by Ed Bethune
18
ALMOST A JUDGE
For everything you have missed, you have gained something else
and for everything you gain, you lose something.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
In early 1976, President Gerald Ford nominated me to be a federal district court judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas. At the time it was standard practice for the American Bar Association (ABA) to conduct a background investigation of all nominees, and if a nominee was declared unqualified or the bar association failed to make a recommendation, the nomination was dead on arrival in the United States Senate. Liberals, mostly Democrats, dominated the ABA investigative committee. I was rated “A v,” the highest rating a lawyer can get in the Martindale-Hubbell legal directory, but there was still some concern that the committee might torpedo my nomination. Those fears were unfounded. My overall record was good and I had worked hard to promote the American Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice in Arkansas and all across the country. The committee gave me a “qualified” rating. My fate was in the hands of the United States Senate, controlled by Democrats.
I had worked with Senator John McClellan when I chaired the Criminal Code Revision Commission. He asked me to come see him in Washington, D. C., and when we met, he told me that he appreciated what I had done to upgrade the criminal process and that he intended to fully support my nomination. Senator Dale Bumpers, our junior senator, would not declare whether he was going to support me or not. The nomination languished as the 1976 presidential campaign—Jimmy Carter versus Gerald Ford—heated up. Soon it was apparent that Dale Bumpers was delaying the confirmation process, and finally he admitted he was holding it up until after the presidential election. If Ford won, the Senate would confirm me, but if Carter won, he would select a new nominee.
My law practice suffered during the waiting period. For the best part of 1976, prospective clients took their business else-where; after all, I was about to become a federal judge. There were several news stories about my nomination during the presidential campaign. Political observers were saying I, if confirmed, would be one of the youngest, if not the youngest federal judge in the country. Lana did not care about setting such records. On the contrary, she was concerned that the judgeship would not be a good thing for me. She kept telling me, “If you get it you might become a pontifical son of a bitch, like all the rest of them.” Her concern was premature. President Ford lost the presidency to Jimmy Carter and my nomination to be a federal judge died on the vine.
We received hundreds of calls and letters from people who felt I had gotten a raw deal and that it was uncharacteristic for Bumpers to do what he did. I appreciated their support, but I never saw it that way. Dale Bumpers did a partisan thing, but it was well within his prerogative as a United States senator.
Once again I buried myself in my law practice. The publicity about the judgeship hurt my law practice, but things picked up when people realized that I was not going to be a judge after all.
19
RUNNING FOR CONGRESS
One person can make a difference and every person should try.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
In 1974, Judy Petty, a dynamic young woman who had served as Winthrop Rockefeller’s administrative assistant when he was governor, decided to challenge Congressman Wilbur Mills for the Second District congressional seat. It was an uphill battle, but Judy ran an extraordinary campaign and made a good showing for a Republican running in a solidly Democratic district.
She focused on contributions that Congressman Mills received during his brief run for president in 1972, specifically an illegal $75,000 contribution he received from the Associated Milk Producers. Judy began referring to Wilbur as “Wilbur Milk,” saying he was “standing with his feet planted in sour milk.” An Old Guard veteran, state Senator Guy “Mutt” Jones of Conway was so putout with her that he refused to let Judy ride in a car in the Faulkner County parade. Judy—a gutsy woman—defiantly walked in the parade and there was nothing Mutt could do about it. She made him look like a fool.
It was a terrible year to run as a Republican. President Richard Nixon resigned the presidency on August 9, 1974 because of the Watergate scandal. Judy was running hard, but she was not making much progress.
Then, on October 9, a news story broke that shocked the political world. The U. S. Park Police in Washington, D. C. stopped Wilbur’s car at 2:00 a.m. because his driver had not turned on the car’s lights. When the police approached the car, Fanne Foxe, a thirty-eight-year-old stripper also known as the Argentine Firecracker bolted from the car and jumped into the nearby Tidal Basin in an attempt to escape. Wilbur was intoxicated and his face appeared scratched. It later developed that Wilbur frequented The Silver Slipper, a Washington nightclub where Foxe performed.
