Heidi Alexander: “late this afternoon, Senator Thad Cochran, the senior Senator from Mississippi, announced he will be retiring from the…”

“late this afternoon, Senator Thad Cochran, the senior Senator from Mississippi, announced he will be retiring from the Senate on April 1. He said his health had become an ongoing concern. I saw a steady stream of Senators visiting with Senator Cochran today expressing their best wishes to him and for good reason: Senator Cochran is a gentleman, first of all; he is a skilled legislator, second of all. He has earned the respect of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle through his chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the one-time chairman of the Senate Republican conference, and back in Mississippi, he was a pioneer in the development of that State's two-party system in the Republican Party. He and Trent Lott were both elected to Congress in 1972, in the Nixon sweep. Then, Thad Cochran became the first statewide-elected Republican in Mississippi since Reconstruction, in 1978, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate. He has been here ever since. He is a close friend. I admire him greatly. We will miss him greatly, but I especially admire his service and wanted to say that before I made other remarks. ____________________”