Interview Only w/ Lamar Alexander - A Statesman's Warning About Where American Politics Is Headed

00:00:00
Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todcast is brought to you by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from frozen subscription box for sour dough breads, artisonal pastries, and fresh pastas, plus all the items conveniently baked in twenty five minutes or less. Unlike many store brought options, Wild Grain uses some simple ingredients you can pronounce and a slow fermentation process that can be a lot easier on your belly, little gut health there right, and richer in nutrients antioxidants. There's also no preservatives and no shortcuts. The Wild Grain boxes are fully customizable. In addition to their variety box, they have a gluten free box, a vegan box, and a new protein box. I will tell you I have done the gluten free box. I have done it a second time. I have also used the code, the todcast code. If you use the promo code toodcast at checkout, you get thirty dollars off. I've already used it as a gift to somebody else who loves this bread. It is hard to find good gluten free bread. It is fantastic. They give you step by step instructions. I really dig this. There is nothing like having an artesion bakery in your freezer. Right now, Wild Grain is offering my listeners thirty dollars off your first box plus free croissants for life. Come on when you go to wildgrain dot com slash podcast to start your subscription today. That's thirty dollars off your first box and free croissants for life when you visit wildgrain dot com slash podcast, or simply use the promo code podcast at checkout. This is a sponsor I absolutely embrace, so use that code well. Joining me now is perhaps one of full politicians I've ever personally known, and I feel like I have watched at least the second half of his career up close and personal because of a mutual friend that Lamar Alexander and I have had over the decades, a mentor of mine, I know, an intellectual partner of his, the late great Doug Bailey. But here's my guest, it's the Mar Alexander and his new book, The Education of a Senator Governor. Is that the title you prefer the most? That's always my person I prefer Lamar. Well, there you go. But the joke used to be every former governor that was in the Senate was miserable. How did you not become miserable?
00:02:27
Speaker 2: Well, you're right about on your point, as Mitch McConnell says, any any senator who's been a governor tells you that he prefers being a senator, will lie about other things, and a lot of them have been miserable. Henry Bellman from Oklahoma's, you know, was governor. Then he was in the Senate two terms, and he went back to governor. He said, being in the Senate is about as exciting as what watching a stump rot. But the why your question was why did I get along with it? It doesn't fit. It doesn't fit my instincts. My instincts are to be governor, and which is kind of a Moses job. You know, let's go this way and help a strategy and persuade half the people. You're right, But my advantage was I'd seen the Senate. I've worked in it for Howard Baker. Then I came back and worked in it for a few months for Howard Baker when he was the leader. Then I was, you know, education secretaries. I had to work with the Congress, and the Senate is based almost solely on relationships and when I arrived at the Senate at the advanced age of sixty two, I probably knew twenty five twenty six of the senators. So if you have that kind of relationships and a place that works on relationships, that's a big advantage. So I was able to adapt.
00:03:51
Speaker 1: There's something in my memory bank that says that our mutual friend had relayed to me that when you first got there, you weren't very impressed with the senator some of your colleagues. But I get the impression that that your impression of your colleagues improved over time.
00:04:06
Speaker 2: That's you know, both of that's true. You know, the Senate is like any other group of one hundred people in the country, except it has a lot of very interesting, talented people, more than one might think. But there are always eight or ten senators who are better than the other eighty eight or ninety. And that's probably what I noticed, is that they're just always are some who are leaders or who have skills, who have a sense of purpose and get things done. I mean the Howard Baker's, the ever Dirksons, the Ted Kidney's, people like that.
00:04:39
Speaker 1: McCain was one, Well, I remember you say that about Ted Kennedy. And I don't think you said it very publicly at the time, but he was one of the more interesting people in the Senate. And you're like, well, I got to this place, why is a liberal Democrat one of the more interesting people to work with?
00:04:52
Speaker 2: And that's true. But you know when I ran again, you know, when I ran for the Senate in two thousand and two, I used to I was running to succeed Fred Thompson, and I would I would tell the people, I would say, if you elect my opponent, the Democrat, the first thing he'll do is he'll go over and pick up friend Thompson's desk and he'll sit it down between Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy and make it one vote harder for George W. Bush to lead our country. So I read against Ted Kennedy, and he stood at the back of the Senate and fulminated, you know, in a loud voice, on all these liberal things. But here's an example of how he did things. When I made my maiden address about American history and Civics teachers, he was there and he scurried around the Senate while I was talking. He got twenty Democratic co sponsors for the Bill I was introducing, and then he helped me pass it. So he was that way the whole time he was there. When I was there, he was as effective as any other senator at actually getting things done, and he knew how to make his point, to keep his to keep his people happy, and then then he would go to work with Republicans and try to get a result.
00:06:05
Speaker 1: I want to go back to your early days as governor. I think it's a story that well, they did make a movie about it. I guess you got to help on that front. But I don't think people know this story very well. And it was I was glad to read your account of it. I don't think i'd always gotten Bailey's account. I had never gotten your account. But this was wild. A governor you were succeeding was selling pardons up until the last days in office.
00:06:34
Speaker 2: Well that was right. I mean, it's hard for people to believe today, but it.
00:06:38
Speaker 1: Really that a chief executive would sell pardons. Yeah, I know, it's really hard to believe.
00:06:43
Speaker 2: Lamar, Well, we're.
00:06:46
Speaker 1: Not baiting you.
00:06:46
Speaker 2: I'm not bading you by going there. We're in nineteen seventy nine. I just been elected governor. I'm a Republican. Tennessee is still very democratic state.
00:06:56
Speaker 1: Everybody, what were you the first Republican governors?
00:07:00
Speaker 2: No, in nineteen seventy Winfield. Before that, it was nineteen twenty, so I was we were just in transition still. Most everybody to state capital was a Democrat. All the people I would be working with, and the governor's office. The governor was selling partons for case. The FBI had had tapes of this, and the U s Attorney called me up three days before I was to be sworn in and called me up on a Wednesday morning and said, I'm calling not as the US Attorney but as a Tennesseean to ask you to take office early, because we have evidence the governor is about to release more prisoners who paid cash for their release. Well on two nights before, he had just released fifty one, including many who had paid cash for release. And so I put the phone down and I said, I'll call you back. I'll put the phone down because I want to make sure one the prank. And I called him back and he was a Democrat. And by five o'clock that afternoon, after a lot of negotiation back and forth, the state Attorney General ruled that it was constitutional and legal. And uh I was sworn in his governor three days early, and the Democratic governor was Houston. He later went to jail for selling whiskey licenses.