On Election Day, November 5, 1974, Mills won all nine counties of the Second District, as he had always done. Petty got around forty-six percent in Saline and Pulaski counties, but overall she only got forty-one percent of the votes cast district-wide. Wilbur had easily defeated his Republican opponent, but his political career was over and he knew it.
In late 1975 Wilbur Mills announced his retirement, and Jim Guy Tucker, who had been attorney general for three years, floated a trial balloon that he was going to run for the Second District seat. He called me to see if I had any plans to run because in our race for attorney general in 1972, I had carried Pulaski and White counties. Tucker knew that I might beat him in a race confined to the nine counties comprising the Second District. I had not thought about politics since losing the race for attorney general, but his call made me realize that I might do well in a race for the Second District congressional seat. Whoever carried Pulaski and White counties—the two largest counties in the district—would most likely win the seat. The other counties were Cleburne, Arkansas, Lonoke, Saline, Conway, Faulkner, and Prairie. Even though I might have done well, I did not want to run. It was that simple. I told Jim Guy I had no intention to get into the race, and wished him well. Shortly thereafter, Jim Guy announced his candidacy. He easily won the race and took his seat in Congress in January of 1977.
On November 28, 1977, Senator John McClellan died at age eighty-one after having served thirty-four years in the United States Senate. Governor David Pryor appointed Kaneaster Hodges, Jr. of Newport to fill the vacancy. According to the Arkansas Constitution, Kaneaster, an appointee, could not run to succeed himself. Jim Guy Tucker, still in his first year in the U. S. House of Representatives, announced that he was going to run for the U. S. Senate. He would face Governor David Pryor and several others in the Democrat primary. The Second District congressional seat would be open in the 1978 election cycle.
The leaders of the Arkansas Republican party sought me out. They argued that it was going to be a good year for Republican candidates. Jimmy Carter was in the second year of his presidency. The economy was suffering and liberal Democrats were complicating things for Carter, a mild-mannered Southerner. The Arkansas Republicans, led by Joel Anderson who later became chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, cited the vote totals I had accumulated against Tucker in 1972 in White and Pulaski counties. They theorized that I could use that base to win the Second District seat.
Lana and I started weighing the pros and cons of entering the race for Congress. My law practice was successful. Robert Edwards, a young lawyer in Searcy who had served as deputy prosecuting attorney during the Rodgers murder trial, had joined me in the practice of law, so I had someone to keep the law office going should I decide to get in the race. Lana was teaching high school English, but she would be through with that in June. Our kids were stable and doing well in school. We put out the word that we were seriously considering the race and our telephone began to ring. Most of our friends and political supporters encouraged us to do it but some said they did not believe a Republican could win in the Second District.
We enjoyed the encouragement, but the negative comments began to take their toll,
which was normal given our hard-fought losing effort for attorney general just six years earlier. We started thinking about the good life we had in Searcy. Our kids were doing fine and we were in our dream home on the golf course. Who needed the pain and anguish that was likely to come from an attempt to win a congressional seat, one not held by a Republican for a hundred and four years, since Reconstruction?
We backed out. I called Joel Anderson and told him our decision. He asked if I had put out a news release to that effect and I said no. It was a Friday night, but Joel asked me if I would at least extend him the courtesy of letting him drive to Searcy to visit with me about my decision. I owed him that much, so I agreed to keep our decision private for a few days. Meanwhile, Joel and the party leaders got out the heavy artillery. They called Washington and got Congressman Guy Vander Jagt, chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC), to give me a call. He promised that his committee would fully support my campaign if we changed our mind and decided to run. Next, they asked President Ford to give me a call, which he did. When his call came, I was at home with Lana. I was taken aback to be receiving a call from President Ford, but I was ready with my best lines. After he made the pitch for me to run, I gave him all the reasons we had decided not to run. I told him how we had built our new home, how we had scratched our way through college and law school, and how comfortable our kids were in Searcy. He listened patiently but I could tell I had not persuaded him. Having saved my best line for last, I said, “Besides, Mr. President, what can one man do?” President Ford did not hesitate, he said, “Now Ed, what if everyone said that?” It was at that moment that I knew I was going to get in the race for Congress. When I hung up, I asked myself what is it about a call to duty that has always cut through my selfishness, overriding the Vermilye notion that all I should ever strive for is a “good lettin’ alone.”
