On Monday, Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander announced that he would not seek a fourth term in 2020. Alexander sounded eager to run again last month, so this decision comes as a surprise. However, the senator now says that he’d made his choice all the way back in August.
Tennessee is a reliably red state, and Team Red will be heavily favored to keep this seat. Naturally, there’s no shortage of possible Volunteer State Republicans who could get in. The biggest name to watch is termed-out Gov. Bill Haslam, who said on Monday that he was giving a run “serious consideration.” Haslam, who will leave office in mid-January, publicly flirted with running in 2017 after Sen. Bob Corker decided to retire, but he ended up passing.
Last week, the Nashville Post also reported that orthopedic surgeon Manny Sethi, who is close to former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, was considering a bid in the event the seat opened up. In additon, GOP operatives have mentioned wealthy businessman and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty. While Hagerty hasn’t said anything publicly yet, Alexander named both him and Haslam as “obvious favorites ... in addition to four or five of our congressmen.”
Speaking of those congressmen, Politico writes that Rep. David Kustoff, who represents part of West Tennessee, is interested, but he’s also not said anything publicly about his plans. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, who represents the Chattanooga area, spoke and didn’t rule anything out, saying he was “solely focused on the responsibilities of my current role for the time being.”
Politico adds that Rep.-elect Mark Green “had begun making calls to some Republicans touting his potential as a statewide candidate prior to Alexander’s retirement.” Green made the bad kind of national headlines last week when he suggested that the Centers for Disease Control was hiding data on a link between vaccines and autism, but that didn’t stop the radical anti-tax Club For Growth from encouraging him to jump in on Monday.
A number of other Republicans have been mentioned in the media as potential candidates, though there’s no word yet how interested any of them are. They include outgoing Rep. Diane Black; businessman and outgoing state House Speaker Beth Harwell, who both lost the 2018 primary for governor to Bill Lee. There’s also former Rep. Stephen Fincher, who still has $1.7 million in the bank after his abortive 2018 Senate run; and businessman Jeff Webb. Peyton Manning, who played football at the University of Tennessee before he went on to NFL stardom, is also perennially mentioned as a possible candidate for office in Tennessee.
Alexander’s departure ends a very long career in Tennessee and national politics that included two terms as governor, service as president of the University of Tennessee, a stint as George H.W. Bush’s secretary of education, two unsuccessful presidential campaigns, and three terms in the U.S. Senate. Before all that, though, Alexander worked as an aide to GOP Sen. Howard Baker and Bryce Harlow, Nixon’s congressional liaison, in D.C.. Alexander then returned home in 1970 to serve as campaign manager for Winfield Dunn’s gubernatorial bid, which Dunn won to become the state’s first Republican governor in 48 years.
State law at the time prevented governors from seeking re-election, so in 1974, Alexander ran to succeed his old boss. However, his campaign took place in a year where the Republican Party brand had been badly damaged by the Watergate scandal, and it didn’t go so well. Alexander won the primary after being outspent, but some newspapers chronicled his victory with the unhelpful headline “Pre-Watergate Nixon Aide Wins Nomination.” Former Rep. Ray Blanton, the Democratic nominee, also cast Alexander as the disgraced former president’s “choir boy.”
Alexander went after Blanton, who had badly lost his 1972 Senate bid to Baker, by hitting the Democrat for frequently missing votes in Congress; Alexander also didn’t hesitate to tie himself to the popular Baker. However, Alexander would admit later during the campaign, “I didn't have a very clear message, and I wasn't ready for the general election.” Blanton ended up winning by a wide 55-44 margin, though that was still well below the 60 percent of the vote that he’d publicly predicted he’d get.
Alexander would run again four years later, and this time, things would go very differently. Blanton’s tenure was marred by several scandals, including accusations that he’d granted clemency in exchange for cash payments. While the state constitution had since been altered to allow governors to seek a second term, Blanton decided not to. However, that didn’t stop Alexander from tying his Democratic rival, banker Jake Butcher, to the governor, asking voters, “Why would you replace a small-time wheeler and dealer with a big-time wheeler and dealer?”
Alexander also famously walked more than 1,000 miles across the state, chalking an X in the road wherever he stopped each night. He was hit by a pickup truck on his ninth day, but resumed campaigning after three days of rest. Alexander ended up winning 56-44, almost the mirror image of his defeat four years earlier.
