The Arkansas Rockefeller

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Tomorrow would have been Winthrop Rockefeller's 100th birthday.

It may seem inappropriate to refer to him — as my headline does — as "the Arkansas Rockefeller" — although that is the title of a book about Rockefeller that was written by a friend of mine, John Ward (the longtime editor of my hometown newspaper and my early mentor), more than 30 years ago.

Rockefeller was born in New York City, as were most of his siblings, but he put down roots in Arkansas.

Most people probably know the Rockefeller name. John D. Rockefeller Sr., Winthrop's grandfather, founded Standard Oil in 1870. Winthrop's father, John D. Rockefeller Jr., took over the family business and fortune and was well known for his philanthropic activities.

John D. Jr. had five sons, including Winthrop, and one daughter. They were high achievers. Winthrop's sister Abby remained mostly out of the public eye, but his brothers were captains of industry and financial and political leaders.

Compared to his sister and brothers, Winthrop may have been seen by many as the black sheep of the family. He attended Yale, but he didn't complete his degree work there. He was given the boot for misbehavior.

Winthrop was decorated for his service in World War II and achieved the rank of colonel, but perhaps he felt a need to make his mark someplace else, someplace far away from his family.

Arkansas may have met all of his requirements. No other Rockefeller (to my knowledge) ever had any influence on life in Arkansas — other than, perhaps, the original John D. and his petroleum business. Anyway, Winthrop moved there in 1953 and established a cattle operation on Petit Jean Mountain in the central part of the state.

He might have chosen to live out his life in relative obscurity (at least as much as anyone named Rockefeller could), but he decided to try to make his mark in Arkansas politics. He began somewhat tentatively, I guess, supporting Republican candidates against longtime incumbent Orval Faubus in 1960 and 1962 (when Arkansas still elected its governor every two years).

He made his first foray as a candidate in 1964 when he challenged Faubus. Rockefeller lost that race, but he had sown the seeds for growth in the Arkansas Republican Party, which was almost nonexistent before Rockefeller moved to the state. The growth of the party in Arkansas is as much his legacy as anyone else's.

And that strikes me as somewhat ironic because Rockefeller and modern Arkansas Republicans don't seem to have much in common. I have observed Arkansas politics from a distance for the last couple of decades, but it seems to me that Arkansas' 21st–century Republicans have far more in common with the state's Democrats of the mid–20th century than with Rockefeller.

Speaking of which ...

Several weeks ago, I came across an article about Rockefeller's first successful campaign for governor of Arkansas in 1966.

The article, written by John Kirk for Arkansas Times, brought back a lot of memories for me. I was a small child in those days, but the memory of those times is still quite vivid.

Kirk observed — and I think most Arkansans who remember those days would agree — that the 1966 election marked an important turning point for Arkansas — and, by extension, the United States and the world. Rockefeller never won an office with greater prestige than governor of Arkansas, but if he hadn't won that election, it might not have been possible, Kirk wrote, for a young man named Bill Clinton to be elected governor a decade later and go on to be elected president.

"Without Rockefeller's 1966 victory there may well have never been a Clinton presidency," wrote Kirk, chairman of the history department at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

"At the same time, paradoxically, Rockefeller's victory also paved the way for the emergence of a two–party system in Arkansas and laid the longer–term foundations for the Republican Party to become a force in state politics."

Of the latter, I can truthfully say that I had thought of that myself — that Arkansas became a much more competitive state politically after Rockefeller was elected governor.

That wasn't necessarily good news for the Democrats who had dominated state politics for so long — but it was good news for democrats (lower–case D) and the cause of democracy.

But, frankly, I had never thought of Rockefeller's victory making a Clinton presidency possible. The more I think about it, though, the more I am inclined to think that Kirk might be on to something there.

Rockefeller defeated a man named Justice Jim Johnson, who happened to live a mile or two down the road from my house. I went to school with his twin sons, played with them in the afternoons after school dismissed.

