I was 12 when I first “met” Jim Guy Tucker. I hadn’t really seen him, but I saw him in a TV ad running for the US Senate in an epic 1978 race involving Tucker, David Pryor and Ray Thornton. I don’t remember what he said in that commercial, but I liked him the best of the three candidates I know.
I officially met him on the night of November 3rd, 1992. I was overseeing the American Watch Night Party, a street party in Downtown Little Rock, an old state capitol building where Bill Clinton leaves the grass as president.
Tucker is Arkansas’ lieutenant governor, and Clinton’s election will raise him to governor. I wanted to stay in Arkansas, work for the state government, and fill the void for Clintonite heading to Washington, D.C. This will be a VIP reception on the east side of the surrounding area. With the crowd stuffed, I knew Tuckers had no easy way to do it at their destination.
I jumped off the perch of the Secret Service, went through the back channel and got them where they needed to go. When we left, I was about to ask him for work from the Presidential Party about a week after I finished cleaning the city of Little Rock, so I asked Governor Tucker to remember my name. Ta.
A week later he remembered me and I helped with the transition and served his administration as a legislative aide and an assistant to the press.
Jim Guy Tucker was incredibly smart. In Harvard University education, he had book smarts and street smarts. I remember flying over the Ozarks to an event in Boonville. I commented that the mountains were beautiful and it was amazing that they were formed from a shift in land for millions of years. The governor fixed me: the Ozarks formed from sea hideouts and millions of years of erosion.
He studied geology at Harvard University before switching his major to government. In his speech in Boonville, he referenced the beautiful mountains surrounding the crowd, pointing out how they formed. He was doing it every time I traveled with him – he was using one small footnote that we discussed in his talk with his larger audience. He was a talented visceral speaker and was good with his detailed voice and big picture thinking.
Another time he gave a speech to a journalism student at Arkansas State University on the subject of ethics. I was hoping that the speech would discuss hard work, integrity, and self-discipline. Instead, the speech was about the ethical choices he contemplated when putting together the state’s budget. He said this:
“If I put more money in prison, I’m protecting people, but I’ll have less money for children in public education. If I try more Medicaid, I’ll sacrifice funds for economic development and higher education. He must. He thought ethically about the budget, which was a document that reflected his morality.
I visited with many former staff members, supporters and other media experts when I had to look back on this extraordinary Arkansan life. Jim Guy was fearless when it came to decision making.
Shortly after taking office in December 1992, he called for a special session and wasted no time enacting a soft drink tax and strengthening Medicaid funding. In January 1993, his first session was promoted from Lieutenant Governor and then brought in an ambitious legislative package to find sentencing standards, economic development, education and state government savings. He might have been more careful and found a footing. He took a honeymoon to the coast, but wasted no time pursuing important improvements to his policy.
He later tried to rethink how school funding was done, but his plans certainly didn’t gain legislative traction that would lead to the closure of the small school. Lakeview came soon after his tenure and forced the matter for lawmakers. Jim Guy pursued an overhaul of the state constitution to modernize it, pushing for a $3.5 billion highway bond program. Both of these efforts failed, but looking back, we can appreciate the fact that he didn’t wait for action.
Jim Guy is a Marine and I have to believe he had General Douglas MacArthur in his vein. MacArthur was once thought to have said, “To the hesitant plain, pause and bleach countless numbers of bones waiting for a better moment.”
Jim Guy Tucker wasn’t the guy waiting for a better moment. He grabbed the day from his earliest years throughout his career. When his health did not allow him to serve his country as a Vietnamese Marine, he became a war correspondent and recorded those Arkansan stories to the forefront. He infiltrated Cummins’ prison to expose the corruption. He served as a strict nose prosecutor, attorney general and a member of the House of Representatives, and challenged the US Senate. His political comeback included the lieutenant governor and governor.
In all these elected offices, and in life, he never paused.
Editor’s Note: Roby Brock is Editor-in-Chief of Talk Business & Politics.
