Lloyd Bentsen; Texas Senator, Vice Presidential Candidate

In 1976, Mr. Bentsen made a run for the White House as a "Harry Truman Democrat," but despite spending heavily, his campaign foundered. He also put down a Senate primary challenge by then-Texas A&M University economics professor Phil Gramm, who charged Mr. Bentsen with abandoning his conservative values in a foolish bid for national office. He defeated Gramm by more than 2 to 1. (Gramm decamped to the GOP and was elected to the Senate in 1984.)

As Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University, noted, Mr. Bentsen's Texas Democratic party was "a moderate-conservative, business-friendly party." In the Senate, he often voted with Republicans.

In 1986, the Democrats recaptured control of the Senate, and Sen. Russell B. Long (D-La.), chairman of the Finance Committee, did not run for reelection. Mr. Bentsen took over the committee and handled a number of major bills. When President George H.W. Bush agreed to a tax increase in 1990, despite an earlier "read my lips" pledge, Mr. Bentsen played a key role in putting the budget package together.

In the Senate, the silver-haired Texan was the consummate insider who knew the tax laws thoroughly. He also had the ear of Wall Street. Although he was sometimes labeled "Loophole Lloyd" for his ability to draft legislation that gave tax benefits to the oil and gas industries, he managed to avoid impropriety over his long career, even during a savings and loan scandal that engulfed several of his Democratic colleagues in the late 1980s.

Perhaps his biggest embarrassment came in 1987 when he decided to charge lobbyists $10,000 for the pleasure of his company at breakfast. Once word got out about the arrangement -- D.C. comic Mark Russell labeled it "Eggs McBentsen" -- he canceled it, refunded the money and conceded that he had made "a doozy" of a mistake.

By the time Dukakis chose Mr. Bentsen as his vice presidential running mate, he had become the most popular politician in Texas.

His merciless put-down of Quayle was not spontaneous. While preparing for the debate, he expressed his frustration with the ability of the Republicans to identify with Democratic heroes and to espouse what sounded like Democratic positions on such issues as the environment. Quayle had alluded to Kennedy on other occasions during the campaign, so Mr. Bentsen was poised to strike.

Although the Dukakis-Bentsen ticket lost the election in a landslide to Bush -- the man Mr. Bentsen had defeated in the 1970 Senate race -- Mr. Bentsen emerged with his political career in the ascendancy. He was widely considered the odds-on favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992. But with Bush's popularity soaring in 1991, he decided to stay in the Senate.

Mr. Bentsen retired from the Senate in January 1993 to serve as the 69th secretary of the Treasury from 1993 to 1994. He played a major role in several of President Bill Clinton's most significant achievements in the early years of his presidency, including a budget bill and two trade bills.

One $500 billion measure, passed by the narrowest of margins, reduced the federal deficit. The North American Free Trade Agreement, although controversial, dramatically changed U.S. trade policy with Mexico.

"He was truly pivotal in the length and strength of the economic expansion of the 1990s," said Henry G. Cisneros, a fellow Texan who served as housing secretary during the Clinton administration.

In 1994, Mr. Bentsen released a handwritten letter to Texans, announcing that he and his wife, known as "B.A.," were coming home. "But we really never left Texas," he wrote. "We just visited Washington for a couple of dozen years. I visited the world as Treasury Secretary. No matter where I went, I always came back and told B.A., 'Nothing Beats Texas.' "

He returned to Houston, where he created a billion-dollar private investment firm, but was a regular visitor to the Clinton White House. Something of a father figure to Clinton, he proffered advice not only on economic matters but also on how the president should deal with his impeachment. In 1999, Clinton presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Survivors include his wife of 63 years, Beryl Ann Longino Bentsen, and three children, Lloyd Bentsen III, Lan Bentsen and Tina Bentsen Smith, all of Houston; and eight grandchildren.