Sen. Lloyd Bentsen was a towering determine within the Democratic Celebration and a Houston icon. His household is now producing a six-part podcast celebrating his legacy.
“My father’s accomplishments in Texas after which in Washington actually modified the course of historical past,” Lan Bentsen, Sen. Bentsen’s son, stated in an announcement. “His insurance policies led to the best peacetime financial growth in American historical past. His full story has by no means been informed, and we imagine that irrespective of your political affiliation, one can find hope and motivation on this podcast.”
The podcast, dubbed The Bentsen Blueprint, attracts on a wealth of transcripts and tapes found by his household after Bentsen’s dying in 2006. With the assistance of Texas Tribune political reporter Elise Hu, excerpts from the tapes are woven along with interviews from Bentsen’s mates and colleagues to offer a deeper understanding of Bentsen’s outstanding political profession.
Bentsen was a widely known dealmaker who reached throughout the political divide on many points. The podcast reveals Bentsen’s ability at bipartisanship and probably affords a guidebook for undertaking issues in some of the politically-divisive intervals in American historical past. The present additionally tackles Bentsen’s financial insurance policies, which helped create a surplus in the course of the Clinton years by lowering the nationwide deficit by $500 billion and creating 5 million new jobs.
Bentsen was born in Mission, however spent most of his five-decade political profession in Houston. He served in World Battle II as a pilot, profitable the Distinguished Flying Cross. Bentsen was elected to the Senate in 1970, the second-to-last Democrat to take action in Texas. He served there till he left to turn into Secretary of the Treasury underneath President Invoice Clinton.
The senator can be a part of some of the well-known verbal comebacks in American political historical past. When he was picked to be Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis’s vice presidential candidate within the 1988 presidential election, he debated Sen. Dan Quayle, who was fielding assaults about his youth and health for workplace. When Quayle remarked he was the identical age as President John F. Kennedy when he was elected, Bentsen replied: “I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a good friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.” Politicians have been attempting to match that verbal drubbing ever since.
Hearken to The Bentsen Blueprint on all main podcast platforms, together with Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
