The brutal cold for Gov. Phil Bredesen’s swearing-in ceremony stood in stark contrast to the way his assumption of the Nashville mayor’s office was marked. That time, he was inaugurated during a brutal September heat wave. Members of the high school band on hand started dropping like flies in the sun until their director ordered them to get in the shade and take off their heavy wool uniforms.
This time, his speech was mercifully short, and the crowd dispersed quickly to warm up in various hotel lobbies and post-event receptions. If the day was the coldest in two years, it might have another bit of reassuring symbolism to it: Just as Bredesen assumed the leadership of the city at a low financial ebb, he is taking over state government in a similar trough, and things can only get better. Similarly, he will be replacing a predecessor who, through a combination of his own fecklessness and counterbalancing willingness to tackle hopeless issues, ended his term as a largely unpopular figure. (Did anyone else notice that Lt. Gov. John Wilder—a creature of legislative formality—introduced Bredesen as the “honorable Governor-elect Phil Bredesen” and Sundquist as simply “Gov. Don Sundquist”?)
Bredesen will inherit a difficult budget situation from the outgoing Sundquist, though it could have been a lot worse had all the turmoil that marked Sundquist’s second term not already happened. Sundquist never truly checked state spending, but the large tax increase that concluded his term at least put the revenues and expenditures on the same page. Bredesen’s predecessor as mayor, William Hill (Bill) Boner, similarly bit the bullet on the revenue side with a large tax increase in 1989, but his disorganized personal life and seven hours of, uh, distraction undermined public confidence in the seriousness of his leadership. In both cases, turmoil followed that left bitter tastes and a lack of confidence in government (not to mention tractors at the courthouse, as farmers protested Boner’s proposed landfill site, and, in Sundquist’s case, honkers outside the Capitol).
Bredesen’s inaugural message was one of calm confidence and a determination not to automatically inherit Sundquist’s enemies. Bredesen will always be the stereotypical “Massachusetts liberal,” who came carpetbagging into the state spreading alien ideas. Yet his inaugural address drew little from his supposed Massachusetts ancestors, as he spoke about moving beyond the bad feelings of recent years.
While he might not like the comparison, his speech sounded much like that of Richard Nixon at his 1969 inauguration. Nixon spoke as someone who had seen the consequences of the energies unleashed by John Kennedy’s vision eight years earlier.
“In these difficult years,” Nixon said, “America has suffered from a fever of words; from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading. We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another—until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.”
While the age of horn-honking may seem a little comical in contrast to the turmoil of the 1960s, Nixon’s words may have been no less on the mark for it: “Greatness comes in simple trappings. The simple things are the ones most needed today if we are to surmount what divides us, and cement what unites us. To lower our voices would be a simple thing.”
In his speech, Bredesen called for a similar lowering of voices. “I believe as we have struggled,” he told the crowd, “that we have fallen into the trap of seeing just two ways of looking at our government. One way is the expansive view: more revenue, more responsibilities for government. The second is a more restricted view: cut expenses, fewer services. But I want to say today that there is a third way. Let’s leave behind the predictable and stale debate between liberals and conservatives.... That third way is common sense, and it is already the way that families across our state are managing their own affairs and lives.”
Bredesen also spoke about the importance of education and the challenges ahead, but what people will remember is his plea for a calmer kind of politics.
The words played well with the mostly Democratic crowd who assembled for the event. Although there were plenty of VIPs from both parties gathered for the inaugural, there were mostly people with no particular insider status. It’s been a long time in the cold for the Democratic faithful, and the frigid ceremonies represented the first burst of warmth in a while.
The inaugural ball that followed was even more striking. Officials said there were 20,000 tickets requested and dispersed for the gathering at the Opryland Hotel. While the weather may have dampened attendance somewhat, the turnout was impressive nonetheless, even if it was free. The most notable thing about the crowd was how few of the usual political suspects turned up. (They were attending a separate oligarchs-only pay party before filtering out to mingle with the masses once the initial crush was over.)
For all the venom that has been focused on government over the last four years, the inaugural was a demonstration that large numbers of people do care about what government is doing, that they respect its mission and admire its leaders.
And we know that they were sincere in feeling that way, because it was, after all, a cash bar.
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