No Comments! Be The First!
Is Bredesen really an uncommitted superdelegate?
Posted By katie allison granju
Sharon Cobb reminds us of a 2005 Bredesen interview:
In a calculated snub of Clinton’s accelerating bandwagon, Governor Philip Bredesen of Tennessee warned that voters were “kind of dissatisfied” with the Democrats’ current presidential contenders and that Clinton would face an “uphill road” to win the White House.
Bredesen also expressed dismay that speculation about the 2008 race was already focused on the wife of former president Bill Clinton and on Jeb, the brother of President George W Bush and governor of Florida. “Surely in the United States we can go further than having to have a single family dominate one side and a single family dominate the other,” he said.
Bredesen, 61, was giving his first interview to a foreign newspaper since his emergence earlier this year as a potential dark horse in the presidential race. It appeared to reflect an attempt to raise his international profile amid increasing speculation in Washington that he may become the next southern governor to come from obscurity to take the White House.
Like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton before him, Bredesen has established a formidable Democratic power base in the conservative south. Clinton came from Hope, Arkansas; Bredesen jokes that when he briefly worked in England in the 1970s, he lived in Hope Cottage, Oxfordshire. His careful stewardship of Tennessee’s economic growth has made him one of the most popular governors in the state’s history.
Bredesen is a soft-spoken, ruddy-faced figure who makes no effort to dodge potentially embarrassing questions. Asked about Clinton, most Democrats gush about how wonderfully she has performed as senator for New York.
Bredesen instead replied: “People love her or they hate her and I don’t know in the end how all that plays out. But I sure hope there are other people who would step forward.”
Apr 1st, 2008
