Charles Taylor Bernard, Sr. (born 1927), is an American former politician and businessman from Earle in Crittenden County in eastern Arkansas, best known as the 1968 Republican nominee for the United States Senate seat held by long-time Democratic incumbent J. William Fulbright of Fayetteville.
Although Fulbright was comfortably re-elected, Bernard, later the Republican state chairman from 1971 to1973, was his strongest Republican opponent, for in all previous contests Fulbright had been returned to office unopposed or without significant opposition. In the primary, Fulbright had handily defeated James D. Johnson of Conway, a segregationist Democrat who had lost the 1966 gubernatorial general election to Republican Winthrop Rockefeller. Fulbright won his final election (He was defeated six years later in the Democratic primary election by Dale Bumpers.) with 59.2 percent against Bernard's 40.2 percent. Bernard's ticket mate, Governor Rockefeller, scored a second two-year term by defeating the Democrat Marion H. Crank of Foreman in Little River County. Crank had earlier defeated Johnson's wife, Virginia Morris Johnson, in the Democratic gubernatorial runoff election.
In 1970, Bernard and then State Representative George E. Nowotny of Fort Smith both considered running for governor had Rockefeller not sought a third term.
Bernard won the state chairmanship to succeed Odell Pollard of Searcy in White County in balloting before the GOP State Committee held in Little Rock after Rockefeller's defeat for governor. He defeated Rockefeller's stated choice, William T. Kelly, Sr., of Little Rock, the Pulaski County chairman, and Everett Ham, a Rockefeller aide. The vote was 137 for Bernard, 28 for Kelly, and 27 for Ham. Ham won the vice chairmanship thereafter. John L. Ward, a Rockefeller biographer, said that Rockefeller's aides "felt like Bernard and the party had kicked Rockefeller's teeth in." Years later, Robert Faulkner, Rockefeller's executive secretary in 1970, said that Bernard's victory for the chairmanship showed that many of the pre-Rockefeller Republicans in Arkansas "couldn't wait to throw out the Rockefeller influence and pick their own, more conservative, traditional Republican."
Bernard operated One Hour Marvelizing dry cleaning establishments in eastern Arkansas.
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I saw a black man upon a black horse;
They told me it was King Charles the First—”
—Unknown. As I was going by Charing Cross (l. 1–3)
“A man of genius is not a man who sees more than other men do. On the contrary, it is very often found that he is absentminded and observes much less than other people.... Why is it that the public have such an exaggerated respect for him—after he is dead? The reason is that the man of genius understands the importance of the few things he sees.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)