It's funny where connections come up. This evening, while eating dinner, I was flipping through a cookbook put out by the Denison (Texas) Junior League (or somesuch; I don't remember if it was exactly a Junior League group). It's a good cookbook, and unfortunately (I think) out of print. For a while it was my default wedding-gift to faraway couples who liked to cook.

Anyway - they have a lot of little historical notes in the book, which is one reason I like it. One of the notes was titled, "Pass the biscuits, Pappy" and was about Pappy O'Daniel, the former governor of Texas (late 30s - early 40s).

And I thought, man, that sounds familiar. Really familiar. The movie HAD to be using him as a template for the character.

A quick check of Wikipedia (which I admit is not the definitive resource and can be wrong) reveals that it is, in fact, correct. Heh. I never made that connection before. (Truth be told - before I moved here I knew nothing of the existence of Pappy O'Daniel.)

I have to say he was one of my favorite characters in the movie - but then I generally like Charles Durning in anything he does.

I realize I know little of O'Daniel - the real one - beyond that he had a funny tagline and did have a band following him around and was involved with the milling business. But it seems to me somehow, in the modern soundbite world, politicians are just a whole lot less interesting.

(Well, unless you start looking at fringe candidates, but some of them are more alarming than interesting.)