00:08:17
Speaker 1: How did how was that legal? How did they they just did it? I mean, I'm what was the what was the provision in the constitution? Did the legislature have to go along?
00:08:28
Speaker 2: Well, there was some dispute about it. But in Tennessee, the the state attorney general was appointed by the Supreme Court, and his rulings of the have the rule of almost the rule of a of a court. He was he was a Democrat. He was involved in all the discussions and he interpreted the constitutional provisions and the state laws governing when you swear in the governor to to to allow me to be s warning three days before the scheduled swearing out on Saturday. Now, later on one of the one of the Supreme Court members said he didn't think that was good law.
00:09:12
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, do you think if that was something that that the governor had challenged he just chose not to challenge it. He didn't challenge me.
00:09:21
Speaker 2: He would be out anyway in three days. But uh and and he was in deep trouble. I mean the the to show you how far this had gone. The US attorney who had called me had been part of the investigation of the governor's staff that was selling partons. They were down in Memphis at a hotel room, and he said, let's try hil Mary. So they had the They had the person who was who was the asking the questions, the who was set up to ask the governor's staff. He said, how much would it cost to spring James earl Ray. James Earl Ray was Martin Luther King's Murlin. My gosh, he was brushing mountain and the and the governor's staff guy who was selling pardons said, hmm, that's a tough one. He said, what about seventy five thousand dollars for an escape? So that's what we're And they had all this on video. So here I'm presented with where you where you take office three days early? And I'm thinking, we don't do that in the United States, right, you know, we passed power peaceably. I knew enough to know that. And on the other hand, if I didn't do it, the governor might empty the prison. So he had the complete power to do that. There's no recourse to a presidential or a gubernatorial pardon, you're out. You're out. So that's what I had to weigh, and so I wanted to make sure that I had the entire Democratic establishment with me at the time I was sworn in, the Democratic Chief Justice stare or the Secretary of State. The Atturnment General made his ruling and we announced it together.
00:10:53
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting, that's a that's a heck of a honeymoon you ended up being able to have. Do you think as if it allowed you to immediately hit the ground running because you sort of for you you forged these bipartisan relationships literally in fire.
00:11:10
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think of it as a bipartisan boot camp. I mean, we didn't really know each other, and we had to absolutely trust each other and not miscommunicate with each other. Then ever it was over, we had to not take credit and say well I won, he lost, he lost. I one. We didn't do any of that, and so for for a day we had that bipartisan boot camp, and it really did make a difference over the next eight years my working with a Democratic legislature. You know, better roads, better schools, better jobs, family incomes went Upstates confidence improved and and that was a big part of the reason for it.
00:11:50
Speaker 1: You know, I want to talk a little bit about your time as governor, because you were part of this group of Southern governors, Republicans and Democrats that I feel like was sort of the that brought the South out of the fifties. I don't know how to put it, but it was sort of the quote unquote new South, a reinvigoration into public education, sort of trying to turn the page from the from the divisiveness of the Civil Rights era and sort of move to that. It was Riley in South Carolina, yourself, Bill Clinton, and particularly on education. It was on that issue where I felt like there was a lot of cooperation best practices between those so between the Southern governors. Am I over interpreting that or is that? Is that that the experience you had?
00:12:41
Speaker 2: No, You're exactly right. I mean, and we were elected the same day. I mean, Clinton right Arkansas, Riley in in South Carolina, Bob Graham in Florida.
00:12:50
Speaker 1: Bob Graham was another one.
00:12:51
Speaker 2: William Winter was already in Mississippi, and we worked together, I mean, we were Florida was a little better shape, but the rest of us hear about the same place.
00:12:58
Speaker 1: I ask, you had really done a lot.
00:13:00
Speaker 2: I think I had more money, more people, that kind of thing. But Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi the three poor states. So we worked on what to do about it, and we worked together even though we were of different parties.
00:13:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was I bring this up because I think one of the you know, one of the bigger issues we don't talk about is is I think we haven't rethought our public school system. It's basically the same setup we came up with over one hundred years now, and it's clear that this needs at best updating and maybe total transformation rethinking. And you know, I'm not crazy about the silofaication that we've done of public education. In my home state of Florida, for instance, we have a four tiered system in Miami Dade County. If you're really wealthy, there's the privates. If you're got parents that really pay attention, they can find the right charge or find the right magnet school. But if you, you know, maybe your parents are you know, working two jobs and they can't, and all of a sudden, you're just at the school in your neighborhood and you may not be in the best school. And so while school choice exists, it's it's in some ways it's confusing, it's it's hard. And then there's a part of me that says, you know, what, we really ought to be educated together as Americans. There's some upside to that in pluralism and all of this. So where's your head on this? And how would you be advising today's governors and tackling and sort of reanimating and modernizing public education.
00:14:35
Speaker 2: Well, you're right about the last point. I was in the meeting one time when I was president of University of Tennessee and the president of Notre Dame asked, what is the rational for a public school? There was this embarrassing silence until Albert Shanker, the head of the American Federation Teacher said, a public school is for the purpose of teaching immigrant children the three ares and what it means to be an American. So the idea would be that we have public schools to take this country of many different people, of many different backgrounds and turn us into all Americans. And that's sort of the eplurbus unham reason we have public schools, and the biggest argument against vouchers I'm for school choice. I think leading government money, especially for low income families follow their kids to better schools, is a good idea. But I'm also convinced that communities can have the schools they want, and the recent examples of that. I know that in Tennessee, Bill Frist has had a former majority leaders had an organization called score working for seventeen years, and Tennessee has suddenly been leading leading the South and moved way up in the state in terms of reading and math achievement, even though we have spending. I'm not sure exactly what, but I think I think the point is probably funny. Mississippi's doing the same thing.
00:16:05
Speaker 1: Mississippis leaving a great story that's going on in Mississippi, great great story.
00:16:09
Speaker 2: So I think what it is is these different structures. I like charter schools, especially because that liberates the teachers and give parents more choices. But these different structures are not as important as the quality of the teachers and the attention that the parents pay the kids. And if you have good teachers and interested parents, the children going to learn. If you say a high standards, it's about that simple, and it almost has to be done community by community. So you have a national school board with lots of rules from Washington probably doesn't help very much.
00:16:42
Speaker 1: No, it doesn't. I guess what roles should Washington play. You were Secretary of Education, there's a plan to sort of get rid of the Department of Education. I'm curious your thoughts on that, or would you reanimate the Department of Education.
