Bob Clement - Early Life

Early Life

Clement is the son of former Governor Frank G. Clement. During his father's third run for governor in 1962, Bob joined his father on the campaign trail, often making speeches when his father developed throat trouble.

Clement graduated from Hillsboro High School in Nashville. He went on to attend the University of Tennessee, graduating in 1967. He served in the National Guard from 1969 to 1971 and also served in the reserves until 2001, retiring as a colonel.

Clement considered buying a telephone company while still at UT, but his father refused to lend him the money. However, he did learn quite a bit about the Tennessee Public Service Commission, which regulated phone companies and other utilities. He wanted to get a job on the commission's staff, but chairman Hammond Fowler kept blowing off his requests. When Fowler, who held the East Tennessee seat on the commission, ran for a fourth six-year term in 1972, Clement ran against him in the Democratic primary. Bolstered in part by a televised debate in which he appeared to be young and vibrant while Fowler appeared to be old and doddering, Clement won by an incredible 3-to-1 margin — the most lopsided defeat of a statewide incumbent in Tennessee history. He overwhelmed Republican nominee Tom Garland in the general election what was otherwise largely a very good year for Republicans in Tennessee (and nationwide) running for major offices. (No Republican was ever elected to the Public Service Commission in Tennessee during its existence, which later played a factor in its abolition more than 20 years later.) At 32, he was (and still is) the youngest person ever elected to statewide office in Tennessee history.

In 1978, Clement announced he would run for the Democratic nomination for governor. He ran second in the primary behind Knoxville banker Jake Butcher, who had finished second in the Democratic gubernatorial primary four years previously and who had a level of name recognition roughly equal to Clement and, additionally, greater financial resources.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter tapped him for an unexpired term on the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority. He tried to stop the overbuilding of nuclear reactors in the TVA service area; later telling The (Nashville) Tennessean that the agency was trying to pay for the projects by raising rates when there was plenty of power available. He stepped down in 1981.