The 1988 National Election : In Losing, Bentsen Became a Big Winner and Party Folk Hero

It was 2:10 a.m. Tuesday, with the dawn of Election Day a few hours away, and Lloyd Bentsen was making his last campaign speech as a vice presidential candidate.

For that moment, as he faced the 150 or so campaign workers who had gathered on the candlelit tarmac to welcome him home, Bentsen finally lost his reserve. He let the tears come to his eyes.

“It’s been an absolutely incredible experience,” he said.

And for Bentsen, it absolutely was.

Started Out as an Unknown

He didn’t bring home the big prize. He failed to carry even his home state for the Democratic ticket. But the senior senator from Texas, who was virtually unknown to most of the nation when he joined the ticket 121 days ago, is unquestionably one of the winners of the 1988 presidential campaign.

“He’s become the folk hero of the Democratic Party,” said House Assistant Majority Leader Tony Coelho (D-Merced), who predicted that, for his efforts, Bentsen will soon have his choice between being party chairman or president pro tempore of the Senate. “He’s the big winner out of this race.”

It is not just that voters ultimately found Bentsen more appealing than his running mate. By the end of the campaign, polls showed that the public looked on him even more favorably than it did the candidate who is now President-elect.

Certainly, much of his new popularity came by default. While the Democrats attacked George Bush and heaped ridicule on his running mate, Dan Quayle, the Republicans focused their fire on Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis alone.

But he performed far better as a national candidate than even his own backers had expected. So Bentsen, who easily won reelection to the Senate, headed back to Washington Wednesday to begin his fourth term with new stature and influence.

“Whatever else happens, Sen. Bentsen will come out of it with an enormous amount of political capital,” aide Jack DeVore said. “I don’t know what that means, but that’s a fact.”

It is difficult to overstate the influence that Bentsen can wield as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, particularly now that he is a popular national figure in his own right.

The two biggest economic problems that Bush will have to tackle are the budget and trade deficits. But Bush’s proposals in those areas are not likely to see daylight without the backing of Bentsen and his committee.

The senator has promised not to use his chairmanship “to seek revenge or something like that.” But Bentsen warned that he would “help (Bush) when I thought he was right, and I’d block him when I thought he was wrong.”

He already has said of Bush’s proposal to lower the capital gains tax: “He’s not going to get it.”

And Bentsen will be watching to see how vigorously the new Administration enforces the trade legislation that he championed in Congress and that President Reagan signed reluctantly this year.

Although he has built a powerful political organization in Texas, Bentsen has never involved himself in party maneuvering outside of the legislative arena, and those who know him well do not expect him to start now. They predict, for instance, that Bentsen will not be a major force in selecting the next Democratic chairman.

May Seek to Turn Party From Left

However, top campaign aide Joseph B. O’Neill said that Bentsen probably will use what influence he can to guide the party’s ideological direction. Like many other Southerners, Bentsen has made no secret of his belief that the party has moved too far to the left.

“He would be inclined to nudge it so the party has room for conservatives, moderates and liberals,” O’Neill said.

After his last round of interviews and his speech on election night, Bentsen’s vocal chords finally gave out. However, after a trip to the doctor earlier in the day, he was still upbeat enough to flash reporters a big smile and a thumbs-up sign.

Bentsen took to the national campaign with a zeal that surprised his closest political associates, particularly those who had been with him through his brief, leaden 1976 presidential campaign.

“It’s been amazing to see old pin-striped Lloyd Bentsen. In Texas, he never aroused passion in people. He used to suffer through campaigning, and now he really likes it,” one veteran aide said.

In the Senate, he had never been known as a particularly effective speaker. But his devastating rebuke to Quayle during their vice presidential debate--”Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy”--will go down as one of the most memorable lines of the campaign and a display of passion that only underscored Dukakis’ lack of it.

Early in the campaign, internal polls showed that Bentsen’s strength was with elderly voters. However, he finished the campaign as the ticket’s biggest draw with those in their teens and 20s as well.

One San Antonio newspaper account went so far as to describe the senator, who is 67 years old, as “a minor heartthrob.”