Dear Friends – I want you to know that I will be a candidate for reelection to the U.S. Senate in 2008. When I announced for the Senate in 2002, I said that I have conservative principles and an independent attitude. During the last four years, I’ve voted for tax cuts, voted no on a flawed immigration bill and no on unfunded federal mandates like Real ID. I’ve helped reduce our dependency on foreign energy, fought steel tariffs because they hurt Tennessee auto jobs, and helped to improve the teaching of American history.

There’s more to do, from adopting the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group’s recommendations as a way forward in Iraq, to cleaning our air as well as creating better schools and colleges which is the real way to keep our jobs from going overseas. We also need to do something about the gross partisanship in Washington, DC.

One way to do all these things is to borrow six words from my late friend Alex Haley who would say, “Find the Good and Praise It.” I don’t have to look far to find a good example to praise of how to do things differently. Nearly thirty years ago, after I was elected governor, reporters asked the Democratic Speaker of the House, Ned McWherter, what he was going to do with “this new young Republican governor.”

Ned replied, “I’m going to help him, because if he succeeds, the state succeeds.” And that’s the way we worked together for eight years, paying good teachers more, bringing in the auto industry, and building the best four lane highway system in the nation. My time in Washington has reminded me that we can learn a lot from Alex Haley and Ned McWherter.

Perhaps my greatest compliment has come from one Washington insider who said when I was fighting some unfunded mandate, “The problem with Lamar is that he hasn’t gotten over being governor.”

When I get over being governor is when you should bring me home.

My job is to put Tennessee in DC, not the other way around.

I feel privileged to serve our state and country in such serious times, and I thank you for it.

I have taken my work seriously, making 450 county visits including all 95 counties.

And — when the campaign begins next year — I will be asking you to give me another opportunity to serve.

Lamar

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