We spent nights at each others' houses. I attended their birthday parties, and they attended mine.

To me, Jim Johnson was a kind and fatherly neighbor, more of a father to me in many ways, really, than my own father. He was the father of my friends and classmates and a great influence on me in my formative years.

I was too young to understand that he was a segregationist, an ardent supporter of the likes of George Wallace, possibly the most notorious Southern politician of that time. He even managed Wallace's 1968 independent presidential campaign in Arkansas.

At the time that Rockefeller was elected, I was sorry that my friend had lost. But I was merely a child at the time, and, in hindsight, I'm inclined to believe it was a good thing that Rockefeller won — for many reasons, not the least of which was Rockefeller's general commitment to improving the quality of life for all Arkansans.

I guess the centennial of Rockefeller's birth is an occasion for a lot of reflecting on his influence in Arkansas. I haven't lived there in awhile, but I have noticed several retrospective articles online about his four years as Arkansas' governor, and it is gratifying to know that he is remembered.

My parents, as I have observed here before, were Democrats, and they were active members of a group called "Democrats for Rockefeller." My mother did a lot of door–to–door canvassing for Rockefeller in '66, even though his opponent was our neighbor.

Rumors circulated at the time that Rockefeller's campaign was bringing in Republican allies from other states to pose as Democrats in order to persuade Arkansas citizens to elect a Republican governor.

Such stories may seem ludicrous today — or, perhaps not, given the adversarial nature of modern American political campaigns — but they seemed plausible then, particularly in the South where it was common knowledge that "outside agitators" had been shipped in to the region to help enforce civil rights and voting rights reforms.

Consequently, many Arkansans were suspicious of anyone claiming to be a Democrat for Rockefeller. "Are you really a Democrat?" my mother was asked countless times, and she always responded the same way: "Yes, I am, and when the Democrats have a candidate I can support, I will vote for him."

Mom and Dad had to keep that promise in 1970, when the Democrats nominated a previously unknown centrist country lawyer named Dale Bumpers. I know it hurt them to vote against Rockefeller. They appreciated all the things he had done — or tried to do — for the state, but Bumpers was a candidate they felt they could support, and they had told many people that they would vote for a Democrat they found acceptable — and their word was their bond.

Bumpers defeated Rockefeller in the general election, and Rockefeller withdrew from the public spotlight. He died of cancer a couple of years later.

His achievements survive him.

Arkansas Times observed recently that, without Rockefeller's support, the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, for which ground was broken 50 years ago last August, "might have taken a much longer time to become reality, if ever."

The article about the Arkansas Arts Center brought back memories of days I had forgotten.

Sometime in the mid–'70s, my mother enrolled my brother and me in summer art classes at the Arkansas Arts Center. We tried all kinds of media that summer. We did some drawing, some painting, some sculpting. The classes met daily during the week for about six weeks. At the end of that time, each student's best work was part of a display at the facility.

It was a fun class. It didn't spark anything like a career in art for my brother or me, but it did enhance our appreciation of art — and we both tend to be rather creative (we really take after our mother in that regard) so maybe we have applied things we learned in that class to our future endeavors.

And that is really what Rockefeller was hoping for, I think. As Leslie Newell Peacock points out in the Arkansas Times article, Rockefeller was approached by a local group from Little Rock to head the effort for the arts center. Rockefeller declined the offer but promised to help find a chairman for the fund–raising drive, insisting that such a facility needed to be "for the whole state of Arkansas."

Mission accomplished.

It really goes without saying that Winthrop Rockefeller left quite a mark on Arkansas — even though his time in office was brief (at least when compared to Faubus or Clinton).

But it's something that is worth remembering on what would have been his 100th birthday.

Split Decision

You know, history really does repeat itself. Not precisely, though. You have to look for it, but patterns certainly seem to emerge.

