Bill Brock - An icon from an era long gone in TN

I don't remember Senator Bill Brock in office. Indeed, he was in office when I was born in July of 1973. He beat Senator Al Gore Sr. in 1970, and, in the aftermath of Watergate, lost to Jim Sasser in the wacky Carter election year of 1976. Politics is somewhat luck. Brock was skilled, but got somewhat lucky in 1970. And just as equally unlucky in 1976.

The aftermath was far from dismal for Brock. According to Wikipedia, Brock went on to become chair of the Republican National Committee after his 1976 defeat. After that, President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the posts of Trade Representative and Secretary of Labor.

Not bad. Not bad at all. But Tennessee, once a bastion of "ticket splitter" politics, is now safe and sound in Republican hands for all practical purposes statewide. As I read Brock's history in The Tennessean, I could not help but think of Howard Baker and other Tennessee politicians who steered the ship tenaciously from their own party perspective but who also knew when to compromise and to act as statesmen. 

There is a time for both in this world that we live in. In September and October of an election year, it is time to fight for your party and your cause. Not so much in January of the next year, an inauguration year. The sight of January 2021 with President Trump fighting the election of President Biden was painful and un-American. You win some. You lose some. Accept the result. And move on to the next contest.

From what I am reading in The Tennessean, Senator Brock was an artful compromiser. And we should not forget his skills from both partisan and bipartisan perspectives.

Shades of "Tip and the Gipper". Shades of even recently departed Senator Lamar Alexander. As for recently-elected Senator Bill Hagerty, too early to tell. As for Senator Marsha Blackburn, she was very talented to get to her current position. But she is as much of a sore loser as she is a winner when the time comes. And she has won many many times in her home state. And never lost as far as I know in a career as a state senator, U.S. Representative, and now U.S. Senator.

Politics is at its best when it is competitive. And for the foreseeable future in Tennessee, it is not competitive at all. Salute to the era when it was and to folks like Brock, Baker, Sasser, and both Gores.

James A. Rose

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