Former Gov. Ned McWherter has put President Bill Clinton on notice that he wants to ease out of his role as a presidential advisor to spend more time in Tennessee.
In Nashville last week for the swearing-in of new state Attorney General Knox Walkup and to perform a wedding at the state Capitol, McWherter told old friends and acquaintances that his trips to Washington are beginning to put a strain on him and that he plans to stick closer to home from now on.
“I just told [President Clinton] I wanted to ease back into business and the political world and stay in Tennessee more,” McWherter said, speaking from his office in Dresden. “And that’s kind of the way we left it.”
From the beginning, McWherter’s visits to the White House were informal and sporadic. “I never was on the payroll, and I didn’t have an office,” McWherter explained.
McWherter’s relationship with the president got started back before the 1992 election, when the Clintons came to Tennessee as then-Gov. McWherter’s guests for a Jackson Day dinner in Nashville. U.S. Sen. John Rockefeller was scheduled to be the guest speaker, but when the senator choked on a piece of food and had to be rushed to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Clinton was tapped as the pinch hitter.
“I told [Clinton] that, if he wanted to run for president, he could start with a speech then,” McWherter recalls. “He gave a great, off-the-cuff speech. Rockefeller got back to the residence at about 2 a.m.”
As the 1992 presidential campaign progressed, McWherter became a major player in the South, fund-raising tirelessly for the Clinton/Gore ticket. During the past five years, McWherter has repeatedly flown to Washington to advise Clinton on various matters. “For example, when I was up there last week, I told him it was the right thing to go talk with the Republican [Congressional] leadership,” McWherter says.
While the former governor and state House speaker says he’ll be spending more time in Tennessee, he says he plans to retain his seat on the U.S. Postal Board in Washington.
The way we were
Ninety-nine and half years from now, when the time capsules buried at Tennessee’s Bicentennial Mall are opened, someone’s going to get a good laugh.
The contents of the capsules are supposed to preserve what life is like right now in the state Legislature and in Tennessee’s 95 counties. Lt. Gov. John Wilder’s letter to future Tennesseans is scheduled to be buried this summer along with letters from other legislators.
A century from now, when the time capsule is opened, Wilder may still be causing some bemusement.
It appears as if the speaker wrote the letter himself, or that it was taken from one of his speeches. For anyone familiar with Wilder’s choppy thinking patterns and his disjointed speeches, that’s a scary thought. After a few introductory paragraphs asserting the independence of the state Legislature, the lieutenant governor, a Democrat and a crusty patrician, launches into distinctly Wilder-esque commentary, the point of which never becomes quite clear. The following are excerpts from Wilder’s first letter, later replaced by a slightly shorter but still Wilder-like version.
“Our state is the best managed state in the United States,” Wilder writes. “We are in three businesses: education, human services, and transportation. Education used to be our biggest business. It is now our most important business. With the advent of health care (TennCare) when mental health is merged with TennCare we spend more on health care than we do on education. This is not yet in hand. It probably won’t get to be under control. Roads are our other business. We now have a 65 mph speed limit. That is too slow for me. We once had no speed limit. Most people drive 75 or 80 mph. Highway patrolmen tend to look the other way most of the time if you don’t get over 75 mph. This is wrong.
“It is a lot to tell and this is not the place to do it,” he continues.
“Our state is good, our Legislature is good, our Supreme Court is good, and I am proud of it. Uncle Sam is broke. He has no intention of paying his debt. I believe he is going to have to do it. You will see what he has done when you open this.
“There is order in the cosmos. You have to abide by the order of the universe. You can’t have something for nothing but you should have something for something. Some people don’t know that.
“The Legislature continues its legacy set out by our forefathers. Our state is good, our government is good, and it has gotten better. The movement is in the right direction. It is important that we honor the contributions made on this important Statehood Day.”
Unfortunately, we’re not making this up.
Dogged determination
Under pressure from animal-welfare activists and other interests, state Rep. Page Walley, a Republican from Bolivar, is planning to withdraw his bill to amend a 1901 state statute dealing with “proud bitches running at large.”
Walley has filed a bill that would change the “proud bitches” statute, an antiquated animal-control law that makes it legal for anyone to shoot and kill female dogs running loose. His bill would, as he puts it, “remove the gender bias” and make it legal for Tennesseans to shoot and kill any dog discovered running at large.
“I suppose the rationale at the turn of the century for this law was that female dogs were the ultimate source of the [stray dog] problem, that they attracted suitors,” says Walley. He suggests that his predecessors in the Legislature drafted the law as “the easiest method” to deal with wandering strays.
Walley filed his bill at the urging of his constituents in Henderson, where a city official recently killed a female dog in heat. But a combination of opposition to the legislation and the lack of a Senate sponsor for the bill has prompted Walley to withdraw it.
“It was possibly a good idea whose time has not yet come,” he says.
Here’s an idea whose time has come: City officials could stop shooting dogs and start taking them to the new city-run pound.
Reach Liz at 244-7989, ext. 406, or e-mail her at liz@mail.nashscene.com.
