[Vision2020] "This One" is No Maverick!

[nickgier at roadrunner.com]

October 5, 2008 
The New York Times 
Who You Callin’ a Maverick? 
By JOHN SCHWARTZ 
 
There’s that word again: maverick. In Thursday’s vice-presidential debate, Gov. 
Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican candidate, used it to describe herself and 
her running mate, Senator John McCain, no fewer than six times, at one point 
calling him “the consummate maverick.” 
 
But to those who know the history of the word, applying it to Mr. McCain is a 
bit of a stretch — and to one Texas family in particular it is even a bit 
offensive. 
 
“I’m just enraged that McCain calls himself a maverick,” said Terrellita 
Maverick, 82, a San Antonio native who proudly carries the name of a family that 
has been known for its progressive politics since the 1600s, when an early 
ancestor in Boston got into trouble with the law over his agitation for the 
rights of indentured servants. 
 
In the 1800s, Samuel Augustus Maverick went to Texas and became known for not 
branding his cattle. He was more interested in keeping track of the land he 
owned than the livestock on it, Ms. Maverick said; unbranded cattle, then, were 
called “Maverick’s.” The name came to mean anyone who didn’t bear another’s 
brand. 
 
Sam Maverick’s grandson, Fontaine Maury Maverick, was a two-term congressman and 
a mayor of San Antonio who lost his mayoral re-election bid when conservatives 
labeled him a Communist. He served in the Roosevelt administration on the 
Smaller War Plants Corporation and is best known for another coinage. He came up 
with the term “gobbledygook” in frustration at the convoluted language of 
bureaucrats. 
 
This Maverick’s son, Maury Jr., was a firebrand civil libertarian and lawyer who 
defended draft resisters, atheists and others scorned by society. He served in 
the Texas Legislature during the McCarthy era and wrote fiery columns for The 
San Antonio Express-News. His final column, published on Feb. 2, 2003, just 
after he died at 82, was an attack on the coming war in Iraq. 
 
Terrellita Maverick, sister of Maury Jr., is a member emeritus of the board of 
the San Antonio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. 
 
Considering the family’s long history of association with liberalism and 
progressive ideals, it should come as no surprise that Ms. Maverick insists that 
John McCain, who has voted so often with his party, “is in no way a maverick, in 
uppercase or lowercase.” 
 
“It’s just incredible — the nerve! — to suggest that he’s not part of that 
Republican herd. Every time we hear it, all my children and I and all my family 
shrink a little and say, ‘Oh, my God, he said it again.’ ” 
 
“He’s a Republican,” she said. “He’s branded.”