The Sunday Times - World
April 03, 2005
Southern revolt on the ascent of Hillary
Tony Allen-Mills, Nashville
THE first signs of a Democratic revolt against Senator Hillary
Clinton’s much-anticipated march on the White House are emerging in
the American South, where one of the party’s most successful state
governors called last week for Democrats to consider other candidates.
In a calculated snub of Clinton’s accelerating bandwagon, Governor
Philip Bredesen of Tennessee warned that voters were “kind of
dissatisfied” with the Democrats’ current presidential contenders and
that Clinton would face an “uphill road” to win the White House.
Bredesen also expressed dismay that speculation about the 2008 race
was already focused on the wife of former president Bill Clinton and
on Jeb, the brother of President George W Bush and governor of
Florida. “Surely in the United States we can go further than having to
have a single family dominate one side and a single family dominate
the other,” he said.
Bredesen, 61, was giving his first interview to a foreign newspaper
since his emergence earlier this year as a potential dark horse in the
presidential race. It appeared to reflect an attempt to raise his
international profile amid increasing speculation in Washington that
he may become the next southern governor to come from obscurity to
take the White House.
Like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton before him, Bredesen has
established a formidable Democratic power base in the conservative
south. Clinton came from Hope, Arkansas; Bredesen jokes that when he
briefly worked in England in the 1970s, he lived in Hope Cottage,
Oxfordshire. His careful stewardship of Tennessee’s economic growth
has made him one of the most popular governors in the state’s history.
Bredesen is a soft-spoken, ruddy-faced figure who makes no effort to
dodge potentially embarrassing questions. Asked about Clinton, most
Democrats gush about how wonderfully she has performed as senator for
New York.
Bredesen instead replied: “People love her or they hate her and I
don’t know in the end how all that plays out. But I sure hope there
are other people who would step forward.”
Who should those others be? “It may well be someone that nobody has
thought of . . . the sense I get is that people are really hunting
around and looking for something different.”
Bredesen, a former mayor of Nashville, believes his party has “somehow
gotten itself divorced” from the blue-collar constituency it has
always relied on for presidential success: “I’ve always felt the
Democratic party was a kind of alliance between the academics and
intellectuals and working-class men and women. I think what happened
is that in my lifetime, the academics won.”
As a result, the governor said, the party had lost its broad appeal.
He mocked other Democratic candidates who think connecting with middle
America means quoting a few verses from the Bible or being
photographed with guns.
Bredesen is a lifelong clay pigeon crackshot, and everyone in
Tennessee knows that his attachment to guns is real.
He added: “I think a lot of the time the answer they are looking for
is ‘Oh, if you just quote Matthew, Mark, Luke or John once in your
speech’ that somehow everyone will think you’re one of them.”
Many Democrats have asked him about his “secret” in Tennessee, where
voters gave Bush a 14-point victory over Senator John Kerry.
Bredesen’s approval ratings are above
60% and he is a shoo-in for re-election next year.
His supporters attribute his success to his modest manner, small-town
roots, personal integrity and the quiet competence that helped him
transform Nashville from a backwater into a thriving cultural hub.
The Democrats’ problem, Bredesen believes, has little to do with
bullets or the Bible. “The point I’m trying to make is that you’ve got
to stand up for some clear things,” he said. He is tired of listening
to members of his party attempting to appeal to both pro-gun and
anti-gun voters: “When you do that, you’re left with nothing.”
In a recent speech to southern Democrats in Atlanta, Bredesen summed
up the Republican party platform as follows: “A traditional view of
family, no abortion, no gay marriage, a central role for faith, gun
over the mantel, low taxes, an assertive and combative view of
American interests abroad.”
He then challenged his colleagues to sum up the Democratic party in
less than 30 words. Nobody could oblige. Asked what his 30 words would
be, he replied: “I don’t have any yet. I’d be delighted to tell you if
I did.” He may be waiting until after his re-election to unveil his
national vision.
If the party finds a new world view, he added, “I think the other
stuff happens. The organisation happens. The excitement happens. We
just haven’t had that person yet.” Hillary Clinton seems sure to
disagree.
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