Don Sundquist’s final guest essay: We need more Howard Bakers to lead or America will fail

Editor’s note: The late former Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist authored this article prior to his death on August 27, 2023, and it is being published posthumously with his family’s permission.

In the summer of 1979, Sen. Howard Baker asked me to fly from Memphis to Washington with him. There was something on his mind.

Having been elected to his third term in the Senate, and now serving as Republican leader, Howard told me he was thinking of running for President in 1980, and he asked me to consider going to Washington and spending a few months opening his presidential campaign office.

I knew he would be a great president, and I knew America was in need of true bipartisan leadership, and I felt honored that he’d ask me to help him. I heard myself saying that I would check with my family and my business partner for their support. With that support, I could spend the time organizing his campaign.

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We underestimated the strength of Ronald Reagan

As America under President Carter’s leadership seemed to be drifting – with difficult economic conditions at home, growing challenges abroad, and what even the president acknowledged as a crisis of spirit among our people – I knew our country needed a leader like Howard Baker, who could bring us together and give us a new sense of direction, purpose and confidence.

There was no shortage of outstanding Republicans gearing up for that 1980 presidential campaign. In addition to Senator Baker, there was Sen. Bob Dole, Ambassador George H. W. Bush, Congressman John Anderson, former Gov. and Treasury Secretary John Connally – and former Gov. Ronald Reagan.

We all underestimated the strength of Ronald Reagan as he won the nomination and the presidency. One of his greatest strengths was his focus was always on what was best for the country and not just the party.

Recognizing the formidable challenge we faced against such competition in the Republican primaries – to say nothing of trying to defeat an incumbent president – I spent approximately six months in Washington organizing Baker’s campaign. During this time, I had the opportunity to discuss political philosophy with him.

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Bipartisan consensus moves the country forward

At the core of his philosophy was a profound belief that building a true bipartisan consensus around a few critical issues was the best way to move our country forward. A strong defense and incentives to grow our economy and create jobs lay at the core of Howard Baker’s mission of public service, along with a commitment to civil discourse and what he called “a decent respect for differing points of view.”

As things turned out, Reagan won the nomination and the presidential election in 1980, and for the next four years he and (by then) Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker pursued just these policies, with tremendous success.

And this success was rewarded with a 49-state landslide victory in 1984 by an electorate that responded enthusiastically to real leadership, genuine accomplishment, and a willingness to reach across the partisan aisle to get big things done for our country.

We’re a long way from that now, and we’re in trouble. The political parties are unwilling to work together, and the American people are simply fed up with the lack of meaningful action in Washington.

Approval ratings for President Joe Biden and for Congress are disappointingly low, yet no one seems willing or able to break the cycle of partisan rancor that defeats every effort to achieve something good for our country.

Howard Baker did this time after time, reaching across the partisan aisle to find solutions to issues ranging from voting rights to environmental protection to Social Security reform to foreign policy. Where are the Howard Bakers of today? If they’re there, they’re hard to see.

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It’s possible for Americans to work together and we have no choice

Following Senator Baker’s philosophy, I was fortunate to be elected twice as governor of Tennessee and to accomplish some big things – welfare reform, government efficiency, improved children’s services, widespread internet connection, and more – without ever having a majority of my party in the state legislature for eight years in the 1990s.

Bipartisanship can work. It does work. It produces results that last. And that’s what the American people want more than anything else from their government, as poll after poll confirms.

Sometime in the next few years, a new generation of national leaders will rise to meet the challenges of the 21^st century. I don’t know who they are, but I know what they must do if they are to be successful. They must find common ground on a few fundamental issues, on which we can all stand proudly together and move confidently into the future.

A dysfunctional American democracy is the most dangerous thing in an increasingly dangerous world. We can do better. We have done better. We simply must do better if we are to make the 21^st century another American century.

That’s not guaranteed, and the prospect of our failure tempts tyrants around the world and haunts freedom-loving people everywhere.

Where is the next Howard Baker? I hope we find him or her very soon.

Don Sundquist served as governor of Tennessee from 1995-2003.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Gov. Don Sundquist urged leaders to emulate Howard Baker's example