Heidi Alexander: “it is my sad responsibility to announce that former Gov. Ned McWherter of Tennessee has died this afternoon. Ned had…”

“it is my sad responsibility to announce that former Gov. Ned McWherter of Tennessee has died this afternoon. Ned had many friends here in Washington, but he had a lot more in Tennessee. What symbolized Ned McWherter to me was a story that occurred to me when I was elected Governor in 1978. I was a young Republican, about 37 years old. There hadn't been many Republican Governors in Tennessee at that time. The whole State was one party. It was very Democratic. Ned McWherter was the speaker of the House. For those who knew Ned McWherter, he was a big, burly, Hoss Cartwright sort of fellow. He and the Lieutenant Governor, a Democrat, pretty well ran the capital. Shortly after I came in, the Capitol Hill media came up to speaker Ned McWherter and said: Well, Mr. Speaker, what are you going to do with this new young Republican Governor? Speaker McWherter said: I am going to help him, because if he succeeds, our State succeeds. For 8 years, as he was speaker and I was Governor, he did that. The people of Tennessee apparently didn't mind it because after I left, they elected him Governor. He served for 8 years. That sort of bipartisan cooperation was the way I learned about politics in Tennessee. Ned was a pretty thoroughgoing Democrat. He was one of President Clinton's closest friends and early allies. Democrats all around the country came to him for his homespun advice.…”