Only do the good things
America has lost a statesman. Arkansas has lost a champion. I and countless others have lost a dear friend—but if the stars are twinkling more brightly, it’s because David H. Pryor has joined the angels.
David personified our nation at its best—especially the decency, civility, and humility he brought to the practice of politics. In these polarized times, there is much we can learn from his leadership and legacy.
My family’s relationship with the Pryors is generational. David’s father, Edgar, was a Chevy dealer in Camden, 50 miles from the McLarty’s Ford dealership in Hope. I first encountered David when I was 8; Francis Cherry, who was running for the State House, came to see my father, and David was his driver.
I was more interested in meeting an All-District Camden Panther quarterback than in talking to a future governor. Little did I know the football star was a future governor too.
Even then, David was invested in public service. It ran in his blood: His father had been Ouachita County sheriff; his mother had been the first woman in our state to run for public office. David had served in student government since third grade, earning a job as a congressional page the summer before his senior year. (Years later he’d share that, before coming home, he’d hid a dime in the U.S. Capitol basement, pledging to reclaim it someday—and how, as a newly elected U.S. representative, he’d found the coin where he left it.)
He was a joyful politician. He loved meeting people on their turf and their terms, listening to their concerns and celebrating their successes. Genuinely curious about others’ lives, he related to them instinctively, with an unpretentious, homespun charm that most found irresistible.
I was proud to support all his campaigns, including serving as treasurer in his gubernatorial race. At his request, I also served as chairman of the Arkansas Democratic party— though, truth be told, I never actually agreed to take the job: The news leaked before I’d had a chance to reflect, and when the papers reported I’d said yes, I was afraid to say no!
Thank goodness I didn’t. David saw the key role our state could play on the national stage. As he told an interviewer in 1974, we could “become an advocate for middle America,” and be “a voice of neither conservatism or liberalism. A voice of moderation. Down the middle.”
I cherish the memory of helping him lead the Arkansas delegation to the 1976 convention, including when his then-13-year-old son Mark answered his father’s hotel room phone and called out, “Hey Dad! Some guy is on the phone for you.” It was Sen. Walter Mondale, asking David to second his vice-presidential nomination. (And fittingly, Mark Pryor grew up to become a U.S. senator himself.)
David wanted to make people’s lives better. That clarity of purpose gave him courage. Though gentle in manner, he was a ferocious defender of justice. Time and again, he stood with the vulnerable, speaking for those whose voices went unheard.
There was a quote he liked: “The role of the reformer is no task for the faint-hearted.” From advancing racial equality to protecting the elderly, securing a Taxpayer Bill of Rights, and more, David fearlessly challenged convention and changed our state and country for the better.
He took these strong stances without turning opponents into enemies. Reflecting on his father’s first race for sheriff against a popular incumbent, Arthur Ellis, David described how Edgar criss-crossed the county, meeting with his opponent’s supporters, and telling them he knew and appreciated why they had to vote for Ellis.
His dad would say, “After this is over, we’re gonna be friends, whether I win or not”—a lesson in “the politics of neutralization” that David never forgot. David refused to demonize opponents; he saw the humanity in everyone, and believed our greatest progress comes when we cultivate common ground.
As an elected official, he strove to bring divergent groups together—“Black and white, labor and management, rural and city”—emphasizing the interests and values people shared instead of stoking their differences. As he told an interviewer when running for governor, “I’m hoping that I can bring these people together before a confrontation.” He was convinced that getting to know one another was the key to understanding and respect.
In all these efforts, David was buoyed by two extraordinary partners—his wife Barbara, a visionary in her own right and a lioness in caring for him in his later years; and Dale Bumpers, the man he called his best friend, with whom he shared a devotion to Arkansas and a gift for storytelling.
When I had the privilege of becoming President Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff, I saw firsthand the way David and Dale supported one another. They exemplified collaboration; making a difference for Arkansans was more important than who got the credit. Like Clinton, they balanced authority with a common touch—reflecting their small-town Southern upbringing and its emphasis on community.
When David left the Senate in 1996, Dale said of him in tribute, “He never looks past you to see who is next in line.”
After leaving government, David stayed fully engaged, including serving as the inaugural dean of the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service—a testament to the deep respect Clinton felt for Pryor, and to the high regard that Pryor felt for Clinton in turn.
In later years, Pryor and Bumpers often spoke on panels together—what they termed The Arkansas Antique Road Show—enchanting audiences with their stories and self-deprecating style. One of David’s lessons of political life was, “At least once every day sit down and laugh at yourself, because everyone else is.” He once recalled how, after his 1991 heart attack, Dale came to visit him in the hospital, and said he’d brought a Senate resolution for his swift recovery—and that it had passed 51-49.
Most of all, he delighted in his family—his beloved Barbara; his children David Jr., Mark, and Scott, and their wives; his four grandchildren, and his great-grandchild.
For all his talents, David was not invincible. His first Senate race ended in defeat. As governor, he failed to pass his signature Arkansas Plan. Starting in his 50s, he faced health challenges. Like all of us, he was mortal.
But there was something about his approach that today feels rarer than ever. David was more focused on creating opportunity for others than on shoring up his own power. His joyful service, integrity, and decency—even toward those with whom he disagreed—made him not only beloved, but tremendously effective. Imagine how much our nation could achieve if more leaders, in politics, business, and beyond, adopted this philosophy and style?
As Barbara once said, in describing their early courtship, “it’s so wonderful to be caught up in a dream of somebody that wants to only do the good things.”
David Pryor taught us all how to do the good things. May the memory of this good man be everlasting.