Arkansas: Out of the Woods

After five weeks of plying the Ozarks’ chicken-fry circuit in the same $3 drip-dry sports shirt and rumpled slacks, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee donned a dark suit, striped tie, and vest and headed back to Washington. With 53% of the vote against a field of three opponents, J. William Fulbright had handily won renomination. Chewing laconically on a stick of Spearmint, he allowed: “I wasn’t surprised. I had faith in the people of Arkansas.”

In fact, Millionaire Fulbright had been so unworried by the outcome that he spent little for newspaper ads or TV time. Archsegregationist Jim Johnson, a two-time loser for the governorship and Fulbright’s most visible foe, proved as inept as he was intemperate. Running against Fulbright’s opposition to the Viet Nam war, Johnson branded the Senator a traitor and a coward. So virulent was Johnson’s campaign that Arkansas Negroes, though well aware that Fulbright has never voted for a major civil rights bill, had nowhere else to go.

When the votes were counted, Fulbright totaled 218,222 v. 194,081 for his foes combined. Asked what conclusions President Johnson might draw from the outcome in a supposedly hawkish state, Fulbright grinned and said that it proved he was right: “The majority support my stand on Viet Nam.”

In November, his opponent will be Republican Businessman Charles Bernard of Earle (pop. 2,896), who has lots of Governor Winthrop Rockefeller’s money behind him, but little else. Rockefeller himself won renomination over token opposition.

In the Democratic gubernatorial primary, Jim Johnson’s wife Virginia, also a segregationist (“Aren’t we all?”), squeezed toward a runoff with the favored candidate, State Representative Marion Crank. Crank, whose campaign is well fueled by utility interests (he is dubbed “the Natural Gas Candidate”), is expected to win the runoff and then lose to Rockefeller, since Arkansas traditionally gives its Governors a second two-year term.