A few days later, I announced that I would be a Republican candidate for the United States House of Representative in the Second District of Arkansas.
Shortly after I entered the race, the NRCC conducted a thorough benchmark survey to determine the thinking of voters in the Second District of Arkansas. We learned that my name identification was only in the high teens, but that did not surprise us. It had been six years since my campaign for attorney general. What did surprise me was the response when the pollsters asked people to say what they expected of their congressional representative. The survey posed two choices: “Should a congressman go to Washington to study and vote on the great issues of the day? Or, should a congressman go to Washington and do what he can to take care of his constituents?” By a five to one margin, the respondents in the benchmark survey said a congressman should take care of his constituents.
I had lived my life believing that the government, “they” and “them” in Vermilye parlance, was the enemy. Now I learned that, if elected, my constituents would want me as their main link to the government to take care of them. Was I the right person to do that? I rationalized—of necessity—that the people were not saying that I should get money or benefits for them, but that I should protect them from the heavy hand of government. For that role, I was perfectly suited.
We rented an old grey-stone house on West Third Street in Little Rock for our campaign headquarters. Lana and I had a number of friends—Democrats and Independents—who promised to help. We did not want to scare them off so we decided to purge the office of all partisan signs. Unfortunately, the word did not get to my longtime political ally and friend, the feisty redhead, Phyllis Kincannon. On the day we moved into the headquarters, Phyllis arrived at 9:00 a.m. sharp with a dozen hardcore Republican women in full battle dress, ready for action. They were wearing GOP elephant earrings, elephant bracelets, elephant necklaces, and a wide assortment of Republican apparel and campaign paraphernalia from battles past. There were “Nixon-Agnew” buttons, “I Like Ike” pins, and Goldwater “In Your Heart You Know He’s Right” badges. It took some real diplomacy to get out of that mess, but Phyllis helped me do it.
The Democrats had an all-star cast running for their nomination. Cecil Alexander of Heber Springs was the speaker of the state House of Representatives; Stanley Russ of Conway was an important state senator representing Faulkner County; Dale Cowling of Little Rock was a well-known Baptist preacher, and Doug Brandon of Little Rock chaired the Revenue and Taxation Committee of the Arkansas House of Representatives. Cecil and Doug led in the preferential primary, and, since neither got fifty percent of the vote, a runoff was required. The runoff was a spirited contest with Doug Brandon emerging victorious, but Cecil’s supporters, particularly those from Cleburne County, his home county, were upset that Cecil had lost. Many Alexander and Russ supporters decided to back me. They felt that Doug had an unfair advantage because he was from heavily populated Pulaski County.
The NRCC took another poll after the Democratic runoff to see where we stood. It came back showing Doug Brandon, Democrat, from Little Rock at seventy-two percent. Ed Bethune, Republican, from Searcy was at sixteen percent. It was early June. There was plenty of time, but we had a lot of ground to make up and we were campaigning in a district that had no Republican officeholders at any level of government, not even a constable or a justice of the peace. The political ground was hard and Democrats gleefully used their power to make life miserable for Republicans.
