Bumpers: Watch That Killer Smile

Unfashionable as it has become, the word charisma may have to be revived to describe Arkansas' new Senator Dale Bumpers, 49. He is so charismatic, in fact, that a lot of people, to their sorrow, have had trouble taking him seriously. "Dandy Dale" they have called him, "the man with one speech, a shoeshine and a smile." But the smile has turned out to be deadly for his opponents, who never quite knew what hit them, so disarming was the weapon. Today, Bumpers is considered the most promising politician in the South--a region that, as it moderates its once extremist politics, is fast rejoining the mainstream of the Democratic Party.

Coming from political nowhere in 1970, the likable lawyer from the hills of Arkansas surprised everybody by defeating former Governor Orval Faubus in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. He then trounced the Republican incumbent, the late Winthrop Rockefeller. He easily won a second term in 1972 and then toppled the Senate's Foreign Relations Chairman J. William Fulbright in the primary last spring. He collected 85% of the vote last week against his outclassed G.O.P. opponent, John Harris Jones.

Bumpers' campaign style is awesome, even in the tall-tale-loving, flesh-pressing South. He did not just shake a voter's hand and pass on. He found out the man's name, rolled it over his tongue a few times, inquired about his relatives and, more often than not, produced a better-than-average anecdote about a mutual acquaintance. He was careful to stick to his political ground rules: never attack an opponent, never start an argument, never take a stand on an issue when it can be avoided.

With this breezy approach to his political duties, Bumpers might be expected to be an indifferent administrator. On the contrary, he compiled one of the best records as Governor in Arkansas history. During his two terms, he reorganized the state government into more efficient cabinet units at a saving of $235 million. At the same time, he raised teachers' salaries by $2,000 a year, established a statewide community-college program, increased the number of blacks employed by the state government from 7.4% to 19%.

Bumpers decided to run for the Senate partly for financial reasons. He and his wife Betty have three children; one daughter has a serious spinal condition. As a Senator he will make $42,500 a year instead of the penurious Arkansas Governor's salary of $10,000. Beyond that, he is intensely ambitious, and it is presumed that he wants to be nothing less than President. A few years ago, that would have been an impossible dream for a Southerner, but no longer.

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