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Mar
3
What do I know about Senator Lamar Alexander? Not a lot. I know his name. I know I’ve heard it for years and years. I have a recollection of the name being connected at some time in the past, in some way, with presidential elections, but I don’t remember how. I have a notion that he’s a moderate Republican, more of the real Reagan cloth than the revisionist one devised by people who weren’t even born when Reagan began to ascend in politics, let alone become president.
But who is Alexander and why should anyone care?
Trying to lose ten pounds in ten weeks means that I have to watch a lot of 6am newscasts, but I find myself on C-SPAN more than anything else. So it was that one morning this week I read (remember – I use the close-caption so I can listen to music while channel surfing) Alexander’s address to the National Governors Association on 2/27/07.
Here’s the entire text.
Does the man make sense, or what? I mean, at least 90% of what he says. Sure, go fire up your Jill’s a neo-con machine. What. EHver. Except for the reference to John Ashcroft, the man makes sense. After he tells three stories to explain the three points he wants to make to the audience, he summarizes:
So those are my stories. And in summary:
1. Call your senator and read him or her the 10th amendment and stop unfunded mandates. That will help competitiveness.
2. Have your own “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” report in your own state. That will help competitiveness.
3. Go to work in your state to find one fair way to pay outstanding teachers and principals more for being good teachers and principals. That may be the single most important thing we do.
These aren’t the only steps I want my state to take to become healthier fiscally or to improve education or to cherish more meaningfully those who enter the field of education. That would be oversimplifying complicated, systemic ills. But they certainly are solid starters.
I don’t know who wrote what he read. But, as a speech, it succeeded as well. It was the right length with the right amount of narrative and the right amount of “now go do this.”
He’s no senior senator for nothing.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:18 pm March 3rd, 2007 in Politics
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Lamar Alexander is famous for inventing plaid flannel. At least, I think he invented it. That’s all he wore in the 1996 primary season. He later sold his entire box of worn shirts to Mike DeWine for $13.
Yeah – I did see something about flannel. Wow – those two guys are frugal or cheap or something.
Alexander first wore a black-and-red plaid shirt when he walked 1,022 miles across Tennessee during his successful campaign for governor in 1978. Plaid was his trademark for many years after that.
Image is everything, huh? WHAT ABOUT HIM??