Phil Bredesen

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Phil Bredesen

Philip Norman "Phil" Bredesen (born November 21, 1943 in Oceanport , Monmouth County , New Jersey ) is an American politician of the Democratic Party . The entrepreneur was governor of the state of Tennessee from 2003 to 2011 and ran for the United States Senate in 2018 . He lost the election on November 6, 2018.

Family, education and work

Bredesen was born in New Jersey and grew up in Shortville , a town in the rural part of New York State . He studied at the Harvard University physics and stood unsuccessfully in 1970 the code for a seat in the Massachusetts Senate . In 1975 he moved to Nashville , Tennessee. There he initially worked as a businessman. He founded Health America Corporation , a company that at one point had over 6,000 employees and was traded on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1986 he sold this company again. After serving as governor, Bredesen co-founded the solar energy company Silicon Ranch in Nashville in 2010 , which operates one hundred solar systems in 14 US states.

Bredesen is married to Andrea Conte, who runs a non-profit organization to prevent violent crime. The couple has a son. Bredesen was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.

Political career

Beginnings in Nashville

1987 Bredesen first appeared as a politician in Tennessee. He ran for the office of Mayor of Nashville and was defeated in the runoff election with 47 to 53 percent of the then MP of the US House of Representatives, Bill Boner , who emphasized Bredesen's origin from the north of the USA. Bredesen then stood in the Democratic area code in the special election for Boner's previous congressional mandate, but was defeated by the eventual winner Bob Clement .

From 1991 to 1999 he was mayor of Nashville. There he showed social commitment and founded the so-called Nashville food banks . He campaigned for the preservation of the open land and the old farms. At the same time, he managed to secure jobs and attract high-tech companies to the city. Nashville grew rapidly during his tenure as mayor.

Governor of Tennessee

After he first applied for the office of governor of Tennessee in 1994 and lost to the Republican incumbent Don Sundquist , Bredesen was elected as his successor in the 2002 election. In doing so, he defeated Van Hilleary , a member of the United States House of Representatives . Bredesen took office on January 18, 2003. On November 7, 2006 , Bredesen prevailed in re-election against Republican challenger Jim Bryson , winning every County Tenneessee. This was the last state-wide victory by a Democrat to date. As governor, he worked to improve the administration, the education system and reform the health care system. His policies for the first four years resulted in a balanced budget. The salaries of teachers have been increased above the average in the southern states . He attracted domestic and foreign companies to Tennessee through contacts. Over 100,000 new jobs were created in his first term of office. Bredesen also campaigned for the nature parks by buying up land and setting up parks.

In the 2000s, political observers considered Bredesen to be a suitable means of achieving national success as a popular Democrat in the southern states, after the Democrats had for decades only been victorious in presidential elections with governors from the southern states ( Jimmy Carter , Bill Clinton ). Bredesen was considered a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 presidential election . After the retirement of the health minister- designate Tom Daschle , Bredesen was under discussion for this position in the Obama cabinet in early 2009 .

Application for the US Senate

In December 2017, Bredesen announced that he was running for the current term of Republican Bob Corker in the 2018 election to the United States Senate . Since Corker will not run again, the chances of a Democratic challenger are better of winning the seat in the structurally republican Tennessee, after a Democrat ( Al Gore ) last won an election to the US Senate in 1990 . His opponent on the Republican side is former Congressman Marsha Blackburn, who is supported by the state party leadership and President Donald Trump . In the polls, Bredesen has always been either tied or ahead of Blackburn. In April 2018, Corker stated that Bredesen was in the lead, had non-partisan appeal and was a friend with whom he had worked well for years. He will not campaign against Bredesen. A poll by Vanderbilt University in May 2018 found that 69 percent of non-party voters have a positive opinion of Bredesen, compared with 44 percent of Blackburn; while 52 percent of the Republican voters rated Bredesen positively, it was only 25 percent for Blackburn among the Democrats.

Political website Sabato's Crystal Ball has pointed out that Tennessee has moved heavily to the right politically since Bredesen's governorship; From the 2004 presidential election to the 2016 election , the state shifted 18 percentage points in the direction of the Republicans, after West Virginia and Arkansas the strongest change of all US states, and Donald Trump a lead of 29.5 percent over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton given. Therefore, the race is to be classified as slightly inclined towards the Republicans ("leans Republican"). The Cook Political Report sees the race as completely open ("toss up"). The New York Times pointed out that while the Democrats lost most of the state's political offices and their relatively strong position in the state legislature during Obama's reign, experience has shown that Southern Democrats find it easier when - as has been the case since the Trump presidency - no Democrat in the White House is available as an enemy, especially since Tennessee traditionally sends moderate politicians to the US Senate.

Bredesen won the Democratic primary on August 2, 2018 with 91.5 percent of the vote, while Marsha Blackburn received 84.5 percent. Political scientist John Geer then saw Bredesen in the lead, among other things because the over 100,000 votes for Blackburn's unknown primary opponents show, in his view, that the Republican base is not closed to Blackburn. When Bredesen declared that he would support the controversial Conservative Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh as a Senator , the Democratic Super PAC Priorities USA Action withdrew his support. Blackburn increased her polling lead after Kavanaugh's Senate hearing, as the Republican party base was motivated and nationwide issues came to the fore, while Bredesen tried to break away from the federal Democratic Party by saying he would no longer hold Chuck Schumer as Democratic leader support in the Senate. In October, pop singer Taylor Swift said she would support Bredesen and Democratic Congressman Jim Cooper after not commenting on politics. Her comment was followed by thousands of new voter registrations within hours.