00:16:57
Speaker 2: No, I've always thought we didn't need Department of Education for higher education colleges and universities. About all it does is distribute money, grants and loans to about twenty million college students every year. That can be done in a ministerial fashion. And as a former college president, I really don't want a national board of trust telling like the one President Trump's proposed, and it's kind of backed away from I think lately, that would tell all six thousand colleges what to do K through twelve. I think the better thing to do would be to let the money follow the low income children to the public school of their choice. Now, some states may want to include private schools, like Florida does, Tennessee does. That's fine, But if you don't want to include the private schools for a variety of reasons, let them go to the public schools, and you don't need all these federal programs. That's up to quite a bit of money. It would be every child would have a few thousand dollars that would follow them to a school if they were a low income student, and those schools usually have less money. And I think that would be the better way for the federal government to spend this money. And that doesn't take a department. So what you need really is an advocate for high standards, high goals, high standards, good schools. You need advocacy, but you don't need management from Washington and Education.
00:18:30
Speaker 1: Well, this episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you by Quints. This time of year always makes me rethink what's in my closet. I'm trying to keep fewer things, but better ones, pieces that are well made, easy to wear all the time. Trust me, I am constantly on this. I have given up ties. I'm looking for upscale casual, nice casual.
00:18:49
Speaker 2: Right.
00:18:49
Speaker 1: That's why I keep coming back to Quints. The fits are thoughtful, pricing actually makes sense. Dirty little secret. Some of my birthday gifts came from members of my family using the and ordering from Quints, and I love what I got. Quins makes some high quality every day essentials. They use premium materials like one hundred percent European linen, and they're insanely soft, flow knit activewear fabric. Their men's linen pants and shirts are lightweight, breathable, comfortable, basically the perfect layer for spring. I've got some of the linen shorts on right now. They're fantastic, trust me. And the best part is that their prices are fifty to sixty percent less than similar brands. How well Quint's works directly with ethical factories, cuts out middlemen, so they're pan for quality, not the markup of the brand. Everything is designed to last and make getting dressed easy. This is one I wholeheartedly endorse. I wear the products. I really like it. I can find my comfort zone here literally when I'm comfortable wearing and comfortable ap peering in on air. So refresh your wardrobe with Quints. Go to quints dot com slash chuck cuhck for free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too, so go to qu I n CE dot com slash chuck for free shipping three hundred and sixty five day returns, quins dot com, slash chuck use that code. You think there should still be a debate about testing well testing? You know where are you in testing?
00:20:23
Speaker 2: I ended up in twenty fifteen when we fixed No Child Left Behind of keeping the test requirement that George W. Bush put in as president.
00:20:32
Speaker 1: Will you say you ended up? It sounds like you were you were? You were you waiting?
00:20:37
Speaker 2: Yeah? Basically, well, I had to pass the bill and and and so there were a lot of people, including President Obama and others, who wanted to keep it, and President Bush wanted to keep it. Margaret Spellings, who was the Education secretary, came to see me about it, and there's a good argument for it, because she would say that was the whole purpose of No Child Left Behind. We at least could require the schools to let everybody know how the can are doing, and then they can make their own decisions about what to do about it. I found that hard to argue with.
00:21:07
Speaker 1: Let me, you know, I we I'm sort of I got my whole list here. I'm gonna need six hours with you. I'm teasing, but I want to stay. I want to sort of stay and go back now in your in your career a little bit. You wrote something in the book that I've actually been also trying to rethink how to use as descriptors. You talked about you hated the label moderate. Yeah, and I totally get it. I get accused of being a centrist or or whatever you want, an institutionalist or whatever you want to call it. That's not too bad, no, But it's not that. I call myself an incrementalist. And I think and and so and what you describe yourself. It's look, you're a conservative, Tom Cotton is a conservative. One is more moderate and temperament, and one is is a little less moderate in temperament. I've always viewed moderate as a thermostat uh descriptor. And but I you know, I know it's gotten sort of conflated. I mean, what would you prefer. I used to call you a conservative who believes in legislating, because there are conservatives that are like, now, let's shut this. You know, we don't need a federal government doing all this stuff. What would be your preferred moniker or descriptive descriptor?
00:22:25
Speaker 2: Oh am, I preferred as I'm a Republican who understands that that if you that there's no reason to be in politics unless you want to accomplish something. I mean, when I want to run for governor a second time, my wife Honey said to me, no, wait a minute, We're not going to go through this again unless you can tell me why are you running and what do you hope to accomplish. And I used to tell my senate colleagues all the time, it's hard to get here, it's hard to stay here. So while you're here, you might as well try to accomplish something good for the country. And if you want to accomplish something, if you're a governor, I was working with Democratic legislature to get some Democrats to agree with you to pay teachers more for teaching. Well, does that make you moderate? No, that makes you a governor who wants to get something done. If you're a senator and you want to pass the Great American Outdoors Act, you you've got you've got to get sixty votes, and Republics have never had sixty votes in the history of the country. So you've got to work with Democrats. So I don't believe in being bipartisan. That's not my goal. My goal is to get a result and and and to get a result, you sometimes get labeled as a moderate. That's what makes that's what kind of made me angry, because I mean, I'm a very Republican Republican as a governor, I'm you know, I fought the teacher's union and walked across the state and and and hpervative. He told people, I've he told I've he told the picture driver's licenses three times because I thought it was an interference with with.
00:23:58
Speaker 1: Our libertarian friends would love you for that.
00:24:00
Speaker 2: That's right. So I think Bill Bennett used to say, who was as I think everybody knows he was the education secretary for Reagan. Strong conservative, considered as such. He used to say to me, you know, our views are almost identical. But I'm Bill Bennett. Could make a speech and everybody would say what a great conservative. And you could make a speech and they'd say, what a nice person. And there's a lot of truth that. A lot of it's style, yeah, and a lot of it is the difference. The difference between Republicans is not between moderates and conservatives, is between Republicans who think you're finished with your job when you finish your speech, and Republicans who want to accomplish something.
00:24:47
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I'm curious. You've watched, in some ways from this perch, you've watched the changing ways that politicians interact with the public, and the public interacts with this public ticians. I've been joking of late that the natural, the next natural page turn in our politics is going to be Stephen Colbert versus Tucker Carlson, you know, and I hesitate to sometimes say it because it's kind of a chuckle. And yet if I told you that was the twenty twenty eight matchup, would you be totally shocked?
00:25:24
Speaker 2: Well, I would be shocked. But in nineteen ninety nine, when I dropped down the presidential race, that didn't you know, I did pretty.
00:25:31
Speaker 1: Well in nice line is amazing, it's amazing, go ahead and rebeat, I said.
