the "reform" battle cry and also gained a stronger foothold in the legislature. Democrats, defensively, charged that the whole scandal atmosphere in Texas was a national Republican plot, originated in the Nixon administration's Department of Justice. But before the smoke cleared, Will Wilson, an ex-Democratic Texas attorney general, by then one of the top Texas Republicans in the federal government, was hounded from his position as chief of the criminal division of the Department of Justice because of his own business dealings with Sharp. That "general" group of conservative democrats and republicans certainly could have included a Congressman named Bush.