One night after the Democrat nomination, I went to a wellattended North Pulaski County political event. My opponent, Doug Brandon, had a scheduling conflict so he was not present. The master of ceremonies, a big time Democrat, did everything he could to ignore my presence. He invited every Democrat candidate, even those running for justice of the peace, to speak. Finally, when there were no other Democrat candidates, he called on me. Almost as an afterthought, he said, “Oh, we also have a candidate for Congress here tonight.” The event had gone on for hours and everyone was tired. People just wanted to go home, but I could not afford to pass up such an opportunity. When I rose to speak I heard a faint groan, so I said, “I’m Ed Bethune from Searcy and I’m running for Congress. I want you to remember me for two things: First, I never thought I would live to see the day when a head of lettuce would cost $1.25. Second, I made the shortest speech here tonight!” As I sat down, I got a rousing round of applause, cheers, and a standing ovation. The next day my speech was the only speech mentioned in the statewide newspapers.
Political campaigns are always collective efforts. From the outset we worked as hard as we could, but after a few weeks, it was apparent that the campaign was destined to fail for lack of leadership. I was an experienced candidate but I was also busy winding down my law practice. Lana needed to finish the spring term at Searcy High School. She would not be free to work full time on the campaign until June. She was doing all she could and I was giving it my all, but every campaign needs a polestar and if we didn’t find one soon our campaign would be so screwed up by June that we would never be able to put it together. I invited my longtime friend E. D. Yancey to lunch and told him that I could and would win the seat if I had someone like him to chair my campaign. To my surprise he did not say no. He said he felt the race was important and that he would think about it. The next day he called me and told me he was going to take a leave of absence from his job as a vice president of First Security Bank in Searcy, without pay, and that he would do everything he could to help me win the race.
E. D. called every friend either of us ever had to raise money and gain support. It was slow going at first, but he was just what we needed, particularly since Lana could not campaign full time until June and I, the candidate, could not also manage the campaign. Together with E. D., we persevered and by the time we got to September, we had laid a good foundation. Throughout the summer months, we gained traction but struggled to convince the pundits that we could win. Then, magically, our campaign took off about the time everyone was sending their kids back to school. We raised a total of $200,000 in September and October, and a goodly amount of that was from groundwork tha
t Joel Anderson had done months earlier as my Political Action Committee fundraiser. The late influx of money was exactly what we needed to pay our bills and buy the all-important last minute television ads. Doug Brandon had more money, but we had enough. We closed the gap and even though we never led in any poll (even our own internal calling showed us down by at least eight percent), we could sense that things were going our way.
Early in the campaign I embraced the Kemp-Roth tax cut proposal, and the new theory of supply side economics. In every speech I hammered home why we needed to cut spending and reduce taxes. Kemp-Roth was a dramatic proposal that would cut marginal tax rates by thirty percent. The country needed economic growth, jobs, and more jobs. It was the perfect message at the perfect political moment.
As we got into the last week of the campaign, I put out a radio ad that featured a recording of my opponent saying he did not want to discuss the issues for fear of making voters mad and losing votes. In my mind, the words he spoke supported my ongoing contention that he was saying different things to different groups. I had accused him of political doublespeak and this was a chance to prove my point. I offered proof that he was talking about the need to have a moratorium on federal spending even as he was sending direct mail pieces to special interest groups saying that he would support more spending for their programs. There were many other examples, but I was particularly concerned about conflicting comments he had made to black and white voters on the volatile school busing issue.
As soon as the radio ad with his voice in it started running, Doug Brandon claimed that I had taken him out of context and that it was unfair to run the excerpt of his voice in a political advertisement. He said I should release the entire tape recording because it would prove that I took him out of context. It developed into quite a controversy so I called a news conference to deny his allegation and made a big scene of giving the entire tape recording to John Brummett and Steele Hays, reporters for the liberal Arkansas Gazette. I said I wanted the tape reviewed by the newspaper that was against me. Brummett and Hays wrote a lengthy front-page story about the issue, complete with pictures. Their story did not say that I had taken Brandon out of context, nor did it report that I had not taken him out of context. In my judgment, the inconclusive story vindicated me but the next morning I saw Cliff Jackson, a longtime political friend, who disagreed. He said, “Ed, you have blown the race for Congress.”