00:25:35
Speaker 2: A similar line. You know I was. I was embarrassed. I didn't do well. In the nineteen run up to two thousand, George W. Bush left me and everybody else than dust. And people said, what do you learn? And I said, well, it's all money, and media said it keeps going like this. By two thousand and four, we're likely to have Donald Trump versus the latest Power Bowl winner with chair as an dependent candidate, and I just picked Trump's name out of the blue. I didn't know him, know anything about him, but I missed by about twelve years his rival. We've got a different environment where people are you know, famous for being famous, or their presence on the screen makes a big difference in whether people will vote for him. Their ability to attract attention depends upon their extreme positions and their ability to raise money. By the digital democracy we live in, so all that provides not very much incentive for people who are really interested in saying, Okay, what can we do to advance medical miracles or what can we do to you know, take care of national park maintenance? And if we're going to do that, can we get enough of us together to get a result? That takes some work And it's a completely different style of ser than just making the speech that will get the most cliqus you on your cell phone.
00:27:08
Speaker 1: Look, I think everything is cyclical and that at some point the electorate's going to decide, no, we don't want the best theater person. We need somebody, you know, we want the workhorse. And you know, I don't know we're there yet, and I don't know if our current media climate even rewards that just yet. And I think that that's an issue. But let me poke, let me dig in here on money in politics. One of the most fascinating things that I've been striking up a pretty close relationship with John Kasik, and he's become a huge sort of believer now in campaign financial reformat. He goes, I never would have advocated for it twenty years ago, you know, just you didn't have many conservative Republicans that would say that. But it does feel like there's we've hit a tipping point where we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. This this money is on another level that is consuming our politics. What do we do about it? I'm not sure. Well, first of all, are you I've never are you there? Are you?
00:28:06
Speaker 2: There?
00:28:07
Speaker 1: Are you talking about this?
00:28:08
Speaker 2: I've never favored limits on I mean, I ran for president in nineteen ninety six at a time when you could only raise one thousand dollars per person, and I raised about fifteen million dollars and did pretty well in nineteen.
00:28:21
Speaker 1: You were you were one of the better fundraisers at that time.
00:28:24
Speaker 2: At that time, but I was no competition for Steve Forbes, who got in late and wrote checks and spent about thirty forty million dollars trashing Bob Dole. So when you put limits on campaign contributions you that may be good, but you advantaged somebody else. I agree with you. It's a problem. I heard the other day somebody said the presidency is now billion dollar race. Senate is a fifty million dollar race. Well, my last Senate race in twenty fourteen, I spent ten million dollars.
00:28:58
Speaker 1: So are you paying attention to the Cooper Michael Watley race in North Carolina? That's going to be a billion dollar race? Lamar?
00:29:04
Speaker 2: Is it really?
00:29:05
Speaker 1: That's going to be It's going to get close total spending combined. There's some talk that could be the first billion with a b billion dollar center race. Obviously it's a fairly large state and there's just you know, huge stakes and huge and two proven fundraisers, right, a former governor and an RNC chair.
00:29:25
Speaker 2: Well, our mutual friend Doug Bailey used to have a solution to it, which you may remember. It was he thought that the law ought to be that you can only contribute to a race if you lived in the state.
00:29:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you think of that?
00:29:41
Speaker 2: Almost all the rules that I've heard of that, people come up with the limit the flow of money, people find a way to get around it, and it tends up making it harder for someone else to run their unanticipated consequences. So I don't have a solution. I've gotten to the point in life for if I don't have a solution, I'm not afraid to say, Oh I don't have a solution.
00:30:01
Speaker 1: No, I look, I agree because I agree with you. I used to quote there's this great line in the movie Jurassic Park, and it's also in the Michael Crichton book. But the Jeff Goldblum character that the old man talks about how oh no, no, where these dinosaurs they're not going to mate. We've we've fixed that, and he says, he says this great line, life finds a way. And I've always said that in my experience now watching attempts to limit money, every new limit has opened the door to a bigger spicket each time, because money finds a way. I mean, it's pretty clear now, McCain find goal was a massive failure because it took money that was coming into the system where there was a reporting mechanism and there was transparency and you knew where who was giving the money to the two parties and parties, that's right, and then it party weakened the parties, right, It served to weaken the parties number one, which in itself means we don't have the the vetters if you will, right who you know, this is a bad person, this good person, et cetera. And then it put money. It basically created the dark money system that everybody hates right now.
00:31:12
Speaker 2: Well so fairly, it's a fairly recent phenomenon. I remember I was at the Harvard Kennedy School and I went to Graham House and took me to see John Carrey, and I said to John Carrey, if you spend your own money, you'll be the first serious candidate ever to do it in a presidential primary, which he then did. If you remember, he lost eye borrowed money from I guess his wife's house or his and one New Hampshire. But if he hadn't been able to inject a lot of money into it, he would he wouldn't have been able to do it.
00:31:46
Speaker 1: Let me, I'm going to ask you about Howard Baker because for me it's a bit personal. I think my father was the only person in Miami that had a. Howard Baker for President bumper sticker on his ninety was seventy nine. Really, I don't know if the campaign really made it day?
00:32:04
Speaker 2: Did it didn't get off the ground.
00:32:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, Doug Bailey used to say that had you not been governor, that that campaign might have been gone better.
00:32:14
Speaker 2: Now why did he think that?
00:32:15
Speaker 1: I think the implication was you to run the campaign.
00:32:18
Speaker 2: Oh well, I don't know that I could have done that. You know, President Ford asked me to run his campaign in nineteen seventy five, and I couldn't because I'd lost the governor's race and family circumstances wouldn't allow me to go away. It would have been hard to beat Ron with Reagan in nineteen eighty he you know, that was really the third try he'd run. He made a little try in nineteen sixty eight, then he seventy six was close, and then people were ready for him in nineteen eighty. So Baker was an appealing candidate, but it would be hard hard to beat Reagan. Plus Reagan was running on we bought it, we paid for it, the Panama Canal, and Baker right rightified the treaty. So on some issues he would have.
00:33:08
Speaker 1: Been was on the wrong side of where the base was. Yeah, I think so, Well, what I mean, why else do you think Baker couldn't get traction and why did it? Why didn't Baker get traction but Bush did?
00:33:24
Speaker 2: That's a good that's a good question. Baker, and I say this with love and respect, was a little undisciplined. You know, he was a legislator, and the custom to uh, moving around the center with relationships corrupt the kind of thing that that's not efficient and and I don't think he was ready prepared for the discipline of a presidential campaign. I mean, the difference between running for the Senate, running for governor, and the presidential campaign is the difference between eighth grade basketball and the NBA finals. You've got to be really good, which he was, and then you've got to really have a top flight organization, which for example, George W. Bush did and when he ran. So I don't think he ran a disciplined campaign in nineteen eighty.