More than two years ago — when Democrats had held Congress for a little more than a year and Republican George W. Bush was in his final year as president — I wrote about the virtue of divided government.

On that occasion, I was offering my take on a column written by political analyst Charlie Cook for the National Journal, in which he also wrote about the disparity between the popular vote and the electoral vote. While I do believe the Electoral College should be scrapped — or, at the very least, revised — that's not what I want to discuss in this post.

In April 2008 — which, it is worth noting, was several months before the economic meltdown virtually guaranteed Democratic victories that fall — Cook said both parties had "self–destructive tendencies." If either controlled both the legislative and executive branches of government, it was like a "ticking time bomb; it's only a matter of time before it explodes and the party loses, and loses big."

That time appears to be at hand for Democrats who were so cocky after the 2008 elections. Everyone seems to be in agreement on that point. The disagreement, at this stage, centers on how extensive the losses will be — whether the Democrats will, in Cook's words, "lose big."

I can picture their spinmeisters, already working on the party's excuses for whatever lies ahead. I'm sure racism will be a prominent one. It's a very handy excuse for this president, one that hasn't been available to any of his predecessors — although I'm sure some variant of it has been applicable to a few (i.e., John F. Kennedy, who was not the first Catholic presidential nominee but was the first Catholic to be elected — and could conceivably have used anti–Catholic bigotry if he had lived to run for a second term).

But, even though racism is likely to be used as an excuse for congressional losses, is it valid? In some instances, perhaps it is. But not in most.

Well, two years ago, I wrote something that I still believe: "I've seen more efficiency under a divided government. Each side gets some of what it wants sometimes. But when one party controls the White House and the Congress, things get sloppy, inefficient — and expensive."

I've seen nothing in the last two years that refutes that. Precisely the opposite, in fact. Divided government promotes the art of compromise. Everyone gets involved. No one feels left out — and, consequently, feels the need to obstruct everything the majority tries to do because you just might need some of those folks on the next issue — and you have a realistic chance of winning over some of them — and you don't want to risk alienating them.

When voters elected Barack Obama president and, at the same time, expanded Democrats' majorities in both houses of Congress, there was much rejoicing.

I wasn't sure what to make of it, but I had serious doubts about the collective wisdom. In the aftermath of the economic meltdown, I felt the voters were having a (probably justifiable) tantrum against Republican rule, and I felt torn over the prospect of installing a one–party government to replace another one–party government.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am second to no one in my utter disdain for the George W. Bush administration (well, both Bush presidencies, actually, but let's stick to the most recent one).

And the only electoral decision in which all voters participate is the election of the president. Senators and representatives are chosen, as always, by states and districts.

No "decision" was made in 2008 to give huge majorities to the Democrats, just as no decision was made nearly a decade before that to turn over control of both the White House and the Congress to the Republicans. It's just how it worked out.

And I worried in 2008 that it would make things worse. Democrats seemed to have forgotten how disenfranchised they felt when Republicans controlled the national debate — and how that led the Democrats to become more energized about taking back what they had lost.

In such an adversarial environment, neither side ever seems to be willing to budge even an inch. Isn't that what we've seen in Washington in the last 18 months? Isn't that what we saw in Washington five years ago, in first the Terri Schiavo affair and then the Hurricane Katrina experience?

Not sayin' either side was right or wrong. Just sayin'.

As I say, I felt torn on Election Night. On the one hand, I felt that someone whose very existence would be politically sensitive — such as the first black president — would need to have many members of his party in Congress in order to get anything accomplished.

On the other hand, I have seen one–party rule at several times in my life, and it never really seems to work. The party that is in power always gets too carried away with itself and sees "mandates" where they frequently don't exist. That lends an aura of credibility to everything they do.

And there is often a sense that the party in power knows best, and that clearly seems to have been a problem in the first couple of years of the Obama presidency.

Poll after poll after poll after poll has shown that Americans are worried about unemployment.

I'm going to repeat that, with added emphasis, because I really believe it is important.

