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AUSTIN, Texas (CNN) -- Garry Mauro will never forget that night in 1972 when he says Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham ignored the post-election party surrounding them, instead preferring to huddle in a corner and talk about changing the future.

Hillary and Bill Clinton worked on George McGovern's 1972 campaign in Texas before they wed in 1975. The young then-unmarried couple, attending Yale Law, weren't interested in letting off steam with their Democratic colleagues in Austin, Texas, according to Mauro, who's now a strategist with Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

The three were among a group of Young Turk Democrats working that summer to register voters in Texas. The Clintons had just started dating, said Mauro, who years later became Texas land commissioner. "They obviously had a lot of respect for each other, and they would spend hours talking to each other."

Mauro recalls the night it was all over in 1972, after Democrat George McGovern lost to Republican Richard Nixon. He says he and the Clintons decided to let loose in lively Austin, paying $1.50 to see a Texas singer by the name of Willie Nelson before rambling back to a colleague's tiny apartment.

"It was 2 o'clock in the morning, and everybody else had probably had too much to drink, except for Bill and Hillary -- who were drinking [soda] and having this intense discussion about the issues," said Mauro. "I'm absolutely certain that 99 percent of what they were talking about was changing things in the future."