00:34:25
Speaker 1: Well, what you're painting a picture of is are you still a firm believer that the best job that prepares you for the presidency, maybe besides the vice presidency, is governor.
00:34:35
Speaker 2: Yes, Yeah, I am but because as I look at the governor, as I look at you know, I worked with tim presidents. I knew a couple more I came in. I was in the Kennedy Justice Department as a student, and then with Baker when LBJ was here. But I worked with ten and I think the one who best fit the job was Reagan because of his executive demeanor and his comfort in doing what Lincoln did, which is to gather a team of rivals to help him, and brought in Bush as his vice president, Jim Baker as his campaign as the chief of staff, and then is another rival, Howard Baker is the chief of staff. So he brought in very broad gaged people who who who were knew the nuances of Washington in the White House, and he listened to them, unlike Jimmy Carter, who came in not knowing much about Washington and brought a bunch of people who didn't know anything either. And he was in his third fourth year before he really got got his feet on the ground. So I think that Clinton Clinton was effective governor and such I mean president, and his moral failures hurt him, but he was the best politician of the president's I knew, and he proved to be an effective governor. George W. Was the most normal of the presidents I worked with.
00:36:01
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a great description. I completely Look, I've my president's personally knowing begins with Clinton, and that's my description of W. He's he's a guy, you know.
00:36:16
Speaker 2: You know, you'd have a cigar with him or whatever. And he wasn't a Rhodes Scholar president of Harvard Law Review, and that didn't bother him and.
00:36:24
Speaker 1: The other Yeah, but he was smarter than most people you talk with.
00:36:26
Speaker 2: Oh, he was pretty smart. And the thing that that he was born on third base, but he treated as an He was comfortable with it being an opportunity to steal home rather than an excuse for a therapy session every week. And most of the people who run for president, when you start from scratch and try to go all the way to the top, that just squeezes so much life out of you. There's not a lot of left by the time you get there. Bush had it all, you know. So he was gregarious. He was gregarious, friendly, easy to get along with, and the most normal of the batch.
00:37:07
Speaker 1: One of my favorite late moments in politics. And I remember watching and observing it and wishing we saw more of this more often than it didn't happen, but for this one event, and that was the infamous or famous whatever you want to call it. It was basically the debate you had with Barack Obama over healthcare in the Blairhouse. And it was one of those moments that I thought, this is what the country should see is our political leaders. Maybe they disagree, and they did and you did, and you guys were having this debate, but it was out in the open, and it felt so healthy for a moment, and I thought, is this Obviously it was a little bit of a publicity stunt, right, there was no doubt. But it almost worked, didn't it.
00:37:58
Speaker 2: It did almost work. And I'll give the president credit for having the day of discussion. What he basically did, though, was Kevin formed the Republicans. We never could have gotten on that much television to offer our point of view. And then Senator McConnell and John Bayinner asked me to take the time for both the Republicans and the House members and the Senate members, which is anybody who's been in Washington long knows how in the city of Elbow is how odd that is.
00:38:28
Speaker 1: I was just going to say the fact that they all agreed to let you be the lead, right, that is a little unusual.
00:38:35
Speaker 2: Let me speak, And so I did, and that irritated Obama because he thought I was going on too long. And then we had a difference of opinion about whether Obamacare would increase the cost of individual insurance, and I had evidence from the CBO that it would. He thought I was wrong. But what I decided to do in the end, I remember saying to mister President, rather than rather than pursue this further in public, I'd like to give you my notes after the meeting and show you why I said that. And I did that because I think people have respect for the office of president, and they don't like it very much when even a senator just com berates the president for too long a period of time. So I argued with him for a while, but then i'd cut it off and gave him my notes afterwards.
00:39:28
Speaker 1: How did that go?
00:39:30
Speaker 2: I don't think he ever agreed with me. I was right about it.
00:39:36
Speaker 1: I mean I remember you saying to me once. Maybe you said it to me or you said it the DOUG, but it was like I gladly trade Medicaid back to the federal government if you will, wanted it to take Medicaid, And part of it was just how much of a budget buster it was for governors.
00:39:55
Speaker 2: I did more than say it. I went to see President Reagan in nineteen eighty eighty one. I was governor, he was president by them, and I proposed to him a grand swap. I said, you take all of Medicaid, which states pay about a third or forty percent of, and we'll take all of K through twelve education, and that belongs to the states anyway. And that would put all of medicaid under one management, the federal government. It would be better managed if you'd had one manager. Reagan liked that, and he proposed it in his State of the Union address, but it never went anywhere.
00:40:35
Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todcast is brought to you by Soul. So if you love that end of the day unwined but hate the hangover, Soul's out of Office is for you. These sparkling THHC drinks and gummies give you the same relaxed social feeling without the alcohol, without the calories, and without the crash. Soul is a wellness brand that believes feeling good should be fun and easy. Soul specializes in delicious hemp derive, THCHC, and CBD products designed to boost your mood and help you unwind. They're best selling out of office gummies were designed to provide a mild, relaxing buzz, boost your mood and enhance creativity and relaxation. With five different strengths, you can tailor the dose to fit your vibe. So also has a variety of products specifically designed to help you get a better night's rest, including their top selling Sleepy Gummies, a fan favorite for deep, restorous sleep. Look, I have made no secret. I am a believer in this stuff, in cannabis and hemp derived I do not partake in alcohol. For the most part, I think this stuff is a lot safer than alcohol, a lot less addictive than alcohol. And yes, I have to say I love these drinks. It is the glass of wine and you know after work, that's what this is. So no hangover and no excess calories like this. I'm a big fan. So bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to Sold today, right now, Soul is offering my audience thirty percent off your entire order go to getsold dot com and used the word toddcast. That's getsold dot com promo code toodcast for thirty percent off. And yes, I too, am a customer. Ironically, I would argue, we've basically that's what we have is universal medicaid. In essence, it's just cobbled together by the states and kind of funded by the Feds.
00:42:26
Speaker 2: Right, Well, I would check the latest numbers, but the federal government probably be pays sixty percent of medicaid and the states paid let's say forty But from the state budgets. What happened in the eighties and the nineties was it went from being three or four percent of the state budget to twenty or thirty percent. And where'd that come from. It came from education. It came particularly from colleges and universities, and also from K through twelve. So medicaid was cramping our ability to improve schools.
