Dale Bumpers

Senators voting in the affirmative.

Abraham, Baucus, Bennett, Biden, Bingaman, Bond, Boxer, Bradley, Breaux, Bryan, Bumpers, Burns, Byrd, Campbell, Chafee, Cochran, Cohen, Conrad, DeWine, Dodd, Dole, Dorgan, Axon, Feinstein, Ford, Glenn, Gorton, Graham of Florida, Harkin, Hatch, Heflin, Hollings, Inouye, Jeffords, Johnston, Kassebaum, Kennedy, Carey of Nebraska, Carey of Massachusetts, Cole, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Lugar, Mack, McCain, McConnell, Mikulski, Mosley Braun, Moynihan, Murkowski, Murray, Pell, Pryor, Reed, Rob, Rockefeller, Roth, Simon, Simpson, Specter, Stevens, and Wellstone.

Mr. Sarbanes.

Mr. Sarbanes, aye.

I came from a small town, Franklin County.

We kind of had our own politician in Dale Bumpers.

He was kind of our person.

As I was growing up, he's who I related to.

but it, you know, as you said, it's not, it seems to not dawn on, uh, on a lot of people.

That you have to go where the people are, and not very many people are at these little Democrat gatherings.

I mean, Franklin County, home of Dale Bumpers, is just getting a little, like a new...

They've not even... really had a Democrat party.

But this is indicative of our contrariness.

We will happily vote for him and for J. William Fulbright or Dale Bumpers at the same time.

We see no problem with that whatsoever.

And today, you'd be shunned on the street, right, if you split your ticket that way.

And if Arkansas means regna populis, which I would hope that it does, because the county politics and the country that my grandfather put the uniform on for and served in meant he believed in regnant populace, then we need to do something.

We need to change the way this is functioning.

And this is the same kind of conversation we saw in Franklin County with the prison, right? Franklin County, which was the home of Dale Bumpers.

And so if the state that Dale represented in the Senate is to truly be represented then the people have to be given the option.

I think as we've covered him, he's known as a detail man.

His predecessor, Governor Pryor, was widely regarded as more of a conceptual thinker as an executive, as a manager, than his predecessor, Dale Bumpers, who, like Mr. Clinton is reported to be, was very much a detail man.

Governor Clinton, Governor Bumpers, I know could always be counted on to know precisely how many state vehicles were in the Arkansas fleet at any given time and how many professors in all the state supported colleges and universities had doctorates or above and Bill Clinton is supposedly

that sort of man.

Let's just kind of put this in context, though, because – After Faubus, you had Winrock, who was ambitious.

Yes.

Then you had Dale Bumpers.

Yes.

And it's like, well...

And then my man, Dale Bumpers, has the best response to that line-

...

in history.

She is indeed.

She is a damn good lawyer.

Dale Bumpers, Dale Bumpers-

There was, uh, several legislators in there.

It was a complete unknown, Dale Bumpers-

Mm-hmm

... who actually caused a stir and forced Faubus into a runoff, which sort of left Purcell, I guess you would call it a show horse.

One of these men will be the Democratic nominee and the next governor of the State of Arkansas.

The decision that I must now make is which of these two men will lead Arkansas in the right direction.

After having studied the platform of each candidate very carefully, I am convinced that Dale Bumpers more closely shares my views and my convictions.

And of course, bu- uh, as we discussed a couple of episodes ago, Dale Bumpers did win.

I also think it's a disadvantage for candidates, too, where, uh, this really helps, uh, you know, sharpen you as a candidate the more that you're able to face your opponent and really have to face tough questioning, and prepares you, uh, for really being able to defend, uh, defend your stances and be able to explain it as simply as possible.

Yeah, I think that's why we've had, Arkansas's had a history of, you know, some political giants here, w- like Bill Clinton, like Dale Bumpers, like David Pryor, and these were people who submitted themselves to questioning, submitted themselves to debates regularly, and you saw them improve over time.

You know, Asa Hutchinson, I think, is an example of that, where he went through multiple debates when he ran unsuccessfully for governor against, uh, Mike Beebe, and it gave a good chance to see where his philosophy was, where his ideology was, and I think probably made him a better, a better candidate when he ran for governor again eight years later.

And so I think, uh, that's part of the damage, too, is I think it hurts, it hurts voters, but I think it hurts candidates and our politics in general if you don't have that, you know, chance to really be able to have that exchange of ideas and really be able to put it up to the test.

So he had been, like I say, in the public eye.

And He really faced, and we mentioned this a week before last, when we were talking about Dale Bumpers.

You know, the 70s was a terrible decade for the economy.

Not good.

I think we can get the business of the state done in 60 days.

And I'm going to respectfully request that we hurry on with our business and get right down to work and do it as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

All right, a couple weeks ago, when we were talking about Dale Bumpers, we mentioned Betty Bumpers, his wife and partner in life.

And she was with Peace Links and had vaccination, you know, worked to get children in Arkansas vaccinated.