From Poverty To Political Legend: Arkansas’s Dale Bumpers

Born and raised in a tiny rural Arkansas town, Dale Bumpers was drawn at a very early age into public service, by his encouraging father.

Service in the Marine Corps during World War II was followed by law school, and any illustrious legal career. He was, as he called his 2003 memoir, The Best Lawyer in a One-Lawyer Town.

His political career began in 1970, when he ran successfully for governor of Arkansas. He then flirted with the idea of running for president,but ran for Senate, and served there for the next 24 years.

A fiscally conservative Democrat, Bumpers earned a reputation as a powerful and influential Senator.

In one of his most memorable Senate moments, Bumpers delivered a closing argument in the Bill Clinton impeachment trial.

In 2003, four years after leaving public office, Bumpers published his memoir, and that’s when I met him. So here now, from 2003, Senator Dale Bumpers.

Dale Bumpers died on New Year’s Day 2016. He was 90.


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