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'''Dale Leon Bumpers''' (born 1925) is a retired [[Democatic]] politician from the U.S. state of [[Arkansas]]. He was governor of his state from 1971 to 1975 and U.S. senator from 1975 until his retirement in 1999.
A native of Charleston in Franklin County in western Arkansas, Bumpers served in the [[United States Marine Corps]] during [[World War II]]. He graduated from [[Northwestern University]] in Evanston, [[Illinois]], and was a long-time admirer of [[Adlai Stevenson]]. He served as the Charleston city attorney and briefly as a special justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court.
In 1970, the politically unknown Bumpers defeated former Governor [[Orval. E. Faubus]] in the Democratic gubernatorial primary runoff election. Then by a wide margin he unseated the incumbent [[Republican]] Governor [[Winthrop Rockefeller]]. After four years as governor, he was succeeded by fellow Democrat [[David Pryor]]. In 1974, Bumpers won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate by a wide margin over incumbent [[J. William Fulbright]], known for his opposition to the [[Vietnam War]]. Thereafter, Bumpers was elected to the Senate again in 1980, 1986, when he defeated Republican [[Asa Hutchinson]], and in 1992, when he toppled future Governor [[Mike Huckabee]]. Bumpers stepped down from the Senate in 1999 and was succeeded by the Democrat [[Blanche Lincoln]].
Like Fulbright his predecessor and intraparty rival, Bumpers was a long-time admirer of [[U.S. President]] [[Bill Clinton]]. In 1999, as a former senator, Bumpers delivered an impassioned speech before the Senate in successful opposition to the [[impeachment]] of Clinton on grounds of [[perjury]] and [[obstruction of justice]].
Bumpers and his wife, the former Betty Flanagan,, also a defender of various [[liberal]] causes, are retired in Charleston, Arkansas.
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[[Category:Governors of Arkansas]]
[[Category:Former United States Senators]]
[[Category:Politicians]]
[[Category:Arkansas]]
[[Category:Lawyers]]