Posted on 12/15/2002 10:35:46 AM PST by GailA
Edited on 05/07/2004 9:20:16 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
In his first public statement on the issue, U.S. Sen.-elect Lamar Alexander said yesterday that racially divisive comments made by Sen. Trent Lott were offensive to the core values of most Americans, but that it was time to move on.
(Excerpt) Read more at tennessean.com ...
Words, but not Lott, irk Lamar Alexander backs racial outreach
By Richard Locker locker@gomemphis.com December 15, 2002
NASHVILLE - Sen.-elect Lamar Alexander said Saturday that he was disappointed in Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott's remarks in praise of Strom Thurmond's segregationist 1948 presidential campaign.
Alexander stressed that he "condemns the words," not Lott himself, and he did not call on Lott to step down as leader of the new Senate GOP majority.
After a week of silence, Alexander addressed the Lott controversy at Saturday's quarterly meeting of the Tennessee Republican State Executive Committee.
Minutes after Alexander said the Republican Party "always has an open door to every single individual," the committee elected the first black member to its leadership board in modern times, according to longtime GOP activists.
Kelvin Moxley of Lebanon, a self-described conservative who has been on the staff of outgoing U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), defeated David Bales of Chattanooga 32-23.
State GOP Chairman Beth Halteman Harwell of Nashville, re-elected to a second term Saturday, said her goals are to help win Tennessee for President Bush again in 2004 and to win majorities in the state legislature. Harwell, 45, who is also a state representative, put no timetable on GOP control of the legislature - unlike predecessors who publicly set deadlines and failed to meet them - and instead said it will be a "slow process."
The executive committee meeting was the first for the party since its mixed results in the Nov. 5 elections. The GOP lost the governor's office to Democrat Phil Bredesen and one of the five Tennessee congressional seats it held, leaving Republicans in four of the state's nine U.S. House seats. But the GOP kept Thompson's U.S. Senate seat with the election of Alexander over Democrat Bob Clement.
It also made a net gain of three seats in the state House of Representatives, where it still trails Democrats 54 to 45. Its 18-15 minority in the state Senate was unchanged but the GOP holds a pro-rata share of power in the chamber through a coalition with Democratic Speaker John Wilder of Somerville.
Republicans last controlled the state House in 1969-70 and the Senate in 1995 when two Democrats switched parties; Democrats regained control in 1996.
"We are within five seats in the House of becoming the majority and we are within two victories in the state Senate of having the majority, Harwell said. "We will continue on that momentum, I promise you that."
Alexander, 62, cited efforts in his own campaign to transcend race to lead into his views on Lott's remarks that Mississippi was proud to have supported Thurmond's segregationist Dixiecrat campaign in 1948 and that if Thurmond had won, the country would have had fewer problems. Alexander said he won his election partly because "we had a campaign that welcomed everyone and attracted a great many people of different backgrounds," particularly "younger Shelby Countians who found that the old politics of race was wrong - and boring."
"It is why I invited (Memphis) Mayor (Willie) Herenton, even though he is a Democrat, to come on election night to present me - because I want to send a signal to the people of Tennessee that our party always had an open door to every single individual.
"And that is why Senator Lott's comments and all the controversy this week has been so disappointing to me. I'm not here today to condemn Trent Lott; I've known him for 30 years and in all of my experience, he's been a good man. But I am here today to condemn the words he said because they are important words, regardless of who says them," Alexander said.
"It is important for the people of Tennessee and the country to know how we feel about those words because the discussion this week has been about what our principles are. Those words go . . . to the heart of the kind of Republican Party that you and I have helped to build since the modern Republican Party began in the1960s."
Moxley, who was the only black person among nearly 100 gathered for the meeting, said he was pleased with both Alexander's remarks and Lott's apology. "It's time to move on. I think there are more important issues to be discussed than a slip of the tongue by Trent Lott," said Moxley, who has worked in Washington and Tennessee for eight years as an aide to Thompson.
Words uttered before, right before a knifing in the Roman Senate.
"Cut their pay and send 'em home! Cut their pay and send 'em home!" Oh, man...I'll never forget him.
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