1998 Political Candidacies
In the August 1998 primary, Looper sought the Republican nominations for both the Tennessee's 6th congressional district and the Tennessee State Senate. He failed in his quest for the Congressional nomination, finishing third in a field of four, but won the state senate nomination by default, as he was the only Republican candidate on the ballot. This set up his campaign against incumbent Democratic state senator Tommy Burks.
Burks had represented Putnam County in the state legislature for 28 years, including four two-year terms in the Tennessee House of Representatives and five four-year terms in the Tennessee State Senate. A farmer and an old-style conservative Southern Democrat, he was popular in his district. He was expected to win re-election easily in 1998.
Read more about this topic: Byron Looper
Famous quotes containing the word political:
“The general review of the past tends to satisfy me with my political life. No man, I suppose, ever came up to his ideal. The first half [of] my political life was first to resist the increase of slavery and secondly to destroy it.... The second half of my political life has been to rebuild, and to get rid of the despotic and corrupting tendencies and the animosities of the war, and other legacies of slavery.”
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