In 1949 – around the time the Berlin airlift was ending, Britain was winding down clothes-rationing and George Orwell was publishing 1984 – the townspeople of Texas took a momentous step of their own. They elected Hilmar Moore to the job of Mayor.
Mr Moore, a rancher and businessman, has remained in office ever since, making him almost certainly the longest-serving elected official in the United States.
And he is one of only a few living persons seen standing beside a statue of himself. The merchants of Richmond recently paid for a slightly-larger-than-life bronze likeness of the mayor, which stands proudly just a short distance from the front door of his office.
Mr Moore, a frugal guardian of the public purse, is quick to point out that the statue did not cost a cent of local taxpayers money.
Do the most with the money
Harry Truman was just beginning his second term as president when Mr Moore was first elected and America is about to inaugurate its 12th President since then.
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Mr Moore, an Independent in a largely Republican state, is as impressed by President-elect Barack Obama’s intelligence and fluency as he is scathing of what he sees as the reckless adventurism of his fellow Texan George W Bush in Iraq.
He has had time to think about the essence of government and over the years.
And he has boiled it down to this: “Do the most good you can for the most people, with the money you have.”
That is a kind of catechism for pragmatists.
Controversial bail-outs
In Campaign 2008 America essentially rejected a familiar offering from Republicans – small government and smaller taxes – in favour of a rather different vision from Barack Obama, an intelligent technocrat who represents the belief that government, properly directed, can be a force for good.
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 I’d rather have trickle-down prosperity than trickle-up poverty  Businessman Frank Jordan
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Two factors helped him.
First, President Bush was not very good at producing smaller government.
He did cut taxes, but if you do that without cutting spending at the same time you end up with huge budget deficits.
And then of course, during the sudden banking crisis, very few voices were raised in favour of letting every bank brought low by its own greed or folly simply go bust.
In the same way that there are no atheists in foxholes, it turns out there are not too many swashbuckling free-marketeers in recessions either.
Though in Texas there is some anger still at how the bail-outs were executed.
Congressman Ted Poe attacks the original concept of the banking bailout with the words: “small businesses, mom and pop grocery stores don’t get this break when they make bad financial decisions – they go out of business.
In contrast, he says, “the rich and famous Wall Street fat cats expect Joe Sixpack to buck it up and pay for all this nonsense”.
Crisis hit
Texas is still Texas and while Democrats can point to good returns in the presidential race in some key areas, including Houston, this is still a red state.
Texas remains a Republican state
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So there are still plenty of Republican voters who defend the ideas that underlie American conservative politics – even if none of them seem prepared to argue that Mr Bush has done a good job with the economy.
The businessman Frank Jordan, for example, speaking at a Chamber of Commerce lunch in the town of Liberty Texas, remains a stout defender of the philosophy behind “trickle-down” economics, which is the theory that if the state leaves money untaxed in the hands of wealthy private citizens then they will spend money and spread posterity.
“I’d rather,” he argues, “have trickle-down prosperity than trickle-up poverty.
“I don’t believe that the government has demonstrated that it does anything incredibly well, from education to welfare to anything other than the defence of the country.”
The bottom line in all of this is that Republicans lost the election for a whole variety of reasons: An unpopular outgoing president, a tired-looking candidate, and the iron fact that incumbent parties do not win during recessions.
But the circumstances of the moment were surely an overwhelming factor.
The depth of the financial crisis prompted even President Bush’s administration into planning to use vast amounts of state money in an extensive programme of intervention.
A voter could be forgiven for concluding that if state intervention is going to be the order of the day then you may as well elect a political party that believes in it, and a presidential candidate who can provide a thoughtful rationale for it.
Changing philosophy
The political scientist Bob Stein, who has been analysing the results of the election, has detected an interesting trend among the data that reflects the mood of the times.
“Attacking government per se is not going to advantage any candidate any more,” he says.
“People are going to want to know, ‘what are you going to do to fix it?’ and Obama simply was at the right place at the right time and was the most articulate of spokespersons on this.”
So this time around Texas remained defiantly Republican while the pendulum of American politics swung the other way.
There is no telling when the pendulum will move back.
But for now, outside the Lone Star State, America is a cold house for ideas of small government, small tax and limited state regulation.
Tags: airlift, America, Barack Obama, Berlin, Britain, budget deficit, businessman, chamber of commerce, conservative politics, Democrats, economic changes, education, financial crisis, government, Iraq, mayor, merchants, philosophy, republican state, small tax, smaller taxes, state regulation, technocrat, Texas, trickle-down
