Word: bentsen
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...Although Bentsen is proud of representing business interests, he likes to think of himself as a middle-of-the-road Senator willing to turn left when conviction or politics dictates. He has long been an advocate of civil rights: he opened his Houston hotel to blacks in 1963, before the law required integration and while other major hotels remained segregated. He was one of the few Southern House members to vote for repeal of the poll tax in 1949. Personal circumstances -- illness in his family -- have softened his view on the Government's role in social programs...
...Bentsen has never been a stirring speaker, and in his 1976 try at the presidency he had difficulty rousing crowds. In one campaign stop at the rodeo - grounds in Sikeston, Mo., even Minnie Pearl from the Grand Ole Opry could not overcome the lack of excitement generated by a Bentsen appearance. Some 150 people showed up, sitting in small clumps, a family here, a family there. The desultory clapping only emphasized the vastness of the grandstand and the paucity of the crowd. The second his stump speech was over, Bentsen strode angrily back to his car and shook the Missouri...
That occasioned Bentsen's biggest blunder in Washington. Shortly after he took over as chairman, Bentsen sent a letter to lobbyists and political-action committees, establishing a breakfast club. For a $10,000 fee, a lobbyist could have ham and eggs monthly with the Senator. Bentsen was just one of many Senators offering access for money in one of the many variations that hover this side of illegality. But the baldness of the approach and the fact that he had no real re-election challenge that required raising the money caused the Eggs McBentsen affair to unleash a storm...
John Kennedy would get a good chuckle out of today's reverence for the 1960 Boston-Austin political partnership meticulously reconstructed by Michael Dukakis with Lloyd Bentsen. Kennedy had planned a Boston-St. Louis axis, which doesn't even rhyme. He intended to run with Missouri's Stuart Symington...
Michael Dukakis tries to unite his party and define its postliberal soul. -- Confounding oddsmakers and stiff- arming Jesse Jackson, the Duke picks Texan Lloyd Bentsen as his running mate. -- Garry Wills on the rise of the moral manager. -- Calvin Trillin rediscovers Atlanta. -- Mimi Sheraton samples the city' s culinary charms. See NATION...