Poll after poll after poll after poll has shown that Americans are worried about unemployment.

Now, you may argue — and not without some justification — that the opinions expressed in polls are not written in stone — and they aren't. But, when a topic consistently lands in the top spot of polls about the most pressing problems facing America today, that seems like, at the very least, a hint that it's something that Americans want to address. And a lot of them really want to address the jobs issue.

As George Carlin used to say, even in a fake democracy, people ought to get what they want once in awhile if only to feed the illusion that they're really in charge. In this case, they ain't been getting it — unless Obama and the Democrats were doing things behind the scenes to promote job creation while they were publicly barnstorming the country for health care reform.

But, if that is what they were doing, they missed an opportunity to get some visible credit for their efforts — credit they might wish they had when the voters go to the polls in November. As it is, the Democrats seem to be hoping — like Herbert Hoover at the dawn of the Great Depression — that the market will correct itself. That's not likely to be a winning strategy in 2010.

Because, unless something really dramatic happens, it is unlikely that we will see the kinds of improvements that will reverse the Democrats' fortunes in November's midterms.

It isn't that the voters blame the Democrats — but it would be terrific if they would stop obsessing about blame and focus on strategies for encouraging job creation. The five–figure job gains we've seen lately would have been great a few decades ago. They might even have been marginally acceptable a few years ago. But, since the end of 2007, we've seen waves of six–figure job losses that seemed like they would never end.

And they've left a path of destruction in their wake that is staggering.

As the voters see it, the Democrats are the ones who are in charge. If the voters aren't convinced that they're thinking outside the box in an all–out pursuit of an answer, they'll look for that leadership elsewhere. The Republicans may not be exactly what they want — but what other option do they have?

Well, anyway, I started thinking about all this when I was reading an article today by another political analyst for whom I have a great deal of respect, Michael Barone, one of the authors of what has been the best political reference for nearly 40 years, the "Almanac of American Politics," which is published by the National Journal every other year.

Barone also contributes to the Washington Examiner, where today he suggests that this year's midterms may resemble the ones in 1966.

"Some compare 2010 to 1994, when Republicans picked up 52 House seats and won majorities in both houses of Congress for the first time in four decades," Barone writes. "Others compare this year to 1982, when Democrats picked up 26 House seats and recaptured effective control of the House two years after Ronald Reagan was elected president."

As I say, though, Barone's focus today is on 1966, two years after Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats swept the elections of 1964. 1966, Barone writes, "was a year when a Democratic president's war in Asia was starting to cause unease and some opposition within his own party, as is happening now."

And, he continues, "it was a year of recoil against the big government programs of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. The 89th Congress, with 2–1 Democratic majorities, had passed Medicare, federal aid to education, anti–poverty and other landmark legislation."

The key to Republicans' success in 1966, Barone suggests, was that they "actually won the popular vote for the House in the North (defined as the other 36 states) by a 51% to 48% majority. They have only done so since in three elections, in 1968 (a virtual carbon copy of 1966 in House races), in their breakthrough year of 1994 and in the post–9/11 year of 2002."

Recent poll results indicate, Barone continues, that it could happen again this year. Generic polls asking voters which party they would support in their local House race show "Republicans ahead by a historically unprecedented margin."

And, writes Barone, "[i]f those numbers hold, and if they turn out to underpredict Republican performance in the popular vote, as they have in the past, that could mean that Republicans would win a popular vote plurality or majority in the North."

Can't happen, you say? Hmmm, tell that to Massachusetts Sen. Martha Coakley and then tell me what her response was. Coakley was an exception, you say? A terrible candidate? OK. Gotcha. How about checking back with me in a month or so, after most states have held their primaries, and tell me how things are looking?

We should also have a couple more jobless reports in by that time.

News From Home

I grew up in Conway, Ark. It was a small town when I was a child, outwardly not much different from many towns in Arkansas in those days.

