Former Sen. Dale Bumpers dies at 90

[LiberalArkie]

1. I thought I would also add this in from the article.

The victory established Bumpers as a political giant killer. In the course of his 28-year career, he defeated four men who had served or would serve as governor—Faubus, Rockefeller, Mike Huckabee (in a 1992 Senate race) and Asa Hutchinson (in a 1986 Senate race), all by large margins, in addition to one of the state's most distinguished and longest-serving senators, J. William Fulbright.

Two rare characteristics marked the Bumpers political phenomenon. He didn't criticize his political opponents or run negative ads about them because his father thought such conduct was unseemly, and he followed his own, usually liberal, instincts as both governor and senator, disregarding polls or conventional wisdom about what politicians could do in a deeply conservative electorate. Votes for taxes, civil rights, unrestrained free speech and even returning the Panama Canal to Panama barely diminished his popularity.