Now as he heads into retirement, Alexander struggles with the question of whether the GOP is being led by Crockett Republicans or Houston Republicans.
When asked, he paused a couple times as he spent nearly 30 seconds debating the question.
“I would say Houston, because of what was happening in 2014,” he said finally during a Thursday interview.
That year, Alexander and every other Senate GOP incumbent defeated ideological challengers in the primary, setting Republicans up for a nine-seat gain that allowed them to reclaim the majority.
That spurred a five-year run in which Alexander was one of the most influential legislators in the Senate, helping shepherd bills to fight the opioid epidemic, establish a permanent funding stream for traditionally Black colleges and even modernize songwriters’ publishing rights.
That’s why several dozen colleagues on both sides of the aisle packed the chamber Wednesday to listen to the 80-year-old’s farewell address, giving him the type of standing ovation reserved for true lions of the Senate.
But as Alexander ends his four-decade career — including two terms as governor, Education secretary, two presidential bids and three Senate terms — the Crockett wing of the party is ascendant, led by Republicans inclined to charge into the Alamo to fight to the political death.
With Alexander’s departure, there are few senators with Alexander’s capacity to work across the aisle to fashion deals.
Alexander’s life reads like a Senate love story. He arrived as a staffer in the late 1960s for first-term Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), the future majority leader. He met his wife of more than 51 years, Honey, at a softball game against an opposing Senate office.
In 1969, he befriended a fellow aide named Mitch McConnell, who was working for a Kentucky senator. The pair built a five-decade friendship that included a swan song dinner Wednesday night in which the two talked old times.
But today’s Senate rarely engages in the chamber floor legislative debates Alexander loves. Instead, Majority Leader McConnell’s Senate mostly confirms nominees to the executive branch and federal courts.
In the three months since returning from its summer break, the Senate held 96 roll calls — 82 votes on nominations, just 14 on actual legislation.
Over the last few years, Alexander had to do his work in committee backrooms, wheeling and dealing to build a large enough coalition to land his legislation on the Senate floor, where it was swiftly approved with little debate.
In April 2018, as chairman of the Health Committee, Alexander got unanimous support from the panel for the opioid legislation. He had to wait another five months to get floor time, before it was passed on a single vote, 99 to 1.
“We don’t operate in a vacuum,” Alexander said of today’s Senate. “And the country now lives in an ‘Internet Democracy’ that pushes all views toward the extreme. And it makes for very few political rewards for doing what you’re supposed to do in the Senate, which is to work across party lines to get results.”
Despite his genteel demeanor, Alexander maintained a cordial relationship with the more bombastic Trump, serving as co-chairman of the president’s reelection campaign in Tennessee.
“I don’t think President Trump caused the ‘Internet Democracy.’ I think he’s a symptom of it. Or a result of it. He didn’t invent the iPhone; he just uses it,” Alexander said.
Many Democrats hoped during the Senate impeachment trial for a “Howard Baker moment,” in which Alexander might adopt his mentor’s actions during Watergate and vote to convict Trump or call for his resignation.
Alexander has criticized Trump’s personal behavior, calling it the reason the president lost despite receiving 11 million more votes than he got in 2016.
“He’s probably sitting there wondering, ‘Well, then how could I lose?’ But I think the answer is his behavior brought out so many voters on the other side,” Alexander said. “I don’t see any other reason that he would have lost.”
Despite this admission that Trump lost, Alexander later explained he was waiting for the electoral college to formally vote Dec. 14 before he described Biden as president-elect.
When it comes to Tennessee, Alexander acknowledged that the Crockett wing is on the march. Gone are the days of eastern Tennessee Republicans dominating the state, part of that region’s lineage back to its siding with the Union in the Civil War.
Instead, the party has shifted westward to Nashville and into Crockett’s old congressional district. The result is a hard-charging partisan like Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R) two years ago replacing Bob Corker (R), a dealmaking two-term senator from the southeastern corner of the state.
Part of the blame falls on the nationalization of politics, according to Alexander, who says liberal Democrats have driven his state into GOP hands, making it easier for partisan Republicans to get elected there.
“Tennesseans look at the Democratic Party and they hear socialism and ‘defund the police.’ They don’t have to hear anything else,” he said.
As he prepares to return to his Smoky Mountains home, 10 miles from his childhood home, the classical and country pianist feels confident he achieved that goal.
“I believe I’ve not changed my tune,” he said.