Today, it is at least five times, maybe six times, as large as it was then, and it is noteworthy for having been the home, even if for a short time, of some prominent people. Actress Mary Steenburgen, for example, went to college there. So did Scottie Pippen, who went on to play pro basketball with Michael Jordan. Football player Peyton Hillis was born and raised there, then attended my alma mater, the University of Arkansas. Last May, I wrote about Conway when Kris Allen was a finalist on American Idol.

But before any of those people came along, Conway was known — at least in Arkansas — as the home of Justice Jim Johnson.

Earlier today, an old friend of mine sent me an e–mail. Justice Jim died yesterday at the age of 85. Authorities are saying that he killed himself. Reportedly, he had had some health issues, and a rifle was found near his body.

When he was a young man, Justice Jim was an Arkansas Supreme Court justice. That's where the "Justice" part of his name came from. He had twin sons, Danny and David, who were my age and my almost–constant playmates. They lived just down the road from us so, when we were kids, it seemed the three of us were always at the Johnsons' house or mine.

Justice Jim was part of the state Supreme Court until 1966, when Orval Faubus chose not to seek another term as governor. Justice Jim sought and won the Democratic nomination for governor, and apparently, he did so using the segregationist rhetoric that was all too common among Southern Democrats at that time (I say "apparently" because I was too young to sit through or comprehend a politician's speech so I never, to my knowledge, heard anything he said during that campaign).

That fall, I enrolled in first grade. Justice Jim's sons were in my class, and the camera crews from the TV stations in Little Rock were on hand to film the event. The reporters were interested in seeing Justice Jim's sons in school with blacks.

I don't recall if Justice Jim was there or if his wife handled the matter of enrolling their sons. I just remember the disruptive influence those reporters and cameras had. The kids, as I remember, got along fine. Eventually, my first grade teacher had to shoo the adults away so she could get down to business with her pupils.

Later that year, Justice Jim lost the governor's race to Winthrop Rockefeller, the first Republican elected governor of Arkansas since Reconstruction.

In those days, Arkansas elected its governor to two–year terms so, two years later, Rockefeller ran for re–election. Once again, there was a Johnson in the race. Only this time, it was Justice Jim's wife, Virginia. She was unsuccessful in her race for the nomination, but she was a pioneer — the first woman to run for governor in Arkansas' history.

At the same time, Justice Jim challenged Sen. J.W. Fulbright, who was seeking re–election. Fulbright was nominated, then re–elected, and the Johnsons returned to their home in Conway. I can still remember walking through their home in those days and seeing leftover yard signs from their respective campaigns.

Justice Jim was an ally of George Wallace. I remember sitting at his kitchen table the day Wallace was shot and a reporter from the Arkansas Gazette called to get a quote. Justice Jim gave him one. It was a "dastardly act," he said. After he hung up the phone, he looked at his sons and me, grinned and said, "That sounded like a bad word, didn't it?"

Justice Jim and I seldom discussed politics. He knew that my parents didn't agree with most of what he said, and that was OK. He was protective of me like a son. He didn't say things to me that he knew would create a conflict in my young head. He only said things to me that he knew would be all right with my parents. He told me to do right. He told me to be respectful and to be fair. He was always courteous, the very image of a Southern gentleman, to my parents and me, indeed, to everyone with whom he came in contact.

And I have tried to follow his instructions and his example.

I've heard that Bill Clinton once told Justice Jim, "You make me ashamed to be from Arkansas." I never felt that way. I have always been proud to be from Arkansas, and Justice Jim was a big part of that. Not because of his politics, but because of the man he was.

I can't help but think of the ironies, though. Justice Jim, opponent of desegregation, dies during the first presidential term that was won by a black man.

If I had ever speculated about when it would all end for Justice Jim, I never would have expected that.

I certainly never would have predicted that he would die by his own hand.

But I don't judge him for the choices he made — or that were made for him.