00:43:05
Speaker 1: Let me ask you. On the state level, I was moderated a conversation call it a debate conversation between Chris Christy and David French about at the time it was really about sports gambling, and one of the issues I brought up is how all these vices are actually important funders for many state governments. Right, if you have an allergy to raising taxes, well, the best solution is a vice tax, right, gambling tax, cigarette tax, alcohol tax, marijuana tax. But there's a cost to legalizing all these vices. And then you get where state governments are dependent on essentially bad behavior in order to fund state services. Are you worried where you know? Look, you didn't you didn't have to make I think you brought the lottery in, did you no?
00:44:02
Speaker 2: Actually, actually it was the reverse.
00:44:04
Speaker 1: I kept the lottery out, kept it out. Okay, you know, I.
00:44:07
Speaker 2: Was opposed to what I believe is state sponsored something for nothing. I thought it was bad, bad policy. So when it came time to raise money to try and build the best highways to get all the saturn plant suppliers, right, double the gas tax and paid for it so we didn't have any death I and I literally kept kept gambling out of Tennessee while I was governor. But the lottery came in right after I left, and it's grown to be very important and the money goes for education and people like it.
00:44:38
Speaker 1: But I think, but I guess the question is you see where I'm going right, and it's like, are we going down a slippery slope here and funding state government? We're being so reliant on vices, so reliant on stuff that we are worried or you know, like the casinification of everything, young men getting quickly addicted to these sports gambling apps and yet were yet state services can't be funded without it.
00:45:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a valid, a valid concern, and I've found my experience was that when it came time to do what I just mentioned to do we want the Saturn suppliers we haven't had the auto industry. Saturn is going to bring in hundreds of suppliers. Do we want them in Tennessee? And they won't come unless we have super four lane highways so they can get their parts to the plan that I could persuade Tennesseeans to raise the gas tax, reled and borrow money or rely on to syn attax or use lottery money. And in that case, every single Republican voted for it. And now you.
00:45:48
Speaker 1: Think you could have made that case in today's Republican party. I mean you think about what happened to Don Sunquist in your own state when he tried that.
00:45:55
Speaker 2: That was an income tax, and he tried, but that would be harder today. But but I think states ought, if any better roads. There's no need to have them built from Washington and and I don't And the cost of to an individual of of you know, an extra gallon of gas a year, so you don't sit in the traffic jam. That's not a hard case to make.
00:46:20
Speaker 1: All right. I got two more areas I want to explore with you. One is our friend Doug Bailey, and two is where's this Republican Party going. So let's start with Let's start with the Republican Party, and then we'll end on on some high notes about Doug.
00:46:33
Speaker 2: That's good. Doug Bailey is a high note in my book.
00:46:36
Speaker 1: The same with me. I miss him. I miss him every day, especially in this in these moments. And I'm sure I'm sure you've had I have a folder of stuff that he was sending you having to do with a certain hotel that was being built in DC. But yeah, we will set that aside. But let's talk about where this Republican Party is going. I was, like I said, I was recently with Chris Christy and he thinks that we're going to see a natural transition, and that you know, like any president, if they get clobbert in the midterms in their second term, you're going to start to see the traditional shift away from that president by that party in power, in this case the Republicans. I'm a little skeptical of that.
00:47:24
Speaker 2: What about you depends on who votes in primaries. I think to Donald Trump's credit, he brought a lot of people into the Republican primary who never thought about voting before, and they're still there basically doing what he thinks ought to be done. So I think that to change that, you'll have to get other people or more people voting in the primaries. We've gotten in a situation, and that this is an answer to your question, but we've gotten in a situation where as she as maybe five or six percent of the registered voters can pick a primary winner, and as a result, both the Democrats run. The Democrats run to the left, the Republicans run to the right, and that's who you get. So anybody who's center left or center right, which a majority of people are, they're left out. They don't have to vote, they don't have anybody to vote for the general election. So I think for the Republican party to shift gears. There will have to be a lot of people go vote in the Republican primary who have not been voting in it lately, and then you'll get a different kind of nominee. Now, how do you do that? I suppose what you do is you use social media to do it. Social media is what created what we've got now, and I don't want any way to undo it except to use social media. I don't mean be foul language and all that. I mean, just use the skills of social media to attract more people into the primary. For a. I mean maybe a lot of Trump voters too. I mean there may you know, people sometimes say, well I like chocolate, but I've had a lot of chocolate. Maybe I'll try vanilla. There may be Trump voters like that, and then there'll be people who don't like Trump of the Republican Party who are ready for something different. Pretty for a.
00:49:15
Speaker 1: No, you remember seeing the rise of this wing of the party in that O two race. I remember you you had a serious primary challenger. I was running to your right. If I'm not mistaken in the center.
00:49:26
Speaker 2: That's right. I mean Ed brant Ran. He was a conservative Republican from West Tennessee and and had been a prosecutor in the Clinton impeachment trial. A very able, very able guy. Yeah. We I mean Tennessee is basically a populist, independent, conservative state, and it shifted around. I mean the Confederates have become Republicans, and.
00:49:53
Speaker 1: They used to your neighborhood. I mean I used to love that stat. Eastern Tennessee has the longest continuous Republican representation in Congress. Right, it was the only the district I was from.
00:50:04
Speaker 2: It was never elected a Democrat to Congress.
00:50:07
Speaker 1: I mean they were Republican, they were Union it was artists.
00:50:11
Speaker 2: They when when Tennessee seceded from the Union, uh, they voted against it and they went north to Kentucky joined the Union army.
00:50:19
Speaker 1: And I always thought, you Corker. I mean it felt like all of all of the Tennessee Republicans in my early adulthood all were East Tennessee Republicans.
00:50:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, Baker brought too. That's where I mean my great grandfather was asked about his politics. He said, I'm a Republican. I fought to save the Union and I would vote like I shot. So those are the Lincolnites, and they became Republicans.
00:50:44
Speaker 1: Well, I only asked about that race because do you now, in hindsight see the see the elements of the Trump movement from that campaign.
00:50:54
Speaker 2: There, Yes, is the answer to that. I mean, there's always if you go back to there was a John Birch Society and in the sixties, and then there was h let's see, it was Reagan's movement. There was moral majority, there was parole, there was I'm overlooking a couple, but there's always been a strain of conservative populism Republican Party then maybe a third of the hole, maybe a third of the vote, even in Tennessee. When Trump came along, the country had gotten so unsettled. I don't think Trump caused it. I think he's a cynic result of you know, it's the ten years before Trump that were the that changed the country. Not Trump. It's what happened with the arrival of social media, the.
00:51:49
Speaker 1: Social media, the financial collapse, all that, all that post nine eleven, all of that big stew.
