Doug Harlan

Douglas Sloan Harlan, known as Doug Harlan (1943 – November 8, 2008), was a lawyer, Republican political consultant, journalist, scholar, educator, and local official from San Antonio, Texas.

Harlan graduated in 1964 from Rice University in Houston and received a master's degree from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He then procured a Ph.D. in political science in 1968 from the University of Texas at Austin. The university published his dissertation Party and Campaign in a Congressional Election: A Case Study of Reciprocal Dependency.

In 1974, he received a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law in Austin.

Harlan was an early supporter of US Senator John Tower, whom he worked successfully to re-elect in 1966. The same year, Harlan campaigned for Republican D. C. Norwood of Wichita Falls in Texas's 13th congressional district, but the incumbent DemocratGraham B. Purcell, Jr., won again. In 1970, he worked in the unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign waged by Tower's preferred candidate, Republican Paul Eggers of Dallas against the incumbent Democrat Preston Smith of Lubbock. In 1972 and 1974, he waged his own unsuccessful races for Texas's 21st congressional district seat in the United States House of Representatives. He polled 43 percent in the race against Democrat O. C. Fisher of Junction, Texas. Paul Burka of Texas Monthly said that Harlan's success against Fisher was "one of the first indications that the dominance of the rural conservative Democrats in Texas politics could not be sustained."

After he underwent heart surgery, Fisher retired after fifteen terms in 1974. The Democrats nominated Bob Krueger as their candidate. Coincidentally, Krueger had also obtained a master's degree from Duke and had been on the English language faculty there before he returned to New Braunfels to run for Congress. Krueger set a record for spending in a congressional race, but Harlan polled just over 45 percent of the ballots cast.

As in 1972, Harlan could not raise the funds required for the campaign and so he placed volunteers who waved placards at passing motorists to publicize his candidacy. Harlan is considered a transitional figure in the political move of Texas from the Democrats to the Republicans, a process that was completed by the beginning of the 21st century.

From 1980 to 2006, Harlan was a principal with his brother, Wendell Price Harlan (born 1940), then of Mena, Arkansas, in the firm Harlan & Harlan.

He was a long-time political contributor to such publications as Texas Monthly, the Texas Observer, The American Journal of Criminal Law, The Texas Bar Journal, The Ripon Forum, a voice of Moderate Republicans, and several newspapers, including a Sunday column for the former San Antonio Light.

Harlan's writing focused on divisions within the Texas Republican Party, such as those between Governor Bill Clements and State Representative Ray Hutchison in their 1978 primary competition and between George HW Bush and the more conservative party members, who supported Ronald Reagan in 1976 and 1980.

Harlan was a chancellor of the Alamo Community College District and a justice of the peace for Precinct 3 in Bexar County. He was an avid outdoorsman. He established an informal networking group with an unusual name, "Camp Wannameetagop", which beginning in 1979 met at Camp Allen near Brenham, Texas. Among those who participated in the group were Cyndi Taylor Krier, a former state senator and county judge of Bexar County; Chase Untermeyer, a former state representative and aide to the first George Bush, both as vice president and as president; Kay Bailey Hutchison, the former US senator; Jeff Wentworth, former representative and state senator and current justice of the peace, and Ed Emmett, the county judge of Harris County.

Harlan died in San Antonio at 65 after a lengthy struggle against multiple system atrophy, an incurable and untreatable ailment. His passing came three days after the 2008 presidential election. His burial site is unknown.

Harlan donated $1.1 million to establish at Rice University the Douglas S. Harlan Program in State Elections, Campaigns and Politics. The program co-ordinates scholars from various disciplines. Its components include an archives collection, research, and outreach. Another source claims that the Harlan contribution to the program was $2.2 million.