My life

The legislature also passed the National Rifle Association’s bill to prohibit cities and counties from adopting local gun-control ordinances, the same measure I had vetoed in 1989. No southern legislature could say no to the NRA. Even in the more liberal Senate, this bill passed 26–7. At least I got the Senate to pass it late, so I could veto it after they went home and they couldn’t override it. After the bill was sent to me, I had an extraordinary encounter with the young NRA lobbyist who came down from Washington to push the bill. He was very tall and well dressed and spoke with a clipped New England accent. One day he stopped me as I was crossing the rotunda from the House to the Senate side of the Capitol. “Governuh, Governuh, why don’t you just let this bill become law without your signature?” I explained for the umpteenth time why I didn’t support the bill. Then he burst out, “Look, Governuh, you’re going to run for President next year, and when you do, we’re going to beat your brains out in Texas if you veto this bill.” I knew I was getting older and more seasoned when I didn’t slug him. Instead, I smiled and said, “You don’t get it. I don’t like this bill. You know gun control will never be a problem in Arkansas. You’ve just got a chart on the wall in your fancy office in Washington with this bill at the top and all the states listed below. You don’t give a damn about the merits of this bill. You just want to put a check by Arkansas on that chart. So you get your gun and I’ll get mine. We’ll saddle up and meet in Texas.” As soon as the legislature went home, I vetoed the bill. Soon afterward, the NRA began running television ads attacking me. It wasn’t until I began writing this account that I realized that in my confrontation with the NRA lobbyist, I had acknowledged that I was considering running for President. At the time, I didn’t think there was a chance I’d do it. I just didn’t like to be threatened. After the session, Henry Oliver told me he wanted to leave. I hated to lose him, but after decades of proud service in the marines, the FBI, and local and state government, he had earned the right to go home. For the time being, Gloria Cabe and Carol Rasco took over his responsibilities. I spent the next few months making sure our massive legislative program was well implemented and traveling the country for the Democratic Leadership Council. Because I was out there making the case for how we could regain “mainstream, middle-class” voters who “have left the party in droves for twenty years,” the press continued to speculate that I might run in 1992. In an interview in April, I joked about it, saying, “As long as nobody runs, everybody can be on the list, and it’s kind of nice. It makes my mother happy to read my name in the paper.”

While I still didn’t believe I could or should run, and President Bush’s approval ratings were still above 70 percent in the afterglow of the Gulf War, I was beginning to think a DLC Democrat who could relate both to the party’s traditional base and to swing voters might have a chance, because the country had serious problems that weren’t being addressed in Washington. The President and his team seemed determined to coast to victory on the wings of the Gulf War. I had seen enough in Arkansas and in my travels around the country to know America couldn’t coast through four more years. As 1991 unfolded, more and more people came to share that view.

In April, I went to Los Angeles to speak to a luncheon for Education First, a citizens’ group dedicated to improving public education. After Sidney Poitier introduced me, I recounted three recent experiences with education in California that reflected both promise and peril for America’s future. The promise I had seen more than a year earlier when I spoke at California State University in Los Angeles to students with roots in 122 other nations. Their diversity was a good omen for our ability to compete with and relate to the rest of the global community. The perils were evident when Hillary and I visited with sixthgraders in East Los Angeles. They were great kids who had big dreams and a deep desire for normal lives. They told us their number one fear was of being shot going to and from school. They also said they did practice drills crouching under their desks in the event of a drive-by shooting. The children’s number two fear was that, when they turned thirteen, they would have to join a gang and smoke crack cocaine or face severe beatings from their contemporaries. My experience with those kids had a profound impact on me. They deserved better.