Bumpers Says He Won’t Run for President

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. —  U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.) said Friday he won’t be a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination next year.

“I have decided that I will not be a candidate in ‘88,” Bumpers was quoted as saying in a statement telephoned by an aide, Matt James.

Bumpers, who won election last year to his third six-year Senate term, also flirted in 1983 with running for the nomination the next year. He cited a lack of money and organization when he said he would not run then.

Bumpers, 61, said that he “felt that I had a good chance in a wide-open field” and was “bolstered by support of colleagues in the Senate and by other political and financial pledges.”

However, he said, a U.S. senator can work toward many of the same goals that the President works toward.

“So I’ll turn instead to other challenges. I look forward to being a senior member of the United States Senate and working with a new Democratic President,” he said in his statement.

Bumpers underwent knee surgery in mid-February to correct an old tennis injury. He had said that recuperation from the surgery would be a factor in his decision about running. Lately, he has been walking with a cane.

In the statement, Bumpers said the personal factor “weighed heaviest of all, because a campaign means a total disruption of one’s life and the life of his family. It would mean a total disruption of the closeness my family has cherished.”

Bumpers and his wife, Betty, have three children, the youngest of whom is in her mid-20s.

Bumpers was virtually unknown in Arkansas politics in 1970 when he sought the Democratic nomination for governor and defeated former six-term Gov. Orval E. Faubus, who was trying to make a comeback after a four-year absence from office.

In the general election, Bumpers defeated the incumbent governor, multi-millionaire Winthrop Rockefeller.

After two terms as governor, Bumpers was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1974, defeating 30-year veteran J. William Fulbright, then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in the Democratic primary. He won 85% of the vote in the general election.