A couple of years ago, I was talking to one of his sons on the phone. He was telling me that his father had changed, that he had been a product of the times in which he was born and raised and that he regretted some of the things he had said in the heat of his political battles. I tried to reassure my friend that I didn't hold any of his father's political statements against him, no matter how much I may have disagreed with him.

And I don't judge him for choosing the option he chose. I've never had the gift of being able to look into a man's head and heart and know the pressure he felt or the demons he fought.

I pray for his sons — Mark, David and Dan — that they will have the strength to endure this ordeal, coming only a few years after Virginia's death. I'm sure they will.

And I also pray that Justice Jim has found the peace that eluded him in life.

The Sniper in the Tower

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From all the accounts I have read, Monday, Aug. 1, 1966 started out as a pretty ordinary, sweltering midsummer day in Austin, Texas.

I've never lived in Austin, but I've lived through enough Texas summers to know that, on a typical July or August day in Texas, the highs can be in the upper 90s or lower 100s, and the temperatures may only drop to the upper 70s at night if you are lucky. At this time of year, rain seldom seems to have the cooling effect it can have in some places. Here, it just seems to make the heat wet and even more unpleasant, if that is possible.

(I lived in Oklahoma for awhile, and it can get hot there, too. I recall standing in line at the bank one hot summer day, and a man who may have been in his mid–50s and a younger man, who appeared to be his 20–something son, were standing behind me in line and I overheard them talking about the weather. The older man said, "It's July — when Okies get sick and outsiders die!")

Actually, I only mention the heat because I know that the heat can make people do crazy things. Some people just get lethargic in the summer. But others just do crazy things. In the days when I worked as a general assignment reporter, I covered the police beat. And I saw some crazy things in the summer, the kinds of things I never saw during the rest of the year.

Maybe it was the summer weather, maybe it was the alignment of the stars and the planets, that led ex–Marine Charles Whitman to scale the tower at the University of Texas and terrorize the area with sniper fire from the observation deck for 1½ hours. But that is precisely what he did on Aug. 1, 1966.

No one will ever know why Whitman did what he did. But maybe — just maybe — the severe headaches that he complained about had something to do with it.

I was about to enter first grade. In fact, I'm not entirely sure if my family had a TV set yet. We got a small black–and–white portable that year, but I don't think we had it when Whitman opened fire on that summer day.

Consequently, I don't remember how we heard about the shootings, which began shortly before noon. Maybe we heard about them on the radio.

Whitman's rampage — which actually began with the murders of his mother and his wife several hours earlier — resulted in 15 deaths plus the death of an unborn child (not counting the gunman himself) and 32 wounded. After it was over, investigators recovered notes and a journal in which Whitman expressed an inability to comprehend why he killed his mother and wife, and he didn't mention the sniper attack to come, but he apparently expected to die that day, either by his own hand or someone else's.

In either his notes or his journal, Whitman asked that an autopsy be performed to see if a physical cause could be found. I think he suspected that his headaches would lead him to do something extraordinary. And, in 1966, mass murders were, indeed, quite rare in the United States. My father was a professor at a small liberal arts college, and I know the shootings on the UT campus sent shock waves through the faculty.

Some may have blamed the shootings on the Dexedrine Whitman had been prescribed and was found on his body, but it couldn't be established that any medication caused him to snap because the body was embalmed prior to the autopsy and there were no bodily fluids to test. But the autopsy revealed the presence of a cancerous brain tumor that could have been a factor.

I wrote earlier that I believe Whitman expected to die that day. Here is a passage from one of his final notes:

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"If my life insurance policy is valid please pay off my debts ... donate the rest anonymously to a mental health foundation. Maybe research can prevent further tragedies of this type."

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Maybe he wasn't completely insane. Maybe enough sanity remained for him to make a final plea for something that would benefit one small corner of the world.

We probably will never know if any good at all came from that terrible day 43 years ago.

But we can always hope, can't we?