A potent Democratic machine used to dominate Texas politics. But Harry Whittington was among those who helped change that, methodically aggrandizing the state’s Republican Party as it rose to power in the last century.
Harry Whittington walks out of Christus Spohn Memorial Hospital to speak to the media in Corpus Christi Feb. 17, 2006., The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
Whittington worked for and supported both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush in their stints in Texas politics before they became president. He backed James A. Baker III in an unsuccessful run for Texas attorney general in 1978 and John G. Tower in his victorious 1961 bid to be the first Republican to win a Senate seat since Reconstruction. But he never gained more attention than when Cheney accidentally shot him while hunting quail on a ranch near Corpus Christi.
“And I can see how it can happen when the sun is setting and a person is swinging the gun and not seeing who he is swinging toward,” he told the Statesman. “It was just an accident. … Cheney was swinging to his left and when he did he swung over into where I was hunting.”"All I remember was the smell of burning powder," he told The Washington Post in 2010."And then I passed out.
The Henderson Republican then later entered state Republican circles. He joined George H.W. Bush on the campaign trail in 1964, during the future president’s failed bid to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate. He financially backed George W. Bush in both presidential races — donating $1,000 to the first presidential race and $2,000 to his reelection.
Settled in his old-fashioned ways, Whittington did not have a computer or bill his legal clients by the hour, according to the Statesman. In 2018, the accident was depicted in the movie Vice, an unflattering biopic of Cheney. It shows Cheney shooting from a limo. After Whittington's face is bloodied, the camera zooms in on a beer can. After seeing the trailer, Whittington called the portrayal"inaccurate."
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