Word: bentsen
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Young Bentsen was a quick study and moved nimbly. At 21, he graduated from the University of Texas law school. That same year he enlisted in the Army, later flew 50 missions over Europe as a bomber pilot, and was shot down twice. While on leave, he married a Texas model, Beryl Ann; they have three children. Mustered out as a major at 24, Bentsen was elected the youngest county judge in Texas. In 1948, he ran successfully for the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the youngest member. He impressed a fellow Texan, Speaker Sam Rayburn, who included Bentsen...
Everybody's second choice. That seems to be the presidential strategy of Senator Lloyd M. Bentsen, 54, who has plans of emerging as the compromise nominee after the front runners falter and the Democratic Convention is deadlocked. A multimillionaire Texas businessman who is not given to quixotic pursuits, Bentsen has tried to hug the middle of the road more closely than any other candidate. A wobble either to the left or the right makes him distinctly uneasy. "Others are trying to move toward the middle of the party," he says. "But I don't have to move...
Pearly Smooth. The problem with occupying the middle so snugly is that a candidate becomes, well, middling. Bentsen does little to attract or repel. Mainly, he tries to soothe with an approach that is pearly smooth and a bit soporific. "He dreams dreams but doesn't chase rainbows," was an early campaign slogan. The result is a rather colorless campaign, though one that exudes competence. Bentsen seems all but devoid of regional or personal quirks. His urbane performance gives no clues that he is a Texan. Understated and restrained, he manages to conceal much of the inner man from...
...Bentsen likes to say that he speaks without a Texas accent because his forebears came from Denmark by way of South Dakota. But his family fortune definitely speaks the language of Texas. His father, Lloyd Bentsen Sr., and his Uncle Elmer started buying land and reselling it in ways that brought accusations, though little proof, of shady business practices. From real estate, the family moved into farming, cattle raising, oil drilling, banking. Today Bentsen Sr. is worth an estimated $50 million. The candidate puts his own assets at $2.3 million, all of it currently placed in a blind trust...
...motion picture industry's Jack Valenti moved to the tennis courts. He perfected something he called "a top-spin backhand," and not even Jaws gave him the thrill he got from beating Presidential Contenders Birch Bayh and Lloyd Bentsen. It may be an indication of political things to come. One of the world's famous lawyers, Edward Bennett Williams, called the unusual calm "a return to abnormality." His view is that the bizarre has become the norm and such letdowns as we are now experiencing will continue to be the unusual...