By Ray Hill July of 1966 was hot and humid in Tennessee that year. Two veteran campaigners, Governor Frank Clement and Senator Ross Bass, were stumping the state for the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate. Both campaigned at a furious pace. The...

By Ray Hill Pulaski Congressman Ross Bass had defeated Governor Frank Clement for the Democratic nomination to succeed the late Senator Estes Kefauver.  Bass faced Republican Howard Baker in the general election.  It was the first time Frank Clement had lost an...

By Ray Hill Frank Clement was the first incumbent governor in Tennessee to bid for the United States Senate since Tom C. Rye in 1918.  The unexpected death of Senator Estes Kefauver on August 10, 1963 necessitated a special election in 1964.  For the second time in...

By Ray Hill When Senator Estes Kefauver's aorta ruptured on the evening of August 13, 1963, it set off a scramble to succeed him.  Governor Frank Clement appointed millionaire businessman Herbert “Hub” Walters of Morristown to fill the remainder of Kefauver’s term...

By Ray Hill With the election of Kenneth D. McKellar to the United States Senate, the senatorial ambitions of Tennessee’s governors became a trifle more circumspect.  Some like Gordon Browning never really gave up the desire to go to the U. S. Senate.  A congressman...

By Ray Hill Thomas Clarke Rye was twice governor of Tennessee.  From rural West Tennessee, Tom C. Rye had little formal education, a fact he readily admitted.  “Subscription schools were the only ones we had then, so I didn’t go very regularly and stopped altogether...

By Ray Hill Malcolm Patterson, twice elected governor of Tennessee, had attempted to make a political comeback by entering the first U. S. Senate race where the people nominated candidates for the general election in 1915. Patterson faced stiff opposition in the...

By Ray Hill Malcolm Rice Patterson, the “gamecock” of Tennessee politics, had left the governor’s mansion in 1911 as a hugely controversial figure and bitterly hated by many inside his own party. To make matters worse, a combine of “fusionists,” Democrats opposed to...

By Ray Hill Malcolm Rice Patterson enjoyed a meteoric rise in Tennessee politics until the consequences of his own actions ended his career.  Redheaded, thin, with angular features, Malcolm Patterson was known throughout Tennessee as a dynamic and gifted speaker. ...

By Ray Hill James Beriah Frazier had been elected governor of Tennessee in 1902.  A tall, stately man with an elegant appearance, James B. Frazier certainly looked the part of a governor.  Despite his aristocratic appearance, James B. Frazier had worked his way...