Bredesen lost the election to Blackburn and received 43.9 percent of the vote, compared with 54.7 percent for Blackburn. Blackburn was declared the winner just half an hour after the polling stations closed.

Positions

Bredesen is politically moderate and centrist ; as governor, according to The Tennessean , he occasionally irritated fellow party members of the progressive wing through spending cuts . In terms of fiscal policy , it stands for rigor. Bredesen has spoken out in favor of preserving the death penalty and, as governor, set the goal of generating a quarter of all energy in a regenerative manner by 2025. In 2002 he campaigned against restrictions on private gun ownership . While as governor he had supported the publicly financed parts of health insurance despite cuts, he declared as part of his Senate campaign in 2018 that the health care reform Obamacare , adopted under Democratic President Obama and opposed by most Republicans, had to be "fixed" ("needs fixing").

Web links

Commons : Phil Bredesen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ Bredesen, Phil. In: OurCampaigns.com.
  2. ↑ Andy Sher: Bredesen Invests in solar energy. In: The Times Free Press , November 5, 2010; Jamie McGee: Bredesen's Silicon Ranch solar company gains Shell investment of up to $ 217M. In: The Tennessean , USA Today , January 15, 2018.
  3. ↑ Weddings: Dru Potash, Benjamin Bredesen. In: The New York Times , September 3, 2006.
  4. ^ Congressman Faces Ex-Bostonian in Nashville Mayoral Test. In: The New York Times , September 22, 1987; Nashville Mayor 1987. In: OurCampaigns.com ; Bredesen, Phil. In: OurCampaigns.com.
  5. ↑ David Leip: 2006 Gubernatorial General Election Results - Tennessee. In: USElections.org ; Jonathan Martin: Ex-Governor's Run Gives Democrats a Bit More Hope of Retaking the Senate. In: The New York Times , December 7, 2017.
  6. ↑ Michael Nelson: Tennessee: Once a Bluish State, Now a Reddish One. In: Charles S. Bullock, Mark J. Rozell (Eds.): The New Politics of the Old South: An Introduction to Southern Politics. 3. Edition. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham et al. 2007, pp. 187-211, here pp. 208 f.
  7. ↑ Marc Ambinder: The Bredesen Experience. In: The Atlantic , February 6, 2009.
  8. ^ Cari Wade Gervin: Bredesen running for Senate. In: The Nashville Post , December 6, 2017.
  9. ^ A b Joey Garrison: All eyes on Bredesen as Democrats seek 'game-changer' in the Tennessee US Senate race. In: The Tennessean , USA Today , October 31, 2017.
  10. ^ Joel Ebert: New poll finds Bredesen with narrow lead over Blackburn in US Senate race. In: The Tennessean , USA Today , March 21, 2018. See also Joel Ebert: Phil Bredesen holds double-digit lead over Marsha Blackburn in US Senate race, new MTSU poll shows. In. The Tennessean , April 5, 2018.
  11. ↑ Elena Schor: Corker says Democrat is ahead in race to succeed him. In: Politico , April 18, 2018.
  12. ↑ Joel Ebert: Tennessee senate race poll finds crucial voters view Bredesen better than Blackburn. In: The Tennessean , May 17, 2018.
  13. ↑ Kyle Kondik, Geoffrey Skelley: Ratings Changes: Senate, Governor, House. In: Sabato's Crystal Ball , University of Virginia Center for Politics, May 9, 2018.
  14. ↑ Jennifer E. Duffy: Bredesen Announces, Putting the Race in Toss Up. In: Cook Political Report , December 7, 2017.
  15. ↑ a b Jonathan Martin: Ex-Governor's Run Gives Democrats a Bit More Hope of Retaking the Senate. In: The New York Times , December 7, 2017.
  16. ^ Dan Merica: Tennessee set for Senate battle, Pence-backed candidate loses governor's primary. In: CNN.com , August 3, 2018; Dave Boucher: The 5 most important takeaways from Tennessee's primary election. In: The Tennessean , August 3, 2018.
  17. ↑ Lachlan Markay, Sam Stein: Top Dem Super PAC Backs Away From Phil Bredesen for Backing Kavanaugh. In: The Daily Beast , October 5, 2018.
  18. ^ Dan Merica: Tennessee Senate race: Phil Bredesen goes all in on pledge to break with Democrats. In: CNN.com , October 5, 2018; Jennifer De Pinto, Kabir Khanna, Anthony Salvanto, Fred Backus: Senate races: GOP up in Texas, Tennessee; Dems up in Arizona, New Jersey - CBS News poll. In: CBS News , October 7, 2018.
  19. ↑ Christopher Bates: Trump Spars with Taylor Swift. In: Electoral Vote , October 9, 2018.
  20. ^ Joel Ebert: Marsha Blackburn defeats Phil Bredesen, will become Tennessee's first female senator . In: The Tennessean , November 6, 2018. 
  21. ↑ Phil Bredesen. In: OnTheIssues.org.
personal data
SURNAME Bredesen, Phil
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bredesen, Philip Norman
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 21, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Oceanport , New Jersey