Alexander also ended up taking office three days ahead of schedule under some unusual circumstances. In December, a trio of Blanton aides were charged with accepting money in exchange for approving paroles. Unsurprisingly, it looked incredibly bad when the governor soon thereafter commuted the prison terms of 52 state inmates, including a convicted murder who happened to be the son of one of Blanton’s wealthy supporters.
Alexander recounted that at noon on Jan. 15, he received a call from the U.S. attorney leading the investigation warning him that Blanton was about to release at least one person targeted in the parole scandal. After a series of hectic phone calls, the Democratic leaders of the legislature and state Attorney General William Leech agreed that Alexander needed to be sworn in immediately.
Leech issued an option saying that the state constitution allowed the new governor to take office anytime after midnight of Jan. 15, so Alexander could immediately take over. Leech called up Blanton and says he told him, “Governor, this is General Leech. I just wanted to call you myself and let you know that in a few minutes, Lamar Alexander will take the oath of office.” Leech recounts that Blanton, while angry, accepted his fate: A few minutes later, Alexander was indeed governor.
Alexander’s tenure went far smoother than his predecessor’s had. He was credited with persuading both Nissan and GM to open plants in the state, and in 1982, was re-elected 60-40. Alexander used his second term to successfully push for an education overall that included merit pay for teachers, a policy he pushed through the legislature on his second try over the loud objections of the Tennessee Education Association. To fund this program, Alexander also won approval for a 1-cent sales tax, which was the largest tax increase in state history, as well as three gas tax hikes to fund road improvements.
Alexander was termed-out in 1986, and he went on to become president of the University of Tennessee. In 1991, he was confirmed as George H.W. Bush’s secretary of education, where he remained for the rest of the Bush presidency.
In 1995, Alexander, clad in a red plaid shirt, launched a bid for the GOP nomination for president. In a campaign that foreshadowed Jeb Bush’s own run 20 years later, Alexander used placards identifying him as “Lamar!”—complete with exclamation mark—while struggling to generate excitement in the flesh. He also tried to convince voters of his electability with the tagline “Alexander Beats Clinton,” but he didn’t sell many voters on that, either.
Alexander himself joked about how little name recognition he had, but the national media finally paid attention to him after he finished third in the Iowa caucus. After likewise finishing third in New Hampshire, he briefly emerged as frontrunner Bob Dole’s most serious establishment rival. However, Dole hit Alexander with ads attacking his personal financial dealings, and Alexander struggled to even place second in any further primaries. Ultimately, he ended up dropping out before Super Tuesday.
Alexander ran for president again in 2000, this time without the plaid shirt. He went after frontrunner George W. Bush, declaring that the Texas governor’s “compassionate conservative” pitch amounted to just “weasel words.” However, Alexander ran out of money and exited the race before 1999 was out.
In something of a surprise final act, Alexander got another chance to serve in the federal government after GOP Sen. Fred Thompson retired in 2002. The White House feared that Democrats could very well win the seat, especially if conservative Rep. Ed Bryant, who was one of the floor manager’s in Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, won the GOP primary. Bush tried to clear the field for his old political rival, and he even had Karl Rove contact Bryant to try and convince him to drop out.
Bryant didn’t listen and slammed Alexander as a liberal who had left Tennessee behind long ago to chase votes in Iowa and New Hampshire. Despite the attacks, Alexander ended up beating Bryant 54-43 and defeated Democratic Rep. Bob Clement by a similar margin.
Alexander was usually a reliable Republican vote in the Senate, but he occasionally would cross party lines. In 2009, for example, he was one of nine Republicans to vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, and even when Alexander voted with the GOP, he was rarely a partisan firebrand.
For a time, it looked like Alexander’s old moderate image would cause him problems. In 2014, he was one of several Republican senators who drew a primary challenge from anti-establishment tea party candidates. Alexander was somewhat lucky, since his main opponent, state Rep. Joe Carr, had a tough time raising money or attracting major outside support. The incumbent also did a better job staying in touch with the state GOP base than some of his colleagues had. However, Carr held him to a 50-41 win, which indicated that Alexander might have been in for a tougher primary had he run in 2020.