William Richards "Bill" Bennett (born August 18, 1930) is a retired Nationalist American politician from the state of Pacifica, best known as the son of longtime Governor W.A.C. Bennett, whom he succeeded in 1967. Bennett served two two-year terms as Governor before resigning in favor of Frank Crow, his intra-party rival and then-Attorney General. Having regained the support of his party, Bennett ran for Senate in 1972, assisted by campaign support and money from both outgoing President Richard Van Dyke as well as that year's Presidential nominee, Clyde Dawley, and he narrowly defeated Thomas Berger, a State Senator from Vancouver Island. Bennett would serve in the Senate for three terms until defeated in his 1990 reelection effort by then-Lieutenant Governor Charles Posey.