LITTLE ROCK — Dale Bumpers was celebrated the other night by, among others, Mike Beebe.
The occasion was a reception attended by maybe 100 to 125 people constituting something of an aging center-left elite of Arkansas. The point was to mark the gift by Bumpers to the Arkansas Studies Institute of his governor’s papers from 1971 to 1975.
Beebe, who seems to approximate a Bumpers-like quality in governing, public speaking, popularity and healthy ego, formally introduced the 86-year-old former governor and U.S. senator. He did so in the knowing and good-natured way of an adoring and respectful (if candidly clear-eyed) descendent, disciple and protege.
Beebe said that David Pryor, who had preceded him to the podium, behaved as if he was lucky merely to be in the same room with such a distinguished gathering. He quipped that Bumpers, on the other hand, behaved as if the distinguished gathering was lucky to be in the same room with him.
It is a common observation among longtime Arkansas political insiders that Pryor and Bumpers, best friends, form something of an odd couple. Pryor’s style is “aw, shucks.” Bumpers’ style is, shall we say, more transparently self-assured.
As Bumpers and Beebe told modestly embellished stories, delivered well-timed punch lines and reached for a casual eloquence befitting the occasion, I was struck that these men spanned the modernizing and progressive era of Arkansas politics.
Note the use of the past tense-spanned.
Bumpers and Beebe overlap by virtue of Bumpers’ having chosen in 1974 to appoint Beebe, then but 27 and a lawyer in a politically well-connected Searcy firm, to the board of trustees of Beebe’s very recent alma mater, Arkansas State University.
They have come to epitomize a competent left-of-center essence and an articulate, engaging and charismatic style. Now both of those-that essence and that style-seem to be dying in the ongoing metamorphosis of Arkansas.
Today the premium gets put on a rigidly banal conservatism. John Boozman needn’t possess evident retail political talent or soaring oratory or even command of issues. He needs only to vote as Mitch McConnell tells him.
Bumpers would tangle on the floor of the Senate over regional differences with the otherwise like-minded Ted Kennedy. Can anyone imagine Boozman tangling on the floor with McConnell?
It was Bumpers, availing himself of the foundation laid by Winthrop Rockefeller, who, as governor, brought New South progressivism to Arkansas. Now it is Beebe, coming along behind like-minded stalwarts David Pryor and Bill Clinton, who holds Arkansas tenuously in the fading remnants.
Bumpers and Beebe cling to the anachronistic notion famously impressed on Bumpers by his father-and cited by Bumpers again this very evening-that politics is a noble profession. Today’s candidates and office-holders tend to assail as a despicable profession the one they try so desperately to get in or stay in.
Bumpers said he’d told a New York Times reporter a couple of weeks ago that his proudest accomplishment in public service was voting against 38 attempts to amend the Constitution. He said his father always told him the Constitution was the greatest human document ever written, a work of sheer genius by our nation’s founders.
The Times reporter was working on Bumpers’ obituary-far in advance, we can hope. The passing of a golden era is sad enough without losing the occasional company of the man who launched it.
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John Brummett is a regular columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial, Pages 89 on 10/30/2011