00:51:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, the big that big stew and then then came Trump. So that's the big change. How does that? How does that change what happened with the Democrats after mcgovernor, which is the only thing I can analogize it to is that Clinton and Gore and Dick Riley and some of the Democratic Southern governors uh moved there. They created Super Tuesday, moved the Democratic Party more time.
00:52:18
Speaker 1: It was gonna I remember, it was in theory going to be what what was going to nominate Chuck Robb. That's a lot of people thought was going to be that. This was it was Chuck Robb was the the l bj son in law, and the governor of Virginia was seen as the greatest beneficiary of that.
00:52:33
Speaker 2: And then of course so he Graham, Riley, Clinton gore all of them, and then Clinton Gore ran together and it was hard enough to be They were considered at the time to be centrist Democrats and carried a lot enough of the South to win the national election. So I think Republicans will need to nominate people who have a different temperament, a different I think people would welcome a change in language to mean.
00:53:06
Speaker 1: Let's talk about character in politics all.
00:53:09
Speaker 2: That, and I think there are plenty of people out there who can provide that.
00:53:14
Speaker 1: Why do you think character hasn't been a decisive issue for a majority of voters right now?
00:53:22
Speaker 2: I don't know. Often it isn't. I know in the Clinton years it wasn't. I mean Clinton was. He did some pretty bad things.
00:53:30
Speaker 1: But I contend you wouldn't have had Trump without Clinton.
00:53:35
Speaker 2: Well maybe maybe so, And people put that second or third. I don't. I mean, based upon working with ten presidents, I put character in temperament first ahead of whether they lean left or right, because I've seen the pressure and the responsibilities that they have. And it may be that that after Trump more people will value that more. They may say, you know, just as my father took me to the courthouse to meet Howard Baker's senior, the congressman, I thought he was probably the most respected man I was ever likely to meet, other than my father and the preacher. I think people would like a prison they get introduced to their grandson and say, I'd like you to grow up and be like him.
00:54:20
Speaker 1: Right, we don't have a role model in that way that I would feel comfortable with for my son or future grand kid. But they're out there, and that's.
00:54:28
Speaker 2: Just the next for the next.
00:54:30
Speaker 1: Well, I guess here's my concern, Lamar, is that good people look at this terrain. It's not kind you You and I've had these conversations about how rough politics has become for families now, not just the candidate themselves. Are you concerned this is going to drive good people from running?
00:54:51
Speaker 2: It will some? I mean my experience. I mean I spent five years writing my memoir and it helped me put things in perspective. And one of the lessons I learned was that that the hardest thing in politics is leaving it with your reputation and your family intact. So most people don't want to put up with all the indignities that go with it. But if you want to do is Bill Frist did and save twenty three million lives of people who had HIV ags, Or if you want to pass the Great American Outdoors Act, or if you want to produce a care for cancer, you about have to be elected to do it, or go to work for someone else who has been. So if you have a strong sense of purpose and a sense of humor, I think you could suffer all the indignities, and I think we'll have plenty of good people that will want to try.
00:55:49
Speaker 1: Who do you like out there?
00:55:51
Speaker 2: I don't have a favorite. I like governors. I like the governor of Georgia, former governor of Virginia. Those are two talented people who have good credentials in the Republican Party and who want to be able to mount a credible race.
00:56:14
Speaker 1: Is Donald Trump been good or bad for the Republican Party or is this a or do we not know yet?
00:56:21
Speaker 2: Well, he's been both. I mean when he came up, I mean, the Republican Party had gotten ossified, you know, in the eighties and the nineties, who developed a whole structure of people in Washington, d c. Who constructed all these litmus tests that you had that you had to check off before you could even be considered a Republican candidate. And he busted all that. I busted a lot of that up. He completely blew a lot of that up. So that needed to be done, and that was kind of inviting a demolition, and he provided a demolition. What's been bad about it is he's moved away from some very critical things for our country that the Republican Party has always supported, for example, a worldview that that values allies such as NATO. He's also made some big errors in terms of his pardon of people who charged the capital on January sixth.
00:57:24
Speaker 1: And he calls it bs Lamari did it again this weekend and going after Bill Cassidy.
00:57:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, but anyone who looks careful. I went back there three days after the mob hit the Capitol, and I was my stomach turned about what I saw. George Washington said that the most important thing about our new country was not the first election, but the second, the peaceful transfer of power. And did not accept the peaceful transfer of power then to urge a mob to overturn the result. That's bad for the country. And there are other things. See, he's done a lot of good things. I mean, I was glad to see the southern border control. I think he's doing and Iran what some American president was going to have to do sooner or later, which is to use force to keep them from having a nuclear weapon. Now, whether he's doing it as expertly as George H. W. Bush and his team might have, that's another question. But at least he's trying to do it. I like his nuclear power policies. I can make a list of things that I like the President Trump has dumb, but there are other things that I think have damaged the country.
00:58:40
Speaker 1: What's the line look like? I believe politics is a transaction. I believe civilization invented politics that we can settle disputes without violence. So I'm somebody who thinks politics is a good thing. And I know it's a dirty word to some people, but I think it's a good thing. And transactionalism within reason is a good thing. But what's when does transactionalism become harmful?
00:59:06
Speaker 2: It depends what you mean by trans I mean transaction if.
00:59:11
Speaker 1: Well, right now, look I'm gonna I'm not I'm gonna put words in your mouth, but this town feels like it's for sale at times right now, and that everybody kind of knows how you do it. And if you need a regulation to go a certain way, there's a pretty easy path to do it. That shouldn't be the way Washington operates.
00:59:29
Speaker 2: No, that's true. That shouldn't be and people should be revolted by by anything. Then that is like that, there's there are as you said, there's always a certain if you mean that kind of transaction, there can't be contributions. Sure will view that as as well.
00:59:47
Speaker 1: It is donors give money not out of the goodness of their heart, or at least donors that give a certain amount of money, they at least at a minimum, expect to have get your phone number.
00:59:57
Speaker 2: Well, they they do, but but I never felt. I know, the second time I ran for governor, I got Jim Haslam, who didn't need anything, to be my finance chairman, so that everybody who gave money would have to go through him, because I was trying to insulate myself from people who thought that just because they gave me a contribution, I would do what they wanted me to do. Yeah, that's not the way everybody operates. And I don't know the law you could pass that makes everybody operate that way, but people can sense it when things go too far.
01:00:34
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Doug Bailey before I let you go. You know you Doug was your political one of your political consultants for a long time. I remember when I first got to the hotline, everybody whispered to me, you know, Doug's got a part time job. It's to get Lamar Alexander elected president and so and all that. So tell me about your when did you and Doug connect first?
01:01:00
Speaker 2: Well, I ran for governor in nineteen seventy four and F. Clifton White was my consultant. Barry Goldwaters guy, and he was delightful. But when I ran again in seventy eight, I looked around and I saw that Doug Bailey and John Diodorf had represented I don't know the exact number, maybe seven out of the twelve Republican governors.
01:01:24
Speaker 1: And governors, yeah, were left in the.
01:01:30
Speaker 2: Nation after the Watergate debacle in nineteen seventy four. So White Stewart took me to see him. And the great thing about Doug Bailey was he was a professor as well as as a political guy.
01:01:43
Speaker 1: So that's something you probably connected with immediately.
01:01:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he wanted he didn't He wanted me to win. So he created a spectacular campaign, a textbook campaign with a big plan. And I walked across the state. I spent the night with seventy three families, most of them I didn't know it.
01:01:59
Speaker 1: So I cooked up with you and Doug the walking across the sta.
01:02:02
Speaker 2: My wife, really, my wife, Honey really was the one who Doug was there. But she said that I wasn't going to run again unless I could tell her why I wanted to accomplish something. And she said, second, could we have a different campaign mode? So we sat around and talked about what I like to do. I like to walk, I like music. So we ended up walking across the state in my red and black shirt with a band of four kids from the University of Tennessee band and a flatbed truck playing Mama Milano music here and it made me a better candidate and a better governor. But what Doug Bailey was really good at was he came to see me every week I was governor and from Washington and the Democrats and the legislature thought he was coming to give me political advice. He was. He was coming to give me advice about how to be a good governor. And then we talked about the politics of how do we persuade people?
01:02:57
Speaker 1: Were right, give me a few of his tips. What it wouldn't you take from him on being a governor?
01:03:06
Speaker 2: How do we go about this? Who not who can we get to do this job? But who would be the best person for the job, Then let's go ask them. So he was my advisor about how to be a good governor for eight years and a remarkable, remarkable person.
01:03:22
Speaker 1: Well, we we did all sorts of fun little things together. I don't think people realize, but I think we had a lot of fun doing. We were doing internet television before anybody knew it was a thing back in nineteen ninety nine and two thousand with the Yeah right with Doug and it was a Tennessee businessman. I think that we did some stuff with it. It was sort of an early lesson and how that.
01:03:46
Speaker 2: World worked or it didn't work.
01:03:49
Speaker 1: Well, it didn't know it didn't work then, but you know what that stuff doesn't You know, it doesn't work then, but it works now.
01:03:56
Speaker 2: Dog Doug wanted an Internet democracy. See if he could see it now, he would not because we have it, we have a digit So is that I know?
01:04:06
Speaker 1: Do you think he was Yeah, he may have been. His vision his vision was both correct and not good.
01:04:12
Speaker 2: He may have not anticipated that the founders didn't want too much democracy and they wanted a republic was structure and elected people who could make judgments about what's right and what's wrong. And the influx of social media, et cetera has has given us more democracy than the founders envisioned. Well.
01:04:33
Speaker 1: At the end, he was working on trying to figure out how to essentially blow up both parties, and I wonder if he was onto something.
01:04:41
Speaker 2: Then well maybe maybe we'll have more independent candidates in the future.
01:04:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lamar, it's this was a serious memoir. This is not every senator where their memoirs. Did you model this off of other memoirs? Who do you think did a good job? That you hope this gets compared to? Because I found this both enjoyable and thorough well.
01:05:07
Speaker 2: Thanks Seuk. I didn't really model it off anybody. I had a purpose. My purpose was to try to try to let people know that as governor or senator, I woke up every day thinking I might do something good for my state or country, and went to bed most nights thinking that I had and that it was still possible in this digital democracy we have today to do that and feel that way and to encourage people to go about it. Second, I've been at it so long, you know, I'm working with ten presidents and nearly sixty years. I've seen public life from about every angle, and I thought the stories would be fun to tell. They'd be time fun for me to tell, and I thought maybe for readers to read.
01:05:53
Speaker 1: Well, let me leave folks with this, what is your There are some people who listen to my podcasts and some others who are worried about the state of our democracy. Are you worried about it or do you think it's going to or do you do you sort of follow Churchill's belief of Americans that you know, we eventually figure out and do the right thing after we've exhausted every other path.
01:06:17
Speaker 2: I use the word republic, and I borrow went from Senator Howard Baker. He used to say whenever a Senator was causing trouble, or we had a war or some big problem, he would say, the republic will survive. I think the republic will survive too. But I think, and people have asked that question for two hundred and fifty years whether it'll survive. But I think we've got some work to do to make it survive. And the only way it will is of you know, talented people figuring out how to be elected. Get more people voting in primaries so they can get elected.
01:06:48
Speaker 1: Then going and are you for all party primaries? Are you ready to sign up for that? I am all I want to get rid of. I think taxpayer funded partisan primaries. I think are unconstitutional. The idea that I've got to join a private club in order to participate in a taxpayer fund a primary seems it seems like a poll tax to me.
01:07:06
Speaker 2: Well, I'm for open primaries. The Tennessee is moving toward closed primaries. But I never would have been elected if we hadn't had open primaries because I had to attract a lot of Democrats and independence in the Republican primary forty years ago to win the nomination.
01:07:22
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny. When parties get power, they want to shut the doors, and when parties are seeking power, they want to open the doors. That's how that works.
01:07:30
Speaker 2: Or when they win by too much, they overreach. I think the biggest challenge we've got the lack of two party competition. When we have it, it's like the Southeastern Conference where all the good players want to play because they like to play with good players, and then you have good games. What's happened in Tennessee is the Democrats can't elect anybody. It's like the University of Tennessee winning seventy to five every week.
01:07:55
Speaker 1: Are you surprised that Nashville hasn't become I don't want to say northern Virginia or the Atlanta suburbs, but that Nashville hasn't become a moderating force for the Democratic Party.
01:08:09
Speaker 2: Nashville is actually the most liberal part of the state now, the most consistently democratic part of the state, and it's the healthiest and most vigorous part of the state in terms of growth. Our whole state's doing pretty well actually, in terms of the growth. Our cities are democratic, are the rest of the states Republican, and Democrats can't elect anybody statewide, so that's not good for I didn't like it when we had one party state for one hundred years with the Republicans left out. I don't think it'll be good for Tennessee if we have one party state for one hundred years with all the Democrats left out.
01:08:48
Speaker 1: LA Alexander a great public servant. It's been a pleasure to know you over the years. I appreciate your friendship.
01:08:54
Speaker 2: Thank you, jud Thank you for your time. Hey