HILADELPHIA - What's up with the Texans? They're behaving like Lutherans.
The 124-member delegation, here for the coronation of their dauphin, is positively demure by Lone Star standards. It's eerie.
They are light on the swagger, the chauvinism, the plumb weirdness that have made them seem a separate species of American ever since the thing at the Alamo didn't work out.
When asked about George W. Bush this week, they address like cyborgs his integrity, his vision, his outstanding track record as governor. They always refer to him in the third person, as ''governor.'' They never deviate from the program.
Nothing wrong with it, mind you, but that's the argot of consultants, not real people. Texans normally start on message and then wander off the reservation to opine about Nolan Ryan or ask you where you bought that belt. So what gives?
''We don't want to screw this up,'' explained Skipper Wallace, a fifth-generation Texan from Lampasas, northwest of Austin, with interests in cattle, sugar, restaurants, you name it. ''We want to win. It's that simple.''
Jim Ciccone, a delegation whip (and AT&T general counsel), added: ''Everybody's hungry. They want to win. They're putting aside policy issues for the sake of the party.''
While Texas has fielded potent congressional leaders for decades, it hasn't had a president since LBJ. It's time. LBJ, by the way, is a loaded proposition to this crowd. He was a Democrat. ''Don't you put us in the same category with him,'' snapped Betty Lou Martin, a Houston delegate.
While this rare Texas reserve may be smart politics, it's no fun. This convention is in desperate need of some pizazz, and Texans can normally be counted on to salvage a dud of a party. But all is not lost. Robert Pate, a Corpus Christi lawyer, promised a good show when Bush accepts his party's nomination tomorrow: ''You'll see it Thursday night. We'll be in uniform then.''
And that's some uniform: a shirt version of the Texas flag, complete with a prominent lone star on a background of red, white, and blue. The garment is as subdued as five-alarm chili.
Add to that a straw cowboy hat and a prized ''Bush for President'' pin, modeled after the Texas ranger shield, and you've got a Texas delegate primed for action.
Pate is already cleaned out of the pins. He has given away a half-dozen since Monday, because they are the pins to sport in Philadelphia this week. ''Somebody came up to me and said, `You're a Ranger, right?''' he said with a grin.
This is indeed the Lone Star apotheosis. ''It can't get any better than this,'' said Carole Ragland of League City.
The Texas contingent occupies the high ground in the hall, directly below the podium. The media hang on its every word, rather than ridiculing its new money. It gets treated particularly well around town.
The reserve can't last. Texans are bred to run high, wide, and handsome. ''We do brag too much. We need to learn humility,'' said Wallace, who believes not a word of what he had said. ''But it's based on performance. We're proud of what we've done.''
Unlike his father, George W. Bush radiates this ethos. That's why they like him there. ''One of his father's biggest problems was that he wasn't bold enough,'' Wallace said. ''The governor is not that way.''
Beneath the long, tall rhetoric is another truth that applies to Bush the younger: Texans look pathologically to the future. Representative Joe Barton of Arlington, north of Fort Worth, recalled that a Yankee journalist once asked a group of Texans what the best days in their business careers were.
One man replied, ''My best day is next Tuesday,'' the date he expected an oil deal to close. That, Barton said, tells you all about the state and its candidate.
Texans embrace their mythology as much as their future. In doing so, they perpetuate the stereotypes they profess to abhor. Never mind. Theirs is sacred soil. Could there be another delegation here that recites both the Pledge of Allegiance and the state Pledge of Allegiance, as the Texans did at breakfast Tuesday?
And why not? ''This is our 30 minutes of fame,'' said Skipper Wallace, who in typical Texas fashion doubled the usual 15 minutes